E. onja Brown Lawson, M.A. - Member at Large

 

E. onja is the mother of four children. She has been an educator for many years. She has worked as a counselor at Santa Barbara City College and was the Assistant Director of the Education Opportunity Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was on the faculty at San Francisco Community College for seven years, and was the Director of Education for the Marine Ecological Institute, Redwood, California prior to moving to Carpinteria, California in 1987. 

 

For the past ten years she has worked as a home/hospital instructor for the Carpinteria Unified School District, and is also working on a project in Santa Barbara involving the environment and energy conservation. She has been active in a number of community organizations that serve families and children in the Carpinteria and the south coast community. 

 

E. onja received her M.A. degree in Counseling from San Francisco State University, B.A. degree in Biology from San Jose State University and A.S. degree in Science from Monterey Peninsula College. Additionally, she completed requirements and was admitted into University of California, San Francisco Medical School. She holds several California teaching and counseling credentials including K-12, special education and community college counseling. 

 

Though a resident of California since graduating from college, E. onja still holds close ties to New York City, which is where she honed the desire to be in a profession that served others, an example set by her mother.