Lab Session Presenters
Lab #1
Emily Funkhouser & Laura lochner
How might we cultivate a culture of reflective practice in our community?
Emily Funkhouser (AiE ‘07) is an artist and educator, exploring the interdisciplinary relationship between the fields of fine arts and social sciences. She is especially interested in how media can be used for expression and advocacy. For the past decade, Emily has supported staff development and curriculum design at Google’s childcare centers. Emily lives in San Jose, California, where she maintains a regular studio practice.
Laura Lochner is dedicated to supporting children's development and inclusionary classroom practices. As the Inclusion Manager at Google’s childcare centers, she supports families and educators whose children have diverse needs. Through learning groups, consultations, workshops and presentations, she advocates for inclusive practices. Laura received her B.S. in Liberal Studies with a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and an M.A. in Organization and Leadership from the University of San Francisco.
Alyssa Liles-Amponsah, Aaric Doyle-Wright & Dr. NaTashua Davis
How can we utilize Artists to learn about inclusion, diversity and equity?
Alyssa Liles-Amponsah is an artist and educator. She is currently an Associate Director of K-12 Programming at the University of Missouri.
Dr. NaTashua Davis is an educator and the Executive Director of the Access and Leadership Development Unit at the University of Missouri for the Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity.
Aaric Doyle-Wright is an artist and Business Specialist with the Access and Leadership Unit at the University of Missouri, for the Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity.
Steven McAlpine
How can arts integrated project based learning play a role in the healing of a city in turmoil?
Steven McAlpine is the Assistant Director of Interdisciplinary Studies at UMBC. Before UMBC, Steven worked as a researcher and seminar facilitator for the Interdisciplinary Studies Project at Harvard Project Zero. While at Harvard, Steven designed a Teachers Guide for Walden Media’s IMAX film “PULSE: a STOMP Odyssey” and worked as an education consultant for the Boston Arts Academy. He currently teaches an interdisciplinary project based learning course, INDS 430 Kinetic Sculpture Project, funded in part by a Breaking Ground grant. Steven earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College and his Ed. M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Anna West, Desireé Dallagiacomo, Tareil George, James Mora, Amaryllis Lopez & Imani Sundiata
How Do We Rewire the Circuits of Dispossession by Re-Imagining and Re-Positioning Youth as Next Generation Arts Educators, Leaders, and Policy-Makers?
Amaryllis Lopez is a community organizer and poet whose work explores race, gender, and Afro-Latinx identity. Lopez discovered her passion for poetry through the Andover Bread Loaf writing program where she has been a Writing Leader for the past 7 years. Amaryllis is the Executive Assistant for the art and social justice Lawrence-based 501(c)(3) organization, Elevated Thought. Lopez also serves as the Co-Youth Coordinator for the Next Generation Leadership Network under the Ford Foundation's Youth and Opportunity Learning grant. Amaryllis was born and raised in Lawrence, MA. She is now entering her third year at Bridgewater State University studying English and Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
James Mora is a young poet and youth leader based in Lawrence, MA. His work has been in literacy, advocacy, and educational justice.
Anna West is a educator and organizer of socially-engaged youth writing and research in the HumanitiesAmped program. Anna founded WordPlay in Baton Rouge (now Forward Arts); she co-founded Louder than a Bomb, the country’s largest youth poetry slam festival and Mass LEAP, a literary education and performance collective. She holds a B.A. in creative writingfrom Columbia College Chicago, a M.Ed. from HGSE, and a PhD in English Education from Louisiana State University.
Desireé Dallagiacomo is a poet, performer, and educator. She is the program director and teaching artist at Forward Arts, a youth spoken word and social justice non-profit in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She has taught and performed across the USA, Canada, & Australia— being a guest speaker, teacher, and performer at more than 70 universities worldwide. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her first full-length collection of poetry is forthcoming from Button Poetry, Spring 2019.
Tareil George is an eleventh grade Writing Leader and critical researcher in the Humanities Amped program at McKinley Senior High School. She is working hard to graduate with the highest GPA in her class and to make her family proud. She was selected to be a Humanities Amped 2018 ambassador for her leadership and dedication. Tareil plans to attend Southern University and earn a PhD.
Imani Sundiata is a sophomore at Louisiana State University. Imani’s one true passion is spoken word poetry.She assisted her team in 2017 to win the international youth poetry slam festival, Brave New Voices. Studying to become a psychologist, she believes that good mental health begins at a young age. She hopes to create a specialized art therapy dealing in spoken word one day to mix her two loves together.
Lab #2
Marissa Gutiérrez-Vicario
A Reimagined Future: As incarcerated young people are reintegrated into society, the transformative power of art education opportunities must be made readily accessible to them. What does it mean to create a society where all young people have access to the arts and art education and how will we get there?
Marissa Gutiérrez-Vicario is the Founder and Executive Director of Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE). As a committed human rights activist, artist, educator, and advocate for youth, Marissa launched ARTE in 2013 to help young people amplify their voices and organize for human rights change in their communities through the arts. Marissa holds an M.P.A. from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Currently, Marissa serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at the City College of New York in the Art Education Department.
Carolyn Ho & Amanda Acevedo
Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Cultural Collaboration in the Arts: Examining the Challenges and Opportunities
Carolyn Ho is a musician, theatre specialist, and a lover of the visual arts. She is interested in the interdisciplinary learning platform the arts can provide, especially in K-12 settings. She is passionate about evoking change in educational policy through the Arts in East Asia. Carolyn holds an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has been working with Project Zero’s Agency by Design, specifically on the Early Childhood in the Making project.
Amanda Dunne Acevedo is a Chicago-based deviser, curator and arts educator. Until the summer of 2017 she was the Director of Education at Northlight Theatre, a Lead Teaching Artist with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and taught the 2016-17 Teaching Artist Seminar and Practicum course at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She has facilitated professional development workshops at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School, Steppenwolf Theatre, Miami University, Pennsylvania State University, and this past summer worked with Lincoln Center Education. In May 2018, she received her Ed.M from the Arts in Education program at HGSE. amandadunneacevedo.weebly.com
Victoria Restler, Jessica Hamlin & Vivianne A. Njoku
Dis/Orientations: Mapping whiteness in educational spaces
Jessica Hamlin is an artist educator and Visiting Assistant Professor of Art + Education at the Steinhardt School for Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University.
Vivianne A. Njoku is a multi-media artist, educator and activist working in school, university, out-of-school, and nonprofit spaces. She is currently the Educational Programs Director at Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and founder of SHIFT.
Victoria Restler, is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and Assistant Professor of Educational Studies at Rhode Island College where she also directs the Youth Development Master’s Program.
Ashley Woodson
Are We Good: Hip Hop Pedagogy and Affirmative Epistemologies
Ashley N. Woodson is a mother, sister, daughter and counterstoryteller. Inspired by principles of critical race theory, she researches the possibilities of Black kids’ civic imaginations. She is an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Missouri - Columbia, and Faculty Fellow for Community Engagement in the Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity.