Dr. Patriann Smith is an author and tenured associate professor at the University of South Florida. Dr. Smith is well known for her research which considers how literacy teaching, research, assessment and policy are influenced by the intersection of race, language and (im)migration. Dr. Smith challenges literacy teaching via monolingual, monocultural, and monoracial norms in classrooms across the globe. She has proposed solutions via her transdisciplinary research such as ‘a transraciolinguistic approach’ and the framework for ‘Black immigrant literacies’.

Associate Professor of Special Education at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). His research includes examining effective strategies for inclusive STEAM education for students with disabilities and improving school/classroom climates for students, families, and teachers. His STEAM scholarship focuses supporting inquiry-based STEAM instruction and using research-based interventions and practices. His school/classroom scholarship emphasizes student/classroom motivation, followership/leadership dynamics, and diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations across educational settings. Prior to working in higher education, Dr. Taylor earned his Bachelor's degree in Special Education from Tuskegee University and his Master's in Collaborative Education and Doctorate of Special Education with an Emphasis in Autism and Emotional/Behavioral Disorders from Auburn University. His instructional experiences have included a variety of settings including juvenile justice, PreK-12 grade schools, and group homes environments. with a variety of students including adults with moderate to severe Intellectual Disabilities and students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Emotional/Behavioral Disorders.

Dr. Kellan E. Baker is the Executive Director of Whitman-Walker Institute, the research, policy, and education arm of Whitman-Walker, which is a community health system in Washington, DC, USA that includes Whitman-Walker Health, a Federally Qualified Health Center. Kellan is a health policy professional and health services researcher with extensive background in health system design, regulatory policy, public health, and government statistics. He is experienced in developing and analyzing health policy, synthesizing and communicating evidence, managing diverse coalitions, and working with government, philanthropy, and other partners to achieve health policy objectives. Kellan is passionate about health equity, LGBTQ health, disability rights, and racial and reproductive justice. He received his PhD in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD, USA, where he was a Health Policy Research Scholar and Centennial Scholar; an MPH in health policy and MA in international development from George Washington University in Washington, DC, USA; and a BA with high honors from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, PA, USA.

I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at Universidad de los Andes and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Global Transformation for UC San Diego. I was an Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) Scholar for the academic year 2021-2022. I work mainly on environmental and development economics. My interests lie primarily in understanding the consequences of environmental change and the challenges governments face in implementing policies in contexts with underlying structural inequalities or weak institutions. I am currently working on the economics of air pollution control and on the impacts of temperature on financial outcomes and hospital management. On the development economics side, I am currently studying gender disparities in labor markets both in Mexico and the United States, as well as women’s health in Tanzania and Mexico. I graduated with a Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from Columbia University in 2021.