CAS Staff Information for 2007-2008

We are sorry to have said goodbye to several staff members. Last year's counselor, Elisabeth Sandberg, has taken a leave of absence, Bill Pratt, our long-time history teacher, is on sabbatical, Spanish teacher Alexander Klose has gone to teach elementary school in Tanzania, and Maggie Heredia-Peltz, last year's administrator, is now working with the World Languages department and Academic Choice.

New to our staff this year are Micah Sheiner, CAS Spanish teacher, Amy Frey, the administrator assigned to small schools within BHS, Hasmig Minnassian, US History, and our new CAS PE teacher, Michael McEvoy. We are thrilled to have these fine people join the CAS community. To contact one of your student's teachers, consult the email directory, below.

Appel, Dan	dappel@berkeley.k12.ca.us Dan Appel has his BA in Mathematics and Applied Science from UCSD, and his MA in Mathematics Education from Cal. He is teaching IMP 1, IMP 2 and Math Analysis. He loves the satisfaction of working on a hard math problem and finally getting a solution. Dan grew up in Pleasant Hill and his favorite activity is playing soccer.
Crawford, Amy	acrawford@berkeley.k12.ca.us Amy Crawford has a Masters in Education from Mills College and a B.A. in Italian Language and Literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a major emphasis in African American Studies and a minor in Women's Studies. She spent her junior year abroad in Bologna, Italy, learning Italian and eating well. At Berkeley High since 1997, she joined CAS in 1998. As a Teacher Consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project, she spent last year coaching teachers in four Oakland public high schools. This year she is on the BHS Professional Development team, mentors new teachers through BTSA, and works with the WriterCoach Connection. She teaches CAS World Literature 4th and 5th periods with Maximiliano Villacana, a student teacher from the MUSE program at UC Berkeley. Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she spent her only worthwhile year of high school in the Bay Area at El Cerrito High. She is married to Richard Whitaker, has two young sons, and loves fiction, softball, and music. She co-authored a book with Rick Ayers called Great Books for High School Kids and her favorite writers are Toni Morrison and Sherman Alexie.
Eisen-Martin, Biko	em_biko@yahoo.com Biko_Eisen-Martin@berkeley.k12.ca.us
Frey, Amy	afrey@berkeley.k12.ca.us
Halpern, Phil	philiphalpern@mac.com Philip Halpern was born and raised on the East Coast. He earned a bachelor's degree in English at Georgetown University and a master's in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 1992, he moved to the Bay Area and began his teaching career at Berkeley High. From the fall of 2001 until spring, 2005, he taught at Berkeley Alternative High School. In September, 2005, he returned to BHS to teach communications and English in the CAS program. He lives in Berkeley with his awesome wife Mary Patterson and their three superkids, Julian, Elias and Mara.
Katz, Leah	leahkatz@earthlink.net
McEvoy, Michael	Michael_McEvoy@berkeley.k12.ca.us
Martinez, Ingrid	bookworm@troublemaker.com Ingrid Martinez has her MA in English Education from New York University and her BA in French from Georgia State University. She currently teaches Freshman English and U. S. Lit. She started at an alternative high school in New York City, but has been at Berkeley High for the last 5 years. Her favorite book to teach is The Great Gatsby, but the most unusual book she's taught is Trans-sister Radio. This Fall she will have student teacher Paul Cornelius observing and lending a helping hand in one of the junior classes and both frosh classes. Paul is originally from L.A. and comes to us from San Francisco State University where he is currently working on an English credential and MA in secondary education. Paul received his BA from UC Berkeley. Ingrid was born in Venezuela of "paisa" Colombian parents but grew up in New York City and went to public schools there. She is learning to garden and loves fiction, dancing, movies, and being at the beach, preferably in another country! Her children are first generation Americans, and hers is the first generation to go to college. She is fluent in Spanish and "dabbles" in French and Italian. Ingrid led the first three Mex Ex (Mexico Exchange) trips and helped lay the foundation for what has happily turned out to be an ongoing program every summer. She and her family are currently on hiatus but may yet be persuaded to participate in other trips in the future. Ingrid has been both a competitive swimmer and rower. Her views on social justice were greatly affected by volunteering and participating in 3 Boston to New York AIDS Rides.
Minassian, Hasmig	hminassian@berkeley.k12.ca.us
Moran, Dana	dana_moran@berkeley.k12.ca.us Dana Michiko Moran has her BA from UC Berkeley, in Sociology and Political Science and her M.Ed from UCLA in Curriculum and Instruction. She teaches Government, Economics, Senior Seminar in CAS. (She also teaches SDAIE IES in the ELL Dept.) She has taught 5 years in CAS, 12 years at BHS, 7 years at Los Angeles High School (19 total) She loves helping students understand how the government and the economy function so they can see what needs to be changed and how to change it. She went to Jefferson, Franklin, King and Berkeley High, and graduated from UCB. Other than a few years at UCSB and brief stint in LA, she's thoroughly Berkeley born and raised. Her favorite activity is making popcorn and watching movies or basketball with her family. She worked with the Diversity Project for 6 years (mostly as a Lead Teacher, and one year as a Co-Director).
Murphy, Mary	mmurphy@berkeley.k12.ca.us Mary has her BS in Biological Sciences from UC Davis and her MA in Education from San Francisco State University. She teaches Advanced Biology and Introduction to Communications Technology. This is her first year at BHS and in CAS. She previously taught at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco and at the International House in Madrid, Spain. Mary loves to teach human anatomy and physiology: "It's always fun and exciting to see students realize how complex and amazing the human body is." She grew up in the Bay Area. Her favorite activities are reading, running, movies, music, and TRAVEL! She did research at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine on the effects of a component of sidestream cigarette smoke on developing lungs, and some of her work has been published in scientific journals.
Quindel, Jessica	jessica_quindel@berkeley.k12.ca.us Jessica has her MA in Math Education from UC Berkeley and her BA in Math with a minor in Spanish from UC Berkeley. She currently teaches Interactive Math Program (IMP) 2 and IMP 4,. This is her fourth year of teaching and in CAS, and she loves teaching students to make mistakes and learn from them. She grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and has been in the Bay Area for the last 9 years. She is also the CAS Site Representative to the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT), the teachers' union and a member of the BFT Negotiating Team for the contract that expires in June, 2008.
Rasiah, Dharini	drasiah@berkeley.k12.ca.us Dharini is the CAS Advanced Video instructor.

 CAS Support Staff

Molly Offerman (Counselor)           Nobu Sakamoto (Instructional Media Technician)   Nobu has a production background working for non profit media organizations, on PBS documentary crews, filmed in war regions of Afghanistan, in the aftermath of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka, and has worked in the corporate audio visual industry. His interest in media and education has led him to support CAS media and fulfill media services requests for Berkeley High and the Berkeley Unified School District. mailto:nsakamoto@berkeley.k12.ca.us