Faculty & Staff

Dr. Tamika Baldwin-Clark is currently an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Prairie View A&M University. She has studied and worked in the field of social work, both internationally and domestically, for over a decade, and previously taught graduate courses online through the University of Nevada-Reno. Some of her other positions include being a foster care worker in Detroit, a therapist at Baylor College of Medicine, a service coordinator at Texas Children’s Hospital, a U.S. Census Bureau Enumerator, and a care manager in London, UK. Dr. Clark is a licensed clinical social worker supervisor as well as a licensed chemical dependency counselor. While her specialization is gerontology, she also has practiced in the areas of child welfare, substance use, and mental health.

Guanlin Gao is an Associate Professor of Economics at Chaminade University of Honolulu and the inaugural Director of the Economic Education Center for Excellence, whose mission is to advance prosperity and economic justice in Hawai‘i and the US-affiliated Pacific through integrated economic education, training, and community-based research. Dr. Gao’s research focuses on building resilience and vital equity in underserved populations and communities. Her current educational endeavor involves incorporating culturally appropriate content for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in economics education, as well as providing accessible, sustainable professional development training for K-12 educators in Hawai’i. Dr. Gao has received multiple awards for teaching, research, and student mentoring.

Dr. Dulce María Gray comes from a long line of immigrants who have moved widely in the world—and that’s probably why she has such an urgent sense of wanderlust, and why a SAS voyage is thrilling to her: she gets to teach, to learn, and to experience traveling with people who share her passions. Dr. Gray has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses at universities in New York City, Indiana, Virginia, and currently in California’s Silicon Valley where she teaches in face-to-face and online modes. Being a global citizen, she believes, enriches her personal and professional life, focuses her on being empathic and socially conscious, and allows her to be enormously grateful for the privilege of being able to move about the world.

Dr. Kelly McKenna is an associate professor in the Adult Education & Training Graduate Program in the School of Education at Colorado State University. She completed her Ph.D. in Educational Technology and earned a master’s degree in Education and Human Resource Studies. Dr. McKenna’s teaching experience includes face-to-face, hybrid, and online instruction. Her scholarship focuses on adult and higher distance education, with research objectives aimed to support learners in their educational and occupational endeavors by creating optimal learning environments and facilitating successful student experiences.
Dr. McKenna is excited to introduce her daughter Maren (3) to the transformational experience of Semester at Sea.

Viviana travelled to more than 50 countries and lived in Italy, Brazil, Canada, Portugal, The Netherlands, USA and Malta where she set up her international social enterprise, Global Mindset Development. GMD Training and Consultancy Services Ltd. provides online and in-person consulting, training and mentoring services to companies and organizations all over the world to help them to develop an open and curious mindset to work effectively across cultures and promote diverse and inclusive workplaces and societies.
PhD in Sociology of Migration, she has been a researcher and adjunct professor for universities, business schools and research institutes in Europe and North America. Her aim is to always bridge research with practice and fieldwork.

Bert Vermeulen was born in Switzerland and grew up in the Netherlands and in Colorado. His mother’s family owned an international shipping company and his father’s family has engineering backgrounds. He has master’s degrees in both business and engineering. Bert has worked in the US, UK, Japan, Russia, Mexico, Antarctica, and Hungary in a engineering, management, and business ownership roles. Since 2009 he has taught a variety of engineering and entrepreneurship courses at CSU. He also works as a patent consultant. He currently has seven issued US Patents. To date, Bert has visited 97 countries.