Kevin Riel, Ph.D., joined the LJCDS faculty in 2021 after spending two years at the Webb Schools, a position he started a week after finishing graduate school in 2018. Within a week at Webb, Dr. Riel knew that channeling the unstoppable energy of high schoolers was his calling.

Dr. Riel earned a Master of Arts in literature and creative writing and a Ph.D. in English, both from Claremont Graduate University (CGU). While his research specialty is 20th-century American poetry, he has a broad, transdisciplinary track record in the humanities. In graduate school, Dr. Riel lectured and adjuncted throughout the Claremont Colleges area and worked full-time for CGU as a grant writer and speechwriter for two university presidents. Additionally, Dr. Riel launched and headed CGU’s literary magazine, Foothill Poetry Journal, in partnership with the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards. His academic essays and poems have appeared in internationally recognized publications, including the Journal of Modern Literature, the Iowa Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Prelude and many others. 

A native San Diegan, Dr. Riel is delighted to be back home teaching near family, the world’s finest taco shops and (as an avid surfer) the beach. He and his wife have three young children and a rowdy labrador.

 

Before joining LJCDS in 2016, Ms. Robinson received her Bachelor of Science degree in physics and math at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, where they researched superconductors and solid state physics. She also coordinated the university’s science hackerspace, and worked on upgrades to undergraduate physics labs, adding computer controlled delta bots to increase the precision and speed of data collection.

Alina Rozas believes that all students have talents and strengths to achieve their personal and academic goals, and she encourages them to always work at their highest potential.

As an Upper School Spanish educator, Profe Rozas likes to instill in her students the passion for learning Spanish and grants them the confidence to use it both in their community and abroad. She engages students to learn in a pleasant and safe environment where taking risks and making mistakes are part of the learning process. Profe Rozas believes that learning a foreign language, and the culture involved in it, makes people more open-minded and compassionate, characteristics that all future leaders should have.

Profe Rozas was born and raised in Madrid where she earned her master’s degree in agricultural engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. Once she started teaching Spanish, Profe Rozas discovered a new passion and pursued a second master’s degree in Teaching Spanish as a Second Language.

Before joining LJCDS in 2022, Profe Rozas taught at the Rhoades School in Encinitas, National University in San Diego, King’s Training in Madrid, and the Awty International School in Houston. During her career, Profe Rozas has taught students in grades 6–12, college and adults.

One of Profe Rozas’ greatest joys as an educator is to hear back from former students studying abroad in Spanish-speaking countries.