Chair

Prunedale, California. Tomi Burgess joined the Monterey Bay Charter School School Board in the fall of 2011. She has been a non-profit volunteer for the past 28 years. Tomi has enjoyed different roles in event planning, park restoration, and child advocacy. Tomi has also served on the Monterey Bay Charter School Foundation Board, played a critical role in establishing and managing the donor database, has chaired multiple fundraisers, community events, and Parent Circle. Tomi currently lives in Prunedale with her husband and two children. Tomi’s oldest son attended Monterey Bay Charter School from kindergarten through eighth grade and is currently attending Monterey High School. Tomi’s second child is currently enrolled at Monterey Bay Charter School. Tomi is also pursuing a career in Early Childhood Education.

Vice Chair

Yhashika Lee is an instructor and a faculty associate in Teaching and Learning Assessment at CSUMB. She has a B.A. from UC Berkeley and J.D. from UCLA Law with a concentration in Critical Race Theory. Yhashika is passionate about helping faculty create culturally inclusive classrooms. She uses her background in Critical Race Theory to re-imagine solutions to the structural inequality that shapes our education system and continues to create barriers for students of color. She is also trainer of trainers in racial justice work and is currently in the process of being a certified diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Secretary

Grace Casserly is honored to serve on the MBCS Board, as she and her family have been deeply inspired by the principles of Waldorf education. Her older son is a current student at the Foothill campus. She is also passionate about the importance of arts education in schools. She holds a bachelors of music in piano from USC as well as a masters of music from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. She attended medical school at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and completed her internal medicine residency and chief residency at the Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. Grace is a primary care physician at Montage Medical Group in Carmel.

Director

Dr. Rodrigo Nieto-Gomez is a geostrategist and defense futurist focused on the consequences of the accelerating pace of change in homeland security, defense, and policing environments. He is a research professor at the National Security Affairs Department and at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School and has also worked as a certified facilitator and instructor for the Command College for the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) and a former instructor at the Executive Academy of the Emergency Management Institute. He is also a faculty member of Singularity University and currently assists the Common Mission Project as an academic advisor, supporting mission-driven entrepreneurship.

Dr. Nieto has a Ph.D. in Geopolitics from the French Institute of Geopolitics of the University of Paris. He holds a J.D. from the State University of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. His native language is Spanish, and he has bilingual proficiency in English, full professional proficiency in French and intermediate knowledge of German. As an aviation enthusiast, he holds a private pilot certificate.

Director

Monterey, CA. Lana is foreign-trained physician-scientist with a focus on cancer research and early-stage clinical trials. She works as Medical Director in oncology drug development biotech (Exelixis, Inc.). She has spent the past 15 years in various leadership roles in clinical research across Eastern and Western Europe and US. She was a member of a school board for public schools previously and was involved in several social and environmental initiatives. Dr. Andrianova received her M.D. degree from Saint Petersburg Pavlov Medical School. She completed her Master of Public Health, Masters in Management and Economics at the postgraduate academy and University of Finance and Economics, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Lana joined the MBCS board in 2022. Both of her kids are MBCS students since 2021.

Board Chair

Bio TBA

Secretary

Ben Bence is the founding director of Outside The Box Consulting LLC, a local outdoor education organization that focuses on getting students and classes out in nature. Ben studied Liberial Studies with a linguistics emphasis at CSU Monterey Bay and is currently working on his multiple subject elementary teaching credential. He was the 2017 Paul Walker Ocean Leadership Award Recipient for his 2,000+ volunteer hours and work experience in Monterey’s environmental education community. The Monterey native spends his free time on a paddle board or hiking a trail.

Director

Shannon Conner, MA is a passionate conservation educator. Currently working for the Bird School Project as an outdoor education instructor in the Salinas Union High School District, teaching students and staff the value of being outdoors. She is the founder of the up-and-coming Dudleya Nature Center in Seaside, California and also worked at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in various capacities over the last decade. When she isn’t hiking around Monterey County with her dog, Shannon can be found working in her garden or crafting various projects around her house.

Director

TBA

Director

Germaine Ng has been a Monterey Bay Charter School parent since her now fifth grade son, has been in kindergarten. Germaine was born and raised in Malaysia and Singapore. Professionally, she is an Account Executive for Williams Sonoma Inc. for their B2b division. Germaine is also an interior designer for residential and commercial buildings.  

Personally, Germaine loves to host dinner parties, camps in the summer and snowboards in the winter.  Germaine and her son love to travel around to the far ends of the earth, exploring different terrains and cultures. They are adventurous eaters who love different types of foods. 

Germaine is also the Fundraising Coordinator for the MBCS Parent Circle team.