Team

Danielle joined the Harvard-Westlake community in 2021. A proud Los Angeles native, she returned home to earn a Master’s in Social Justice Education and Bilingual Teaching Credential from UCLA’s Teacher Education Program after receiving a B.A. in English with a minor in Spanish from Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. Danielle also studied at La Universidad Nacional in Heredia, Costa Rica. In addition to serving as the Assistant Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, she is part of the Admission Team as an Admission Counselor.
Her commitment to DEI is rooted in self-awareness, compassion, critical literacy, and community building. Prior to Harvard-Westlake, Danielle served as the Associate Director of the Independent School Alliance for Minority Affairs where she partnered with admission offices and administrators from independent schools across the greater Los Angeles area, including HW, to champion equitable access to an exceptional education for underrepresented and underserved students of color.
In partnership with her husband, Brian, Danielle’s most fulfilling role is Parent Advocate for her exceptional daughter Josephine and her brilliant son Beau.

Jon has been involved in independent school education for the last twenty years since his first job as an elementary educator at Germantown Academy just outside of his hometown of Philadelphia. He went on to become a lead second grade teacher at Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey and then at Seven Arrows Elementary school in the Pacific Palisades upon landing in California in 2004. Throughout his time in schools, Jon has always immersed himself in DEI efforts both within the curriculum and in co-curricular activities. Upon finishing his Ph.D. in Urban Education at UCLA in 2010, Jon served as an adjunct professor at Occidental College in the Education Department before landing at Harvard-Westlake in 2012 as the Head of the Swimming Program. Jon joined the middle school Dean team in 2015. He has continued to supplement his work in schools with DEI initiatives such as serving on the Co-curriculuar Committee, helping to facilitate the Pollyanna Conference, the Diversity Recruitment Job Fair, Brown Bag lunch presentations, serving on the faculty of the Student Diversity Leadership Conference, and being a lead advisor for the Black Leadership Awareness and Culture Club.

Reb L. Limerick joined the Harvard-Westlake community in 2019 as a member of the Visual Arts Department faculty. In addition to being a creative catalyst in the classroom teaching Video Art, Reb co-coordinates the annual Westflix Student Film Festival and the HWGo! Storytelling Adventures Program. Before taking HW by storm, Reb graduated with their MFA in Interdisciplinary Art and Social Practice while co-teaching such courses as "Making Sense of Climate Change: Science, Art, and Agency" at the University of Minnesota. Concurrently, Reb acted as an ambassador for This Free Life, an organization that fiercely advocated for tobacco-free lives for the LGBTQIA+ young adult community. Reb’s passions for earth, art, education, social justice, and their intersections are evident in her work and life. Reb practices and recognizes the importance of inclusive language as a key element in dismantling systems of oppression within everyday conversations. Reb is referred to with the gender-neutral honorific "Mx. Limerick" by their students, and feels comfortable with both they/them and she/her gender pronouns.

Yutopia Essex joined the Harvard-Westlake community in 2016 as a Benefits & Human Resources Administrator. She has 10 years of experience in human resources and sees the inextricable link between HR and DEI. Yutopia has immersed herself in DEI work for many years by attending multiple DEI trainings, People of Color, Pollyanna and Wildwood Conferences. She is a part of the leadership team for the Upper School BLACC (Black Leadership Awareness and Culture Club) and was an inaugural member of both the HW Diversity Council and HW Black Caucus. Yutopia is a mother to two young children, Harper Leigh and Billie Gene, and understands the confidence, power, and sense of belonging derived from children seeing themselves reflected throughout their environment. She loves cultivating relationships with students and empowering marginalized voices. Yutopia likes to spend her free time leading HWOP (Harvard-Westlake Outreach Performers), mentoring/directing student plays for HW's Playwrights Festival, writing poetry and creating improv. skits with her husband, Walter Brandon Alexander.