SPARC has hired Gabby Hernandez for a newly created position at SPARC as Open Education Community Manager. She works across SPARC’s open education portfolio to conduct outreach, develop programming, and foster community engagement to advance open educational resources and practices. Gabby started on March 3, 2025.
Gabby comes to the role from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where she was the Open Education Librarian from 2019-2025. There she created and coordinated the campus Textbook Affordability Project. She also designed professional development programs on OER and facilitated workshops for faculty, staff and the open education community.
More broadly, Gabby has experience with collaborative efforts to raise awareness and advocate for OER through her service with Momentum for OER at the UT System. She was a Founding Fellow with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Division of Digital Learning where she created a curriculum for emerging OER leaders.
Before moving into higher education, Gabby taught at Title 1 elementary schools and developed her own instruction materials when the available resources were scarce. She later connected her customized curriculum were actually the beginnings of her own open educational practices.
“I feel honored to support SPARC’s mission in this new role,” Gabby said. “First and foremost I see myself as an educator and I want to continue educating people about open practices and build communities to support and enhance our open initiatives and programs.”
Gabby has her master’s degree in library and information sciences from Texas Women’s University and her bachelor of science degree in interdisciplinary studies from Texas State University.