Kachine Kulick (she/her/hers) is a fifth year doctoral candidate in Teacher, Learning, Research and Practice (TLRP) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is curious about the possibilities of learning design when we attend to the self on ideological, emotional, and embodied levels in pursuit of justice, repair, action and accountability in education. Drawing on queer and critical/abolitionist perspectives, Kachine is committed to naming and holding the violence, silence, and discomfort borne of white body supremacy, while inviting expansion and resilience. In her research, she is curious about how teacher candidates find connections between abolitionist, anti-racist somatic practices and social justice frameworks for both informed, just classroom pedagogy and importantly, engaged, anti-racist, healing-oriented living. As a human, Kachine likes to light up dance floors, forage forests for plants and mushrooms, and engage with all the wisdom Tarot has to offer.
Alexis (Lex) Hunter (she/her) is a Chicago native and current second-year doctoral student at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the Educational Foundations, Policy & Practice program. Her work is at the intersections of youth activism, technology, and healing as she researches how racially marginalized young people leverage technological advances for justice. Lex explores the potentialities of technology as a tool for sustainable healing. Her current work leverages critical theories and the ancestral traditions of healing justice to honor the everyday practices youth engage in to disrupt dominant narratives that oversimplify technologies as only spaces for entertainment. Lex is looking forward to EIEJ and is excited to break bread and be in community with everyone!
Sara Staley (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor in Teacher Learning, Research, and Practice in the CU Boulder School of Education. Leading from the heart, and guided by deep respect for teachers, she brings anti-oppressive and queer perspectives to her work, which aims to support educators to learn and enact queer-inclusive practices. She looks forward to sharing space with you.
María Ruíz-Martínez (she, her, hers) is a PhD candidate in Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is interested in how translingual people teach and learn across home, school, and community contexts by examining how race and the interrelated categories of sexuality, gender, class, indigeneity, ethnicity, dis/ability, and legal status impact these endeavors. María’s experience as an educator and lived experiences in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, inform her belief that education is a relational practice of imagination, liberation, and social change. When she is not working on her dissertation, she enjoys watching cipher battles and spoken word performances, taking long hikes with her pup Choco, dancing to all genres of music, and playing with her nieces and nephews.
Zander Nowell is an educator interested in anti-oppressive pedagogies that create more humanizing learning environments. He has worked at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Arizona Science Center, and most recently as a high school English language arts and ESL teacher in Austin, Texas. Currently, Zander is a doctoral student and field coach in Teacher Learning, Research, and Practice at the University of Colorado Boulder. He enjoys baking, reading queer YA lit, and spending time with his family, including his dog Iroh.
PhD student, Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice
Nelia Peña (she/her/hers) is a PhD student in Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was born and raised in Denver and taught in Denver Public Schools for 8 years as a bilingual elementary teacher. Her current interests include centering racialized, bilingual learners in the classroom, dialogic practices, and translanguaging pedagogy. She is really looking forward to learning alongside educators at this summer’s institute.
Devon (he, him, his) is a PhD student at CU Boulder studying teacher learning and bilingual education. Prior to moving to Colorado, he was a fifth grade bilingual math teacher in New York City. Devon is excited to collectively learn alongside institute participants in pursuit of intersectional, anti-oppressive educational practices.
Page (they, them, theirs) research centers BIPOC transgender and non-binary young people. Page sees spaces of learning as sites for growth and resistance, where through radical self-acceptance, critical consciousness and brave dialogue we can collectively live into a queer, loving future. Family time and adventures outside bring me deep joy.
Robyn (she, her, hers) is a middle school English teacher in Texas, who pursues educational equity for her students. She plans to enter graduate school in the fall to continue exploring the ways in which public education can function in the service of social justice.
Bethy Leonardi (she/her/hers + pronouns haven't been invented yet) is an assistant professor in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice. In her research, she explores how public schools include, deny, and/or silence queer identities. Specifically, she supports educators to enact promising practices that disrupt-- and heal-- cis-heteronormative school ecologies to create schools that are ready for (and not merely reactive to) queer youth. In real life, Bethy loves spending time with her family, hiking, and holding steady as a novice on the Big Green Egg.
brittni laura hernandez (she, her, ella) is a queer xicana from northern colorado. her family is from so called southern colorado and northern new mexico. brittni laura is a Scholar In Residence with A Queer Endeavor. she gets to bring her experience as an anti racist & critical middle school classroom teacher to bear on the work of AQE. brittni laura centered love, student autonomy, and social consciousness in her classroom and loves bringing this focus to her work in supporting teachers. brittni laura is honored to carry on her family’s traditions with land, food, education, and community. she is committed to breaking cycles that no longer serve our collective healing.
