Dear John,

Each year at our Champions of Education celebration, AQE honors individuals and organizations that have gone above and beyond in their dedication to ensuring that all students have access to a quality education.  We are proud to present the honorees for AQE's ninth annual Champions of Education celebration, and highlight their contributions to the fight for education justice.

Honoree Highlight: Dr. Kaliris Y. Salas-Ramirez

Dr. Kaliris Y. Salas-Ramirez became a community organizer and activist to fight educational inequities that exist in New York State with the hopes of co-creating an anti-racist community and racially just systems. Originally from Puerto Rico, she has lived in New York City for 13 years, where she is raising her two sons, Sebastian (10) and Lorenzo (2). She attributes a lot of her organizing skills to the women of AQE who have been at the forefront supporting parent leaders and winning that we finally have fully funded schools.

Grassroots Leadership Award
Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez
Neuroscientist, parent leader, and organizer

She is currently president of Community Education Council 4 in New York City, and is on the steering/advisory committees of Parents for Responsive Equitable Safe Schools (PRESS NYC), NYC Opt Out, Black Lives Matter (BLM) at Schools NYC and New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools. Dr. Salas has also used her platform to advocate for public education in Puerto Rico as a parent ally with la Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico.

Dr. Kaliris Y. Salas-Ramirez is a distinguished medical lecturer, researcher and anti-racist practitioner at the CUNY School of Medicine in New York City.  She has a doctorate in Neuroscience and her research focus is understanding sex specific interventions for cognitive decline resulting from drug exposure during different stages of development.  She has published peer reviewed papers and book chapters on drug addiction, gender differences, cognition and emotion, as well on professionalism and mentoring in academia. Her passion is mentoring and elevating students from underrepresented groups and diversifying the research and health enterprise.  She is the advisor for White Coats 4 Black Lives and supports students in addressing medical mistrust in the Harlem community. Outside of the institution, she is also a board member of the Future of Research and the Afia Foundation, both committed to equity in research and health care.

We hope you will be able to join us on October 27 for our virtual celebration of Dr. Salas and our other honorees: Johanna Garcia, parent, community leader, activist and Chief of Staff to Senator Robert Jackson; and the Resistance Revival Chorus.

We hope to see you there!