Kristiina Kumpulainen is a Professor at the Department of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, the University of British Columbia. Her ongoing research examines children’s ecological imagination, multimodal literacies and more-than-human storytelling. She currently leads the SSHRC Insight project Enhancing Ecological Imagination through Augmented Storying, which engages children and communities in co-creating augmented stories with forests, animals and everyday ecologies. Her work closely aligns with the ABCs of Intention, Awareness, Betterment and Care, demonstrating how digital innovation can move beyond market-driven logics to foster imagination, equity and multispecies flourishing in education and society.

Maureen Kendrick is a professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. Her research examines literacy and multimodality as integrated communicative practices, and addresses a range of social and cultural issues in diverse contexts. She has a particular interest in visual communication and communicative repertoires, and has conducted research in various geographic locations in East Africa and Canada focused on women and girls, child-headed households and students with refugee experiences. Her current research focuses on understanding the potential of digital multimodal composing (including digital storytelling) for disciplinary literacies for newcomer, multilingual learners.

Dr. Kathleen Deering (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Division of Social Medicine, Department of Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at University of British Columbia (UBC). She is also the Faculty Lead of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute Health Equity Research Hub and an Associate Member, Division of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Population and Public Health, UBC. Her research program focuses on community-based research with people who have experienced social and structural violence, stigma and criminalization, including women living with HIV, sex workers and people who use criminalized substances; understanding key aspects of trauma-informed practice, with a focus on aligned peer-based approaches, that can address and disrupt the impacts of trauma, violence and stigma as health services barriers; investigating how structural, policy and community interventions can address health and health services access inequities; and methodological issues in health equity research, including related to quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods and arts-based methods.

Dr. Siobhán Wittig McPhee is an Associate Professor of Teaching in UBC's Department of Geography, specializing in innovative approaches to teaching and learning through digital tools, experiential learning, and place-based storytelling. Her work explores how immersive technologies—particularly spatial sound and augmented reality—can foster empathy and deepen understanding of social justice issues. Her recent projects include "Spatial Empathy in Action," an immersive audio experience foregrounding the voices of UBC's custodial staff, and the Vancouver Soundscapes Project, which transforms five decades of acoustic documentation into pedagogical tools. Dr. Wittig McPhee has received numerous awards including the AMS OER Champion Award (2025) and has secured over $300,000 in teaching and learning grants. Her research examines how digital storytelling can bridge academic knowledge with lived experiences, creating transformative learning opportunities that cultivate spatial empathy and advance the inclusion of historically marginalized communities.

Ron Darvin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education of UBC Vancouver. His research examines issues of critical digital literacies, generative AI, equity, and identity. He has conducted multiple professional development workshops for various school districts in BC on the implications of generative AI for learning, and has published articles on generative AI in Computers in Human Behaviour, Computer Assisted Language Learning and Journal of Second Language Writing.

Danny Bakan teaches teachers about music and the arts, and he teaches musicians and artists about teaching. Prior to joining the faculty in 2017 as a lecturer in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education, Danny Bakan taught creative arts pedagogy at Ryerson University’s School of Early Childhood Education and Interdisciplinary Creative Arts at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. In addition to his work in higher education and schools, Danny is an established musician, composer and theatre artist whose artistic portfolio includes several CDs, performances across North America, theatrical productions, dance scores, children’s musicals, and appearances on CBC, syndicated US radio, and NPR. In 2015, Daniel Bakan completed his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in curriculum studies with an award-winning dissertation on songwriting and artography.

Dr. Sonya Woloshen (Elle / She / Her) has 15+ years of experience in education, including K-12, French Immersion, and roles with the Ministry of Education. She holds a BA in French and Art History, a BEd in French Education, and an MA and PhD in Educational Technology and Learning Design from Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on Learning Analytics and Artificial Intelligence and she is dedicated to creating anti-oppressive learning environments. Sonya is the new Learning Design Program Manager in the Teacher Education Program at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus, helping learners and faculty integrate digital literacies and competencies into their pedagogical practices.

Mike Elkoussy is an adult ELL teacher with over 19 years experience. Mike has spent the past 15 years running his own school, Eh Plus English, which is focused on helping adults increase their fluency and speaking skills. Currently, he is completing a Bachelor of Education at the University of British Columbia in the International Baccalaureate Cohort, as part of his transition from teaching adults to teaching children. Mike's focus has always been on using digital tools to help students improve quickly and efficiently, and he has an extensive background in using AI for lesson creation, adaptations, curricular modifications and gamification.

Robert is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at UBC in the Adult Learning and Education program. His research expertise is in sustainability and the related areas of social movements and capacity building, and is rooted in an abiding interest in human action and social change. Since 2016, he has applied a neo-pragmatist approach to human action on sustainability programing, creating both a Masters (3x) and Bachelor’s (7x) program in Education for Sustainability as a result. These efforts entail his working shoulder-to-shoulder with students to step outside the traditional classroom to get involved in sustainability projects within Vancouver and neighbouring communities. The second strand is a SSHRC-funded study of social innovation as a transformative intervention in cities addressing the complex challenges of climate change, equity and decolonization. From 2003–2012 he was also the PI on a study of the impacts of the Olympic Games hosting from a sustainability perspective. The above research marks a re-conceptualization of adult learning and community engagement relating both to classroom efforts to contribute to progressive social movements seeking sustainability, social justice and decolonization. Structurally, neo-pragmatism supplants social psychological emphases on attitudes, beliefs and context in order to scale up behaviour change and focus on meaningful collaborations among classrooms, communities and citizens. The original source of these seemingly innovative ideas was a PhD done in collaboration with the Walpole Island First Nation where VanWynsberghe saw first-hand the power of new thoughts and new ways of acting in the interest of environmental and social justice. His career can be said to represent a reflection on the individual and collective action for a better society that this experience represented.

Dr. Iris Berger has been involved in the field of early childhood education as a classroom teacher, researcher, community organizer, policy consultant and university instructor since the mid 1990s. At the centre of her pedagogical inquiries lies the abiding notion that matters pertaining to education and childhood are entangled with question of ethics and politics. To this end, Dr. Berger has developed a special interest in rethinking leadership in early childhood education with an interest in storytelling as a form of participation and political action.

In her teaching, Dr. Berger focuses on creating pedagogical spaces that convey a sense of welcoming and possibilities for collaborative thinking, dialogue, and engagement; while at the same time, provoking intellectual ‘restlessness’ and questioning that invite an experience of ‘awakening’ to new ideas and perspectives. She strives to convey that knowledge is dynamic, always situated and incomplete and thus each one of us has something unique to contribute to the ongoing (necessary) conversations about the purpose(s) and form(s) of education.

Dr. Daniel W. Cox is a Professor at the University of British Columbia and hosts the podcast Psychotherapy and Applied Psychology. Dan does mental-health research on helping and change processes, particularly related to suicide. Dan is involved in several funded projects examining how to best help those in suicidal crisis.