Carrie Backman is the Program Director of Summer Music Clinic, Mini Music Clinics and Summer Arts Clinic with Badger Precollege at UW–Madison and is the Assistant Director of Badger Precollege Arts Programs. She also manages and created the Odyssey Junior Music Program. Carrie first attended Summer Music Clinic 28 years ago as a 6th grade trumpet student and has attended, taught or worked at every Summer Music Clinic since! She believes in the transformative experience possible through an inspirational time in a precollege program on the UW–Madison campus.

Backman works to be an advocate for empowering diverse student and artistic voices, creativity and excellence in all students and for the importance of and human need for consistent quality arts education in the lives of each student that is accessible and equitable. 

Dr. Michael B. Dando is an Assistant Professor of Secondary English Education and Language at Saint Cloud State University. An award-winning author, artist, educator, and scholar with nearly two decades of classroom experience, his work explores popular culture’s significance and potential as a site of critical self-expression, critical literacy development, and democratic activism and engagement. He has shared his passion for hip-hop and education with national and international audiences at various academic conferences, has been published by various academic journals, and has had his work featured by multiple media outlets and publications including ESPN’s Undefeated, Vibe, CNN, PBS, The Today Show, and the South by Southwest Education Festival (SXSWEdu).

Anna Jordan-Douglass received her Ph.D. from the department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she researched arts integration, maker education, digital media and games. She is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Makefully, a studio dedicated to the research, development and design of innovative educational technologies and media. Anna is also an active educator in STEAM and maker education, both in formal classrooms and afterschool programs.

Amanda is an Outreach Program Manager who develops programs with faculty that bring the University of Wisconsin expertise into the community to further the Wisconsin Idea. For example, she co-founded Whoopensocker with Dr. Erica Halverson which has served Madison elementary schools since 2015. An arts administrator, educator, and practitioner, Amanda holds bachelor of arts degrees in dance and English from Webster University and a Masters of Arts Management from Columbia College Chicago. Amanda has co-founded half a dozen companies and has led several nonprofits.

Amanda is a co-owner of Meep Meepleton’s World of Fun.

Damiana Gibbons Pyles is a Professor in the Department of Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum at Appalachian State University. She began her work with Erica as her first doc student working on a MacArthur Grant exploring youth produced films in non-profits across the U.S. From Erica, Damiana learned how to do interviews and collect all types of data. Damiana’s research interests focus on media production, identity, and media literacy practices in order to understand the intersections of the visual, the spoken, the written, and the performed in digital and print literacies. Recent publications include Reimagining Literacy in the Age of AI: Theory and Practice (2025), Literacy and Identity Through Streaming Media: Kids, Teens, and Representation on Netflix (2023), and several publications, such as scholarship about Turning Red and Asian American representation and teaching using different print and media texts, i.e., The Last Kids on Earth. She currently teaches courses for preservice and practicing teachers to learn how to integrate media and technology for teaching and learning. Damiana’s current projects continue the media studies work she did with Erica through various literacies studies in both in-school and out-of-school spaces. 

Roey Kafri is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in constructionism, collaborative learning, and maker education. His research explores how individuals develop self-awareness, collaborative skills, and reflective practices through making together in various educational contexts. With a background in music education, conducting, and improvisation, Roey brings a creative and interdisciplinary perspective to understanding how people learn by building, experimenting, and creating in social settings.

Guided by the ideas of Seymour Papert, Paulo Freire, Martin Buber, and Jiddu Krishnamurti, Roey’s work emphasizes the relational, embodied, and reflective aspects of learning.

Roey serves as the Assistant Editor for the Journal of the Learning Sciences and is also one of the musical directors for the Whoopensocker Theater Residency, an arts education program that helps elementary students explore creative writing, collaboration, and social-emotional learning through play, performance, and storytelling.

Lindsey Kourafas is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she earned a BS in Educational Policy Studies. She is interested in how arts-based tools can be embedded in education policy development to create more equitable learning experiences and outcomes for students. Lindsey is also passionate about supporting educators in building confidence and expertise in integrating the arts into their classrooms. In addition to her academic work, she brings nearly a decade of teaching experience in youth STEM, music, and theatre programs across Chicago and Madison, along with experience in education policy and advocacy.

Alexandra Lakind is an artist, educator, and scholar. She owes much to the education she received at University of Wisconsin-Madison (PhD), New York University (MA), Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (BA), and Interlochen Arts Academy (HS). Among many other arts education initiatives, from 2013 to 2017, she worked to collaboratively design "Bubbler," Madison Public Libraries' arts and maker programming. She has disseminated this work through conferences and publications such as Reference & User Service Quarterly; the anthology Makers, Crafters, Educators: Working for Cultural Change; Journal of Radical Librarianship; and Journal for Learning through the Arts. Currently, her scholarly writing revolves around childhood studies, institutional reflexivity, environmental futures, and collaborative art-making. Lakind's work explores the vital role of play and care, and she continues to teach, write, and create art that fosters joyful experiences in and beyond traditional learning environments.

Yorel’s desire to study West African traditional music led him to the Kankouran West African Dance Company in Washington, DC to learn from Master Drummer Medoune “Dame” Yacine Gueye, and Master Dancer/Artistic Director Assane Konte becoming a senior drummer with the company in 1998. His desire to master Afro-Cuban percussion led to study with Jorge Delgado at the Harbor Conservatory for the performing arts in Spanish Harlem. Yorel performed as a percussionist in New York and abroad and also led his own 10 piece NYC-based band, Melee, serving as a resident band at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café. He is a founding member of the Handphibians of Madison, WI.

In 2000, Yorel founded Drum Power Inc. (www.mydrumpower.com), a youth leadership program that uses learning West African Traditional, Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Cuban percussion to help young people practice life skills—discipline, community and leadership. To date Drum Power has supported more than 3,800 young people from New York City and Madison, Wisconsin. Academically, his research centers on youth empowerment teaching to better understand, develop and support student self-efficacy.s here

Breanne is a student of education, nature, technology, and culture. Her curiosities are focused on how we can work with communities to use and design technologies that support learning, sharing, and preserving of culture. She deeply values reciprocal and interdependent community research partnerships with mutually beneficial outcomes that further the collective over the individual. She has formal training in multicultural education, game design, education technology, and cross-cultural design. Learn more about Breanne and her work here: https://learnexploredesign.org/breanne

Rebecca Millerjohn is CDIS Commons Director at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After nearly a decade as the youth services librarian with the Bubbler at Madison Public Library, she has transitioned her role to mentor and support the next generation of librarians, computer, and data scientists. Rebecca is a previous six year classroom working in Houston Texas as a Teach For America Corps member and at Gary Comer College Prep on Chicago’s South Side. A 2020 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, her library work focuses on school age programming, educator support, and maker education with MPL's Bubbler program. As the Bubbler’s project manager for their Summer of Making Internship and Making Spaces initiatives, she loves sock monsters, power tools, paper circuits, and bringing people together through making and learning.

Dr. Jessie Nixon is an assistant professor in Teacher Education at Weber State University. Before coming to Weber State, Jessie served as a post-doctoral researcher at Utah State University. Jessie has worked in education in numerous capacities from teaching high school English, providing professional development opportunities as an Education Engagement Specialist at PBS Wisconsin Education, to teaching composition courses at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Jessie's research interests include media literacy, digital composition, youth media production, literacy education, STEM education, and teacher education.

Katherine is currently a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Peter Wardrip at the University of Wisconsin-Madison supporting research and evaluation for partners such as the Madison Children’s Museum, the Rockford Discovery Center Museum, the Caretakers of Wonder, and the tonies company.

Katherine holds a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on how we learn real things through make believe. During her doctoral work, Katherine worked with Dr. Edward M. Hubbard in the Educational Neuroscience Lab in the department of Educational Psychology and with Dr. Erica Halverson in the Community Arts Research Collaboratory (an NEA Research Lab) in the department of Curriculum & Instruction at the UW-Madison.

Emily (she/they) is an educator, scholar, and artist. She is passionate about critical, youth-centered arts education, out-of-school time education, community based learning spaces, and arts as a tool for social change.

Emily is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the department of Curriculum and instruction. Prior to their doctoral work, they worked with youth and adults in out-of-school-time (OST) education spaces in Chicago and Michigan for over a decade. Emily is currently a researcher with the UW Madison Arts Collaboratory (funded by the National Endowment for the Arts) and the CALL for Equity-Centered Leadership (funded by the Wallace foundation).

Caleb Probst is a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, working exclusively on the CALL-ECL project. As a qualitative researcher and curriculum designer, Caleb explores new ways to teach concepts related to equity and social justice. His dissertation research involved developing card games and roleplay activities and studying their use in a high school health class about sexual consent.

Prior to his doctoral studies, Caleb was an elementary and middle school drama teacher in Chicago, and he also worked as the Education Director for a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the problem of gender-based violence.

Nick Rabkin, principal at reMaking Culture, is a consultant, researcher and planner in the arts and arts education. He has been a theater producer, deputy commissioner of cultural affairs for Chicago, the senior program officer for the arts and culture at the MacArthur Foundation, directed the Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College Chicago, and a senior research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago. He has worked on two cultural plans for the City of Chicago and a plan for the arts at Cornell University. He has done evaluation for the Rockefeller and the Irvine Foundation’s arts philanthropy programs. Research projects include the first (and only) national study of teaching artists and an analysis for the NEA of the decline of arts education in US schools. He was the project director for Critique and Metacognition in Art and Design education

Stephanie Richards is the Operations Manager for the UW Community Arts Collaboratory, administering, evaluating, and growing arts outreach programs that empower youth. Stephanie earned her Masters in Public Health from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has served in various community outreach capacities within UW for 10+ years. From Industrial Engineering, leading research and training programs across the country to Public Health, coaching community coalitions to advance health and equity throughout Wisconsin. In her spare time, Stephanie is an aerialist, producer, and fundraiser at the Madison Circus Space.

Kailea is a newly minted PhD who studies student-driven learning through play and creative construction. They conduct research and design learning technology that holistically supports students' cognitive development and well-being in an ever-changing world. Kailea believes so strongly in centering play and creativity in learning that they went right back to school after earning their PhD to study acting. In their view, exploring the epistemological foundations of the performing arts, especially theatre and drama, holds solutions to persistent challenges we face across the field of education. Kailea is intent on surfacing those solutions with an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and practice as an actor, educator, and learning scientist.

Emily Schindler currently works as the Senior Director of Learning and Engagement at the Comic-Con Museum in San Diego, CA.

Schindler is an experienced educator who has worked in K-12 (Literacy), Higher Ed, and Out-of-School Environments. Additionally, she is an educational researcher who works at the intersection of the Learning Sciences, Teacher Education, and Literacies. I am focused on how people learn in interest-driven, innovative contexts. This includes makerspaces, video games, online learning environments, and traditional classrooms that rely heavily on production-centered technologies. I approach my career as an educator as a social activist, and I pursue research and teaching that affirms the dignity of all learners.

Andy Stoiber is a PhD candidate in the department of Curriculum & Instruction at UW-Madison. Andy researches and designs playful, art-based, and AI-infused learning environments, assessments, tools, and curriculum which center learners’ interests and assets as a foundation to build their literacies as readers and writers, their confidence and agency as creators, and their technological fluency with AI–to equip them with the tools and knowledge to navigate and flourish in the 21st century. 

Jonathan Tunstall is an educator, hip hop/spoken word artist, and Assistant Professor of Education at Bowdoin College. Jonathan Tunstall taught 7th/8th grade social studies for eight years in Harlem. During his time as an educator he focused on creating culturally relevant pedagogy through arts integration, specifically using hip hop and spoken word as a counter narrative to the dominant Eurocentric history curriculum.

Dr Rebekah Willett is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has conducted research on children’s media cultures, focusing on issues of play, literacy, identity, and learning. Her publications include work on makerspaces, playground games, amateur camcorder cultures, online gaming, and children’s story writing. She has published in highly ranked peer-reviewed journals in the fields of education, childhood studies, media studies, and library and information science including Children & Society; Convergence;Learning, Media and Technology; Library Quarterly; and Media, Culture & Society. In addition, she has co-authored and/or edited five books and contributed to numerous edited books and encyclopedia projects.

Dr. Peter J Woods is an assistant professor of learning sciences at the University of Nottingham. His work focuses on what and how people learn through creative production, with a particular interest in the role of situated technologies and cultural contexts in that process. Additionally, Woods draws on his ongoing practice as a touring and recording experimental musician in developing emergent research-creation methodologies to support his research. His first book, Learning Through Noise, draws on the dissertation research Halverson advised and will be published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2026.