Advisory Board

The DMA Advisory Board consists of nationally-recognized academic professionals and digital media industry experts. Our Advisory Board was formed to offer valuable input on curriculum development, suggest effective teaching methods, review DMA achievements and provide counsel regarding future direction.

Our advisors have been vital in helping set our high standards of quality - standards that continually guide us to a higher level of excellence.

Joe Becerra

Joe Becerra is a veteran technology administrator having served for years within the San Mateo County Office of Education. In his role as administrator, Joe Becerra consulted with the twenty-three districts in San Mateo County on various issues of educational technology. This includes technology planning, coordinating and conducting a variety of workshops on integrating technology into the curriculum, and assisting districts with Internet related issues. In 1995, the San Mateo County Office of Education received a Technology Innovation Challenge Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Through Joe Becerra’s direction this grant has been very successful. In September of 2000, the project was awarded an Exemplary Status by the Educational Technology Expert Panel. The panel judged 134 projects nationwide and selected only two projects as exemplary. This project is known as the Challenge 2000. This multimedia project has infused schools with exemplary models of project-based learning supported by multimedia.

Prior to his position with the San Mateo County Office of Education, Joe Becerra was a classroom teacher with the Burlingame School District. As a teacher, he established himself as a leader and innovator in educational technology. He has also conducted a series of educational technology seminars for the California Elementary Education Association and the University of San Diego Continuing Education program.

Rudy Carrasco

Rudy Carrasco is associate director of Harambee Christian Family Center, an urban youth outreach ministry in northwest Pasadena, California. Serving African-American and Latino children and youth since 1983, Harambee received the 2001 John Anson Ford Award from the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations in recognition of multiethnic peacemaking efforts, and the 2000 Digital Steppingstones Award from the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute for an exemplary technology program for community centers.

A journalist by training, Rudy’s articles on urban youth ministry, racial reconciliation, bridging the digital divide, Latinos in America, and other topics have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, Christianity Today and in his regular column for the San Gabriel Valley, Calif. Newspaper Group. He is the Internet Technology Coordinator for the Christian Community Development Association, a network of over 700 nonprofits and churches revitalizing inner cities throughout America, and a board member of the Association of Christian Community Computing Centers, a national network that brings together over 200 faith-based groups.

A Stanford graduate with a B.A. in English, Rudy joined a group of nine Latino religious leaders from across the country that met with President George W. Bush to advise on the President’s faith-based initiative.

Donna Carter

Donna Carter is an award-winning short filmmaker and multimedia specialist. She designs web pages, shoots and edits video, and provides grip, and production assistance on film/video shoots. She has been a Final Cut Pro editor and teacher for the past two years and also is proficient with Avid and Premier editing systems.

Donna earned her Master’s in Documentary Film and Video Production from Stanford University in 1999. She earned a Bachelor’s in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Southern California where she played for the university’s national championship women’s basketball team.

She spent 8 years as a professional sportswriter, primarily covering the NBA and creating Focus - the only women’s sports page at a major daily, The Denver Post. She’s an ultimate frisbee addict and bodyboarder and can't pass up a game of Settlers of Catan.

Cody Harrington

Cody Harrington is a multi-disciplined digital media artist with an extensive background in film production, film special effects, broadcast television, computer graphics, interactive multimedia, and music. Cody is currently involved with research and development with Disney’s Imagineering group, consulting and lecturing for various organizations (Apple Computer, Mirador, ExtremeTV, DigiArt California, Planetwalk, Schooltone Alliance), and is also combining a keen interest in the use of new media technologies in education as a Advisory Board Member of the Digital Media Academy^TM at Stanford University. He has produced numerous documentary-styled promos and interviews of educators for Apple Computer and Stanford University using Apple’s Final Cut Pro, and is now creating an interactive educational DVD for Peter Russell, a protege of Cambridge Professor Stephen Hawking, using Apple’s DVD Studio Pro.

He began his journey at age five (1960) when he started taking pictures with a Kodak Brownie roll film camera. Music became a passion in ‘64 when he started playing drums, then guitar in ‘71. The age of synthesized computer driven sequencing began when he purchased his first Apple Computer (Apple II) in ‘78 and then onto the MIDI age with his first Macintosh ‘84. Cody’s education in filmmaking started as early as his music training. Having purchased his first super 8 mm camera in ‘67, he became adept at the language of the cinema as a teenager, making many experimental films, curiously intertwining the use of his favorite pop/rock tunes as backing tracks, much like a pre-cursor to the rock video phenomena of the 80’s.

Keeping the spirit of both mediums alive, he graduated with a BA in Communications with a major in Film/Broadcast television in ‘78 from the University of Houston. His professional career in film began when he moved to Los Angeles to work on numerous feature films such as The Abyss, Date with an Angel, Die Hard, Leonard V1, King Kong Lives, Manhunter, Vibes, Weeds, At Close Range, Year Of The Dragon, Cat’s Eye, Firestarter, Earthstar Voyager, and Teenage Vampire.

Cody’s interest in film centered on cinematography and visual effects. In ‘85 he worked for Richard Edlund (Star Wars Visual Effects Supervisor) at BOSS Film in Marina Del Rey learning camera motion control and bluescreen optical compositing techniques, methods that served him well when the age of digital compositing emerged using computer tools such as Adobe Photoshop, and After Effects. Adapting to the new digital realm Cody designed interactive multimedia prototypes for Apple’s Multi-Media Lab and Executive Briefing Center in Chicago, ‘89. Using Macromedia’s Director, Photoshop, and the Electricimage 3D animation program, he showcased Apple’s early efforts in interactive multimedia for key accounts. He then took those skills to the Bay Area, and worked with Vivid Studios ‘92 to create, “Crush”, a product that mapped Regis McKenna’s marketing savvy onto an interactive CD-ROM.

Cody’s competency using the new digital tools on a Macintosh landed him a job as the lead 3D animator with ABC television’s On Air Promotions Dept. ‘93, where he animated “Movie of the Week” opening animations, show titles, promotional tags, sweep graphics, and network ID logo treatments. He developed competency in using Unix workstations, industry-leading IRIX based 3D applications (Softimage, Prisms, Houdini, Power Animator, Maya), and sophisticated digital compositing workstations such as Quantel’s Henry, Harry, and Paintbox.

Next stop in his evolution was Interactive Television. At Mindsphere ‘97, he became head of digital production, oversaw technical system administration for 3 separate platforms, and managed a 3D unit to create the world’s first Video On Demand Interactive Television System for Diva, Inc. Members of that team co-founded a technology startup, Holosphere, where Cody ran an R&D unit that developed 3d game-like, information-streaming objects for lesson plans. These “Knowledge Objects” were being created for broadband Internet access and heavily integrated Apple’s Web Objects, Quicktime Streaming, Quicktime VR, and a proprietary 3D graphic game engine.

His diverse credits also include providing international training in digital media for Apple products under contract with Televisa Studios, Mexico City ‘92, the largest Television production studio in Latin America. He has presented on behalf of Apple Computer for key educational accounts, helping to showcase the Mac as the best platform for the digital media artist at industry conferences, universities, and user groups (Quicktime Live Panel on New Media Tools, Macworld Panel "New Paradigms in Content", New Media Conference Univ. of CA. MB, College of Santa Fe Digital Media School, CUE conference, NECC... others.)

Charles Junkerman

Charles Junkerman is Associate Provost and Dean of Continuing Studies at Stanford University. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC-Berkeley, and teaches courses on Irish literature, modern poetry, and cultural theory.

He has written on John Cage, Gary Snyder, American Indian culture, and the modern novel. He has also served as Associate Director of the Stanford Humanities Center and Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Stanford.

Jackie Schmidt-Posner

Jackie Schmidt-Posner is Director of Public Service Education at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. She holds a PhD in Educational Policy and an EdS in Evaluation from Stanford’s School of Education. At the Haas Center she is responsible for providing leadership for all of the program staff, which includes efforts to outreach to local schools.

An elected trustee of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District, she also serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute of Computer Technology. Her interest in technology in organizations was sparked by evaluation projects looking at early hardware grants in higher education and her dissertation focused on the introduction of microcomputers to faculty in three schools at Stanford.

Through involvement in public service at Stanford, with ICT and on the school board, her technology-oriented interests now center around computer use in schools and equity issues surrounding access to digital resources for underserved groups.

Bob Walczak

Bob Walczak was born and educated in Michigan, receiving a BA and an MA from the University of Michigan.

After five years teaching in secondary schools, Bob joined SRA, Science Research Associates, in 1966, shortly after IBM purchased it. He was a member of a small group within IBM looking at the feasibility of developing curriculum software. One program, the Arithmetic Proficiency Test Program, was a deliverable from this project. The program was successfully tested at Cal and Oakland Unified, anticipating that educational software would become a reality.

Bob held a series of marketing management and staff positions within SRA focussing on data processing training materials and educational software, resulting in his promotion to SRA’s Director of International Operation and Software Development. In this position Bob managed a large piece of IBM’s entry into curriculum software and classroom systems markets. He remained responsible for efforts in DP training materials, now evolving into multimedia formats and computer delivery. He had total PL responsibility for a business unit with a headcount of some 200 and revenue of 16M.

He next assumed a senior staff position at ACIS, Academic Information Systems, IBM’s university marketing organization. His major responsibility was developing college level educational software in the humanities and social sciences, authored by educators at leading research universities. A major contribution was a software development plan to produce entire courses delivered by computer; i.e., college algebra, analytical geometry, calculus, etc, rather than individual courses or pieces of courses.

In 1986, Bob assumed the position of Education State Advisor in IES, IBM Educational Systems, IBM’s K-12 marketing group. He was responsible for working with school executives, the state department, and other enterprises in marketing IBM’s classroom solution. He held this position until his retirement in 1994, completing a successful 28 year career with IBM, all in the education industry.

Bob went on to serve as a consultant to the California Department of Education as Assistant Director of the California Technology Project. His major responsibility was managing training for the Telemation Project, the first statewide effort to teach teachers how to use the Internet. In 1995 Bob cofounded Telis, the Telelearning Information Source, the first ISP specifically directed at teachers.

Bob is presently the Executive Director of CUE, Computer Using Educators, the largest nonprofit, classroom teacher organization in the country supporting use of educational technology. He has served in this position since 1997.

Bob has broad experiences in education and educational teachnology. He is a contributor to two national publications, speaks at numerous statewide conferences and meetings, and sits on a number of boards and committees.

Decker Walker

Professor Walker has served on the faculty of the School of Education at Stanford University since 1971. Before that, he was a high school science teacher and developer of curriculum materials. During his academic career he has studied and written about curriculum development, curriculum policy-making, curriculum evaluation, formative research methods, and educational applications of information technology. He directs Stanford’s Learning Design and Technology graduate program. With graduate students he studies educational applications of information technology in an effort to uncover and clarify the conditions under which the potential benefits of technology can be realized in schools and classrooms. Currently, his main project is to discover ways to use technology to support students in learning to express themselves visually and in interactive media.