Cynthia Wooley graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from Antioch University and holds a Master’s degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico.  Wooley worked as editor, translator and photo archivist at a cultural center in Chiapas, Mexico, and set up an artist in residence program and ecological slideshows for local schools while there.  She also acted as a medical liaison and translator for several tribes of Lacandon Mayan Indians at a government hospital and translated documents for the World Health Organization.  Subsequently she worked as a photographer and taught English in Madrid, Spain for two years, and has taught at Central New Mexico Community College since 1987.  At CNM she has pioneered classes such as ESL through Theater and American Culture through Film and served as faculty advisor for BLAST: a statewide adult education student leadership group.  She received CNM’s Outstanding Teacher Award in 1995.  Wooley has received several grants of scholarship funding and supplies for the incarcerated women she teaches.  She served on the advisory board of Bridges for Women, a halfway house and program started by Gordon Bernell and his wife, Sue.  Wooley was bestowed the YWCA and Lovelace “Spirit of Women” Community award in 2003 for her work teaching incarcerated women and publishing their essays and poetry.  A free lance writer, photographer and singer, she has published numerous articles, fiction and photographs in The Santa Fe New Mexican, New Mexico Magazine, The L.A Weekly, and many other publications.  She has had several group and one woman shows of her photographs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Princeton, and Albuquerque as well as a retrospective of her work in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico.  Her first CD entitled “Canciones del Alma”was released in 2008, and she sings with La Rondalla de Albuquerque.  At the Gordon Bernell Charter School, she produces newsletters, photographs school events, coordinates publicity, edits books of student writing, serves as college counselor and teaches college success and writing classes.