Mellon Foundation Project Team
Leslie Dutcher-Treviño
Leslie Dutcher Treviño studied Radiology at Tarrant County College and worked as the Patient care Coordinator for Solis Women’s Health, and a clinical operations and compliance director of Texas Health Resources. During her career she worked as a coordinator with the The Susan G. Komen Foundation organizing the yearly Race For The Cure, and as an American Cancer Society ambassador, & Registrar. This experience in compliance & nonprofit charitable work coupled with her 14-years experience conducting archival research, enabled her to establish the Webber Family Preservation Project.
As President of the Webber Family Preservation Project she has secured historical markers through the Texas Historical Commission, and given presentations with public & academic organizations on historic research & preservation.
Most recently she led her organization to co-curate an exhibit with the Dolph Briscoe Center, at the University of Texas in Austin, centered on the Freedom Papers of Silvia Hector Webber.
This exhibit garnered national interest from the Smithsonian’s National African American Museum in Washington DC (who may be supporting a traveling exhibit in the near future) and the Today Show (who featured their story as its Juneteenth episode this year).
Her husband Omar J. Trevińo and their son Dean are both direct descendants of John Webber and Silvia Hector-Webber. She lives in North Fort Worth/Keller with her family and their chihuahua Bella.
Principal Investigator
Dr. Theresa Gatling
Dr. Theresa Gatling is a speaker, author, teacher, Pastor, and physical therapist. She has been practicing physical therapy for the past 37 years in a variety of settings. She came to the Rio Grande Valley in December 1997 from San Antonio, TX where she lived for 8 years. She is originally from Boston, MA. She received her undergraduate degree in physical therapy in 1987 from Boston University and her Doctorate in physical therapy in 2010 from A.T. Still University in Mesa, AZ.
Dr. Gatling continued her education at Washburn University in Topeka, KS receiving a Post-graduate certificate in Healthcare Education in 2019 and currently is the Program Director and Academic Clinical Coordinator of Education for the Physical Therapist Assistant Program at Rio Grande Valley College.
Dr. Gatling is the author of two books published in 2020. She is the Co-Pastor of Mount Olive Worship Center and the Co-President/Co-Founder of the non-profit organization Village in the Valley (VIVA), which focuses on elevating and uniting the black community while connecting the cultures in the Rio Grande Valley since February 2019.
She worked as adjunct research associate on a co-sponsored study between Audie Murphey VA Hospital and the University of Texas Health Science Center on “The effects of Physical Therapy on the Frail Elderly patient in Nursing Homes” (1992). This expertise & community work anchors her commitment to this project.
Principal Investigator
Dr. Rolonda Teal
Historical Advisor
Dr. Rolonda Teal is a scholar whose groundbreaking contributions in anthropology and history has paved the way for a greater understanding of African American experiences in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in Forestry (Human Dimensions) from Stephen F. Austin State University, an MA in Historical Archaeology from the University of Houston, and a BA in Anthropology from Northwestern State University of Louisiana, where she made history as the first and only African American to earn an anthropology degree.
Dr. Teal further broke barriers by becoming the first African American female to receive a doctorate from the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture. She was also the first and only African American female to receive her BA from Northwestern State University (LA). Her expertise encompasses ethnography, ethnohistory, extensive research on the Underground Railroad, as well as African American history and culture in the South.
Dr. María Esther Hammack
Principal Investigator
Dr. María Esther Hammack is a Mexican scholar who holds a PhD in History from the University of Texas at Austin (2021). She is a public historian of the Black Diaspora in Mexico and the Abolition of Slavery in the Americas. Her work has received funding from various agencies to develop and complete several scholarly projects including the Fulbright Program in 2019-2020, and the American Council for Learned Societies and the Mellon Foundation in 2021-2022 among others.
María is currently an Assistant Professor of African American History at The Ohio State University where she teaches courses in African American, Early American, and Black Women’s Histories. In 2025 her excellence & innovative teaching methods were recognized with The Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring.
A native of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, María is a native Spanish speaker with proficiency in English and French. Her research and teaching experience and subject matter expertise are what led to Dr. Hammack’s serving as the Historical Advisor and a Project Investigator for the Webber Family Preservation Project Mellon Foundation Grant.
She is diligently working on her first book manuscript titled “Channels of Liberation: México in the Age of Abolitions,” which is being considered by the University of Pennsylvania Press.