Interim Executive Director, University-Community Links (UC Links)

Mara Welsh Mahmood is the Interim Executive Director for University-Community Links (UC Links), a network of university and community partners working together to develop expanded learning programs that connect K-12 young people with university faculty and students in engaging, informal learning activities. Mara has been involved with UC Links since 1996, when she was a graduate student at UC Riverside, teaching the UC Links undergraduate practicum course and serving as the site coordinator for the UC Links program at a local elementary school. Mara went on to join the UC Links statewide office in the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley as the Director of Site Development and Evaluation and later as Associate Director. Mara has explored, studied, and written about learning within and across multiple contexts including K-12, higher education, and after-school across California and the US, as well as out-of-school (OST) learning in São Paulo, Brazil, and other countries. Mara was motivated to join the CAN Leadership Team to leverage this unique “pandemic as portal” moment and work collaboratively to re-imagine expanded learning opportunities and rebuild the systems and structures to support California’s children, youth, families, and the OST field.