Board Member Profiles
Send an email to the publicly elected board members by clicking here: Email Board of Trustees
LAURA CASAS, Vice President (Trustee Area 1)
Casas was elected to the Board of Trustees without opposition in 2007 after being appointed
to an at-large position on the board in 2005. She was reelected in 2012, 2016, and
2020 and elected without opposition to represent Trustee Area 1 in 2024. Casas holds
a law degree from Santa Clara University and a bachelor's degree in political science
from California State University, Northridge. Active at the state and local levels,
Casas was elected by her peers in 2011 to the statewide Trustees Board of the Community
College League of California, a position she held until 2020, and is a past chair
and current member of the League's Advisory Committee on Legislation. She is a graduate
of the HOPE Leadership Institute operated by Hispanas Organized for Political Equality,
and serves on the boards of Children Now, a national organization that makes children
a public policy priority, and ALearn, a grassroots organization dedicated to underrepresented
students' success in college. For the past decade she's mentored students through
Puente, an academic preparation program focused on college success. Her past activities
include the Foothill-De Anza Foundation Board of Directors, Santa Clara County's 6th
District PTA, and the Santa Clara County League of Women Voters' Education Committee.
She co-founded a transitional home for domestic violence victims in Los Angeles and
has worked as a claims representative for an international commercial liability carrier.
Her term expires in 2028. Contact Casas at [email protected] or through the Chancellor's Office at (650) 949-6100.
ALEXANDER GVATUA (Trustee Area 2)
Gvatua was appointed to the Board of Trustees on Jan. 15, 2025, to fill a vacant position
on the governing board. Gvatua is a graduate of De Anza College who serves as a policy analyst for Santa Clara
County Supervisor Otto Lee and an adjunct professor of political science at San Jose
State University. In addition to an associate degree in political science from De Anza College, Gvatua
holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from San Jose State University and
a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
His term expires in 2026. Contact Gvatua at [email protected] or through the Chancellor's Office at (650) 949-6100
PETER LANDSBERGER (Trustee Area 3)
Landsberger has had a long career in community college administration. He was named Foothill-De
Anza's first general counsel in 1978 and later promoted to vice chancellor, where
he served as the chancellor's chief deputy supervising all district office operations.
His 30-year career also includes serving as president of the College of San Mateo
and as senior vice chancellor and interim chancellor of the Los Angeles Community
College District. He also spent four years as a Special Trustee of the Compton Community
College District, a position he was appointed to after the Compton College lost its
accreditation.
PEARL CHENG (Trustee Area 4)
Cheng was appointed in 2008 to fill a vacancy in an at-large position on the Board of Trustees,
elected without opposition in 2009, reelected in 2014 and 2018, and elected without
opposition to represent Trustee Area 4 in 2022. Cheng is a resident of Cupertino who
served for eight years on the Cupertino Union School District Board of Education and
held leadership positions with the Santa Clara County School Boards Association. She
has served on the De Anza Commission, an auxiliary of the Foothill-De Anza Foundation
that represents De Anza College in the community. She worked for many years at the
NASA Ames Research Center, most recently as associate director for management operations
in information sciences and technology. Following her high-tech experience, she worked
for a decade in non-profits, serving as the education manager at United Way Silicon
Valley developing literacy, intervention and parent education programs in Santa Clara
County. In March 2016, she was an invited participant at the College Promise Initiative
planning meeting at the White House. Cheng has served for a number of years as a substitute teacher in two local public
school districts. She volunteered as a contact tracer and case investigator for the
county during the height of the pandemic. Cheng holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a bachelor's
in engineering from the University of Iowa. Her term expires in 2026. Contact Cheng
at [email protected] or through the Chancellor's Office at (650) 949-6100.
TERRY GODFREY, President (Trustee Area 5)
Godfrey was elected to the Board of Trustees in November 2024 to represent Trustee Area 5.
She lives in Palo Alto and is a former president of the Palo Alto Unified School District
Board of Education. She is a trustee of the UC Irvine Foundation and a member of
both the UC Irvine Dean of Physical Sciences Executive Cabinet and the UCI Undergraduate
Success Advisory Committee. Godfrey has had a long career in finance, human resources,
venture capital, and operations at Xerox, Intel, Stanford and Immigrant Legal Resource
Center. She is currently chief financial and administrative officer of Learning Policy
Institute, a nonprofit research organization that conducts and communicates independent,
high-quality research to improve education policy and practice. Godfrey holds a bachelor’s
degree in mathematics from the University of California, Irvine, and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her term expires in 2028. Contact Godfrey at [email protected] or through the Chancellor's Office at (650) 949-6100.
STUDENT TRUSTEES
Currently Vacant, De Anza College
Maria Blaze, Foothill College
Blaze, is Foothill College's elected student representative on the Board of Trustees for
the 2025-26 academic year. Blaze is a first-year Political Science major at Foothill
College with a deep interest in Asian American Studies. She first got involved in
advocacy by speaking up for her community—whether it was supporting housing rights
at city council meetings or co-authoring a bill-draft to make sexual assault kits
and mental health support more accessible for community college students. As a policy
fellow with SIREN Immigrant Rights and a fellow with the Women’s Foundation of California,
she has spent the past year learning how to turn lived experiences into real change.
Blaze is excited to bring that same energy to her role as Student Trustee—grounded
in listening, learning, and fighting for students. Contact Maria Blaze at [email protected] or through the Chancellor's Office at (650) 949-6100.
The district began the transition to trustee area elections in November 2022, with governing board members elected to represent Trustee Area 2 (Central Sunnyvale) and Trustee Area 4 (Cupertino and small portions of west San Jose, southwestern Santa Clara, and northern Saratoga). Trustees elected to serve in at-large positions in 2020 will continue serving in those positions until the election to represent Trustee Area 1 (Mountain View and portions of north Sunnyvale and northeast Los Altos), Trustee Area 3 (Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and portions of south Sunnyvale and northwest Cupertino), and Trustee Area 5 (Palo Alto and Stanford) in November 2024. More information about trustee area elections is available HERE.