Fawn Canady is an Associate Professor of Adolescent and Digital Literacies at Sonoma State University. Her teaching and scholarship focus on teacher education, English Education, multiliteracies, and digital multimodal writing. She has published and presented on young adult literature. Fawn is also a naturalist at the SSU Osborn Preserve and looks forward to future casting through literary, artistic, traditional, and scientific ways of knowing.

Dr. Troy Hicks is a professor of English and education at Central Michigan University. He directs the Chippewa River Writing Project and collaborates with K–12 colleagues to explore how they implement newer literacies in their classrooms. Dr. Hicks has authored dozens of resources including books, articles, chapters, blog posts, and other media broadly related to the teaching of literacy in our digital age. You can learn more about my work on Twitter @hickstro

Erick Gordon currently teaches English at Credo High School, a public Waldorf school in Sonoma County, California that follows the One Planet Living model. He is the founding director of the Student Press Initiative at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the former director of the New York City Writing Project. In his role as Senior Fellow for Innovation at Teachers College, he co-founded the multimodal learning program, Literacy Unbound.

As Director at the SSU Center for Environmental Inquiry, I am interested in mobilizing faculty, students and community to find solutions to emerging environmental challenges in the North Bay. We manage 4200-acres of wildlands at three preserves that serve as classrooms for learners of all ages to find out more about human-environment connections. You can learn more about me and our initiatives at: cei.sonoma.edu.

Lead Curriculum Developer at Redbud Resource Group and member of Middletown Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians of California. My expertise is in Indigenizing curriculum, or learning about and incorporating Native perspectives. You can learn more about me @redbudresourcegroup.org

Gina is an Assistant Professor of Journalism, Media Writing, Radio & Podcasting, & Digital Media, and the host and producer of the News in Context podcast, which airs on 102.5 KSFP in San Francisco and online. Dr. Baleria is also author of The Journalism Behind Journalism: Going Beyond the Basics to Train Effective Journalists in a Shifting Landscape (Routledge 2021). Her research & creative interests revolve around news and digital media literacy; podcasting; and digital engagement and communication across socially salient differences.

As a Professor Emeritus of Literacy Education at the University of Minnesota, I am interested in addressing the climate crisis as it relates to teaching young adults about responding to and producing media about climate change. You can learn more about me via https://richardbeach6.academia.edu, http://climatechangeela.pbworks.com, and http://youthclimatecrisismedia.pbworks.com

Bedore will lead the first three days of participants’ in-depth study of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower as dystopian cli-fi. Dr. Bedore is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches classes on detective fiction, science fiction, and utopian & dystopian literature. A dynamic speaker, Dr. Bedore’s Wondrium (formerly The Great Courses) course on Utopian & Dystopian Literature explores the utopian impulse at the heart of dystopian literature. Her video lectures also include explorations of games, films, and novels in utopian studies.

As an Assistant Professor of English Education at Sonoma State University, I am interested in the histories, narratives, and politics of place as they relate to teaching young people about what it means to live dignified lives in the U.S. across migration/arrival generations for those of us who have come to occupy the territories of Native Peoples. You can learn more about me on the SSU and NCTE websites.

As Education Manager at the SSU Center for Environmental Inquiry, I am interested in creating immersive and transformative experiences at SSU's three preserves that give learners of all ages the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to solve environmental challenges. You can learn more about me and our education programs at cei.sonoma.edu.

As an Associate Professor at The University of Arizona, I am interested in youth literature as it relates to teaching young adults about representations of historically marginalized and resilient communities and to exploring with youth how they can envision change and develop agency. You can learn more about me via ttps://coe.arizona.edu/person/e-sybil-durand

During this summer institute, teacher participants will explore The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline as a text that offers insights about the intersections of race, colonization, and the environment, as well as avenues for cultivating hope and healing. Teachers will have the opportunity to design activities that help students identify issues that impact their own communities and create action plans to take care of themselves, each other, and the planet.

As a novelist and educator, I'm looking forward to working with students of all ages on writing that reflects the dangers of climate change and convinces and persuades others to fight against waste and pollution. We need to completely rethink who we are, who we want to be, and how we want to extend our life on this planet. But I also understand that this must be ‘fun’ and ‘exciting.’ Doom and gloom alone won’t help sway minds. If we want to succeed, we must show and prove that the fight against climate change gives meaning to everyone’s life. You can find me at www.stefankiesbye.com

As an Associate Professor of English at IUPUI, I am interested in using literature to help young adults and their teachers learn how to navigate difficult conversations about what it means to be ethical humans in a posthuman world. You can learn more about these ideas via my book, Digital Citizenship in Twenty-First-Century Young Adult Literature: Imaginary Activism (Palgrave, 2016).

Jeff Share’s research and practice focus on preparing educators to teach critical media literacy for social and environmental justice. He was an award-winning photojournalist and bilingual elementary school teacher. Since 2007 he has taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Jeff wrote: Media Literacy is Elementary: Teaching Youth to Critically Read and Create Media. He co-authored: Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents: Reading, Writing, and Making a Difference and The Critical Media Literacy Guide: Engaging Media and Transforming Education. Jeff is a Fulbright Specialist who has taught critical media literacy in India, Argentina, Mexico, China, and Germany.

www.jshare.wixsite.com/jeffshare

As the founder of Learning in the Landscape, an arts-based eco-literacy program for schools, I am interested in “restoryation” as it relates to empowering young adults to recontextualize their relationship with the landscape, past, present, and future. You can find out more about me at www.catherinesky.com.

A professor of English education at Western Michigan University, I have devoted the last eight years to learning, teaching, and activism on the climate emergency. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses for teachers and for students in all disciplines both in English and in Environmental Studies addressing the science, urgency, and politics of the crisis. (My syllabi are available at allenwebb.net.) My climate teaching is built around inquiry, justice, and action - ideas I hope to share during the NEH seminar.

I have published many books and articles for teachers and made hundreds of conference presentations, including 35 on teaching about climate change. I am currently finishing my second book on the topic. I am also an activist, work on political campaigns, collaborate with community groups, and international organizations including Fridays for the Future and Extinction Rebellion. Teachers have an enormously important role in educating and activating young people as they inherit a planet in peril.

I lead an online climate change book discussion group; you can join the email list by writing me at allen.webb@wmich.edu.