Gloria Ladson-Billings is the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and faculty affiliate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the Hagler Institute of Texas A&M University. She was the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Ladson-Billings’ research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students. She also investigates Critical Race Theory applications to education. She is the author of the critically acclaimed books The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children and Crossing Over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms, and numerous journal articles and book chapters. She is the former editor of the American Educational Research Journal and a member of several editorial boards. Her work has won numerous scholarly awards including the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the Palmer O. Johnson outstanding research award. During the 2003-2004 academic year, she was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. In fall of 2004, she received the George and Louise Spindler Award from the Council on Anthropology and Education for significant and ongoing contributions to the field of educational anthropology. She holds honorary degrees from Umeå University (Umeå Sweden), University of Massachusetts-Lowell, the University of Alicante (Alicante, Spain), the Erickson Institute (Chicago), and Morgan State University (Baltimore). She is a 2018 recipient of the AERA Distinguished Research Award, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2018.

An engaged scholar, Diamond has helped create space for such work in sociology and education. He is an Advisory Board Member of the American Sociological Association’s Sociology Action Network and a National Planning Team Member of the Urban Research Action Network (URBAN). With URBAN colleagues, he co-edited a special issue of Urban Education on community-engaged scholarship. Before joining the Brown faculty, Diamond was the UW-Madison Faculty Lead for Forward Madison (a collaborative partnership between UW and the Madison Metropolitan School District), a Senior Research Specialist at the Center for Policy Research in Education, and an Advisory Board Member of the Madison Education Partnership. Numerous media outlets have highlighted his work, including CNN, New York Times, Boston Globe, C-SPAN, Education Week, Bloomberg Business News, Crain’s Chicago Business, and several public radio and television stations.

-- National Academy of Education

Megan Bang (Ojibwe and Italian descent) is a Professor of the Learning Sciences and Director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research. Dr. Bang studies dynamics of culture, learning, and development broadly with a specific focus on the complexities of navigating multiple meaning systems in creating and implementing more effective and just learning environments in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics education. She focuses on reasoning and decision-making about complex socio-ecological systems in ways that intersect with culture, power, and historicity. Central to this work are dimensions of identity, equity and community engagement. She works closely with Indigenous communities. She conducts research in both schools and informal settings across the life course. She has taught in and conducted research in teacher education as well as leadership preparation programs. Dr. Bang currently serves on the Board of Science Education at the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Education.

-- Northwestern University

Forrest Bruce (Ojibwe) is a PhD student in the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. He is broadly interested in land-based education and the design of community-based learning environments that support Indigenous ways of knowing and being. He received a BS in Social Policy from Northwestern University and worked in Chicago Public Schools’ American Indian Education Program (Title 6) for a year before joining the Indigenous STEAM (ISTEAM) research project at Northwestern, first as a research coordinator then later as a graduate student. 

-- Indigenous STEAM

Jeanette Bushnell (Anishinaabe) is a semi-retired lecturer in The University Honors Program at the University of Washington and a co-founder of The N.D.N. Players Research Group.  Jeanette strives to foreground indigenous philosophies and knowledges. Her teachers are from both Anishinaabe Midewiwin and westernized academy.  With indigenous colleagues and based on indigenous philosophies, she teaches university students, creates pedagogic materials, develops games, grows food, and ponders the challenges of our changing world with specific foci on sovereignty, economics, food, governance, wellness, education, and equity.

-- Indigenous STEAM

Anna Lees Ed.D. (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, descendant) began her career as an early childhood classroom teacher in rural northern Michigan. Now, an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at Western Washington University, she partners with schools and communities to prepare teachers for the holistic needs of children, families, and communities. Anna is committed to developing and sustaining reciprocal relationships with Indigenous communities to engage community leaders as co-teacher educators, opening spaces for Indigenous values and ways of knowing and being in early childhood settings and higher education. 

She is currently engaged in research around a land education professional development model led my tribal nations and a relationship-based site embedded professional development model with tribal early learning programs. Her scholarship has been recognized by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, and the Spencer Foundation; she currently serves as editor of the Tribal College and University Research Journal and co-chair of the American Educational Research Association’s Indigenous Peoples of the Americas special interest group. 

-- Indigenous STEAM

Nikki McDaid (Shoshone-Bannock) is a doctoral student in Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. Her research interests are broadly focused on informal and formal learning environments at the intersection of land-based education and Indigenous resurgence. More specifically, she wants to understand the ways that youth in land-based learning environments recognize personhood of more-than-human animals and plants and whether or not the propensity to do so might be correlated with the ways youth engage in decision-making around social and environmental concerns. Nikki earned her M.A. in Teaching from Pacific University and her B.S. in Sociology from Northeastern University. She also has experience as a middle school and high school English and Musical Theatre teacher and has two children of her own.  

-- Northwestern University 

Felicia Peters (Menominee and Santo Domingo Pueblo) is currently the project coordinator for ISTEAM at Northwestern University. She is a former middle school Math and Science teacher for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) as well as a teacher for the CPS American Indian Education Program. Felicia has focused her work around the Chicago Native American community working for the American Indian Center of Chicago as a Program Coordinator for Positive Paths and as a Community Health educator for American Indian Health Services of Chicago.  Felicia credits ISTEAM for motivating her towards education and becoming a teacher. Felicia received her BA degree, Middle School Education with a minor in Math and Science concepts from Northeastern Illinois University in 2015.

Felicia’s goal as project coordinator for ISTEAM is to continue to connect youth with their traditions and revitalize their relationship with land and water. Felicia’s son has also grown up as part of ISTEAM and describes it as his only opportunity to learn and teach with other Native children.

-- Indigenous STEAM