Staffulty Board of Trustees Board of Advisors Past Faculty
Staffulty
Yeidikook’áa Dionne Brady-Howard
Indigenous Studies Chair
Yeidikook’áa Dionne Brady-Howard
Yeidikook’áa of the Kiks.ádi clan’s X’aaka Hít (Point House), grew up in Sitka. She was raised by her maternal grandparents, the late Bill and Isabella Brady; her paternal grandparents are Liz Howard and the late Glenn Howard. Her parents are Louise Brady and Glenn Howard. She is the child of the Teikweidí clan and the grandchild of the Kaagwaantaan clan. Dionne graduated from the state-run public boarding school, Mt. Edgecumbe High School, where she has now been teaching since 2000, as well. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Sheldon Jackson College. In addition to spending more than two decades teaching students from all across the state of Alaska, Dionne’s roots in her own culture run deep, having led two local Tlingit dance groups for several years, as well as being the caretaker of her clan’s songs. As a culture bearer, she has volunteered with the middle and high schoolers in the local Native education program, teaching song and dance. Additionally, she has taught the Alaska issues curriculum that is embedded in the US Government course at MEHS, focusing on land claims and tribal government. When she isn’t at work or engaged in one of her numerous volunteer commitments, Dionne loves to sing, dance, watch Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Star Wars, Marvel and drink grande double buzzsaws with way too much cream.
Caroline Daws
Faculty in Ecology, Director of Academic Administration and Advising
Caroline Daws
Caroline is a forest and fungal ecologist, originally from middle Tennessee. She first came to Outer Coast as a visiting faculty member in the 2022 Spring semester and now serves as Faculty in Ecology and Director of Academic Administration and Advising. Prior to coming to Sitka, she was a Lecturer in Civic, Liberal, and Global Education at Stanford University, teaching interdisciplinary courses in the first year requirement. She holds a PhD in Ecology and Evolution with a doctoral minor in Education from Stanford University, and she is an alumna of the University of Tennessee. Her research investigates how symbioses between plants and fungi shape forests and what these relationships can teach us about stewarding ecosystems in the face of global changes. In Southeast Alaska’s temperate rainforests, where Pacific salmon return to their natal streams in immense numbers each year to spawn, she is studying the role fungi play in transferring those marine-derived nutrients into the forest ecosystem. In her teaching, she invites students to harness their own lived experiences to investigate, question, and grow the narratives we learn and tell about humans and the natural world. When she’s not in the lab or in the classroom, Caroline is probably in the kitchen, in the ceramics studio, or outside on foot or on a bike.
Nirali Desai
Dean of Students
Nirali Desai
Nirali comes to Outer Coast with the belief that a holistic education experience encouraging members of the community to engage with their whole and vulnerable self is essential in identifying the urgent ways in which the contemporary world is in crisis. She graduated as one of the founding classes of Yale-NUS College, a liberal arts college in Singapore, and brings her previous work in intercultural engagement, menstrual health and survivor support to her role. In her spare time, Nirali writes, reads and clowns.
Garrett Faulkner
Faculty in Writing and Literature
Garrett Faulkner
Garrett grew up in Salt Lake City on the southern border of the dishonored Fort Bridger Treaty. He writes about the history of labor, political movements, and vernacular music of the American West and of southeastern Kentucky, where much of his family hails from. He has worked as a magazine editor, community reporter, teacher, consultancy scrivener, and network systems tech.
Before arriving to Outer Coast, Garrett taught literature and fiction writing at the University of Alberta, where he served as director of the creative writing and writer-in-residence programs. He holds an MFA from the University of Arizona. In his spare time, he hunts, gardens, backcountry skis, and plays traditional Kentucky banjo and fiddle. He lives in Sitka with archaeologist and Outer Coast faculty member Maggie Spivey-Faulkner, their daughter, and a supremely fluffy cat.
Adam Haar Horowitz
Visiting Research Fellow
Adam Haar Horowitz
Adam Haar works to translate brain science into experiences and interventions, with a focus on sleep and dreams. He is a co-inventor of the Dormio device and Targeted Dream Incubation technique, both tools which help people guide their dream content. At the moment he is building tools for nightmare treatment with psychiatrists at the US Dept of Veterans Affairs, and bridging art and neuroscience in overnight museum installations with artist Carsten Höller. He’s proud to serve on the board of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior, where he works on neuroscience-based prison policy change, and on the planning committee for the Dream Engineering Symposium series focused on scientific ethics and education. Adam got his PhD at MIT working between the MIT Media Lab, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Harvard Medical School. In the rainy season he can be found mushroom foraging, on sunny days hackysacking, and when the cold comes in the woodshop. You can learn more here.
Reyn Hutten
Outreach Lead
Reyn Hutten
Hailing from Wrangell, AK, Reyn is a long-time believer in (and beneficiary of) holistic, community-based, in-situ learning in southeast Alaska. She has focused on community building and education from many angles, including through her B.A. in ecology with a focus on the Arctic at Dartmouth College, as a field program coordinator, and in the most recent past as a ski and sea kayak coach. Reyn finds vibrance in many of life’s little moments but especially when moving her body outside, cooking, tinkering and connecting with people.
Yuki Nagaoka
Operations Lead
Yuki Nagaoka
Yuki Nagaoka, Operations Lead, was born and raised in Fairbanks, AK on Tanana Dene lands. She studied Political Science/International Relations and Japanese language and literature at Carleton College, where she especially valued the opportunities to build and facilitate student-community connections through the school’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement. Although she loves adventures that lead to different cultures, landscapes, and languages, Alaska will always be her home and she comes to Outer Coast with excitement about hands-on, ‘Alaska Grown’ education. Some of her favorite hobbies and side quests include making ceramics, (amateur) birding, swimming, itching mosquito bites, doing anything outdoors, and experimenting with seasonal food and art projects.
Lucas Opgenorth
Service and Academic Support Lead
Lucas Opgenorth
Lucas comes to Outer Coast with an interest in fostering educational environments that blend intellectual engagement with service-oriented labor in ways that strengthen communities and help students grow as individuals. He studied philosophy and literature at Bard College and earned an M.A. in philosophy from Georgia State University. Lucas has experience working with youth from a diverse array of backgrounds and in a variety of educational settings. He has coordinated academic support services and provided college advising at Bard High School Early College Queens in New York City, instructed undergraduates at Georgia State University, and worked with youth in rural Alaskan communities with Camp Fire Alaska. He loves to read and spend time outdoors.
Matthew Spellberg
Dean, Chair of Literature
Matthew Spellberg
Matthew Spellberg has been Dean of Outer Coast since summer 2022, and on faculty since the previous winter. He oversees the school’s academic pillar, and teaches courses in literature, philosophy, and Indigenous oral tradition. He also leads Tlingit language study groups, both at Outer Coast and in Sitka more broadly. He is a longtime (and hopefully lifelong) learner of Tlingit. He writes on the history of dreaming and the imagination; on oral tradition in Native North America and Europe; on Northwest Coast art; and on education and language revitalization. He was co-founder of the Native Cultures of the Americas Seminar at Harvard, and he is the creator of the Dream Parliament, an experimental protocol for reimagining dreams in a communal setting which has been performed throughout the United States and Canada. He’s also proud to serve on the planning committee for the biennial Sharing Our Knowledge Conference in Southeast Alaska. He has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Princeton, and for six years taught in New Jersey prisons with the Princeton University Prison Teaching Initiative. He is an Editor-at-Large at Cabinet Magazine, and was Guest Editor of Cabinet Issue 67, on “Dreams.” Before coming to Outer Coast, he was a Visiting Critic at the Rhode Island School of Design, and a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. More information and a bibliography can be found here.
Maggie Spivey-Faulkner
Social Sciences Chair
Maggie Spivey-Faulkner
Maggie Spivey-Faulkner is the Social Sciences Chair at Outer Coast and a citizen of the Pee Dee Indian Nation of Beaver Creek, a state-recognized Native American group in South Carolina. She was raised on her family compound in Jamestown, Hephzibah, Georgia, an area named for her family, which constitutes thousands of citizens of the area. Maggie is a first-generation scholar, a former National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, and a fellow of The Explorers Club. She is an alumna of Harvard College, Washington University in St. Louis, and the College of the Muscogee Nation. She has previously served as a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and an assistant professor at the University of Alberta.
Maggie is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in Indigenous archaeology. Her work focuses on people who subsisted through hunting, gathering, and fishing in the southeastern United States, looking specifically at examples of peoples who defy popular negative characterizations of their cultural capacities. She is most interested in celebrating Native intellectual achievements through time. Her current projects focus on legal applications of archaeological knowledge, Native sovereignty through archaeology, Native American empiricism, and the intersections of language and archaeology. She lives in Sitka with her husband, Garrett, their baby girl, a cat of questionable feline aptitude, and the pea puffer Tanka.
Bryden Sweeney-Taylor
Executive Director
Bryden Sweeney-Taylor
Bryden is the co-founder and a board member of Matriculate and was formerly the CEO of College Access and Success at America Achieves, where he led Bloomberg Philanthropies’ CollegePoint initiative. Both efforts aim to support high-achieving, lower-income students to apply to, enroll in, and, ultimately, graduate from top-performing colleges and universities across the U.S. Prior to joining America Achieves, he served as Executive Director of African Leadership Foundation, the U.S. foundation supporting African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa and developing the next generation of African leaders. He started his career in education as Chief Operating Officer at Peer Health Exchange, a non-profit organization that trains college students to provide a comprehensive health curriculum in public high schools. He is an alumnus of Deep Springs and Harvard College.
Rachel Thomson
Chief Operating Officer
Rachel Thomson
Rachel brings an eagerness for relationship building and teamwork to Outer Coast. Since joining the team in September 2020, she has primarily supported development at Outer Coast — helping to raise the necessary resources for Outer Coast’s current and future programs. Rachel graduated from Stanford University in 2019 with a degree in human biology and public health. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, storytelling, and taking care of her small collection of indoor plants.
Yeiltʼoochʼ Tláa
Deikee Yantʼiká Auntie, Guest Teacher of Lingít
Yeiltʼoochʼ Tláa
Chʼas x̱át áyá, tléixʼ aa Deikée Yantikʼá aunteeyíx̱ x̱at sitee, daḵkadáx̱.
Iʼm just me, one of the Outer Coast aunties, from inland.
Yee yáx̱, Lingít yoo x̱ʼatángi yaa at naskwéinix̱ x̱at sitee.
Just like all of you, Iʼm a Tlingit language learner.
Yeewháan áwé, xʼéig̱aa kakḵwa.aaḵw yee eedé kḵwadashéeyi, Lingít yoo x̱ʼatángi teen.
I will really try to help all of you with the Tlingit language.
Kei ḵʼagux̱sagóo áwé. It will be fun.
Gunalchéesh Thank you
Will Salaverry
Program Operations Fellow
Will Salaverry
Will Salaverry grew up in the Bay Area, California on Ohlone land. He studied Latin American Studies and Spanish at Yale University with a concentration in Environmental Studies. Will is incredibly excited to work on the student life team at Outer Coast, he has worked with students before and is thrilled to bring those skills to this community. His academic work in college focused on the responses of coastal communities to crises of climate change, over-tourism, ecological degradation, and increasing research constraints. Outer Coast and Sitka more generally are both places that bravely investigate these themes. Will is thrilled to work and learn alongside the wonderful and similarly curious team at Outer Coast.
Isabelle Qian
Outreach Fellow
Isabelle Qian
Isabelle is originally from Seattle, WA. She recently graduated from Yale University, where she majored in History and missed the Pacific Ocean. Isabelle enjoys reading, writing short stories, hiking, and cooking large pots of soup. She is so excited to join Outer Coast and the Sitka community.
Rachel Moreno
Community Life Lead
Rachel Moreno
Rachel is of the Raven moiety and Dog Salmon clan from the Big Dipper house at Auke Bay. She has served on the Sitka Tribe of Alaska’s council for 4 terms, worked at Mt Edgecumbe High School intermittently since 1990, and owned her own businesses. She is a True Colors trainer and a Cultural Heritage trainer. She has 6 children and 10 grandchildren, and was Sitka Woman of the year in 2003 and Sitka Tribe Woman of Distinction in 2009.
Board of Trustees
Carla Beam
University of Alaska
Carla Beam
Carla Beam spent more than 40 years leading and advising Alaska private, public, and nonprofit entities in communications, public affairs, development, and governance. She retired in 2015 from her final position as University of Alaska vice president of university relations and president of the University of Alaska Foundation. She has been a volunteer leader, serving on numerous nonprofit boards. Currently she chairs the Anchorage Museum Association board and serves as a member of the Anchorage Museum Foundation board. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of Reed College.
Jeff Clifford
Heyday Films
Jeff Clifford
Jeff Clifford is President of Heyday Films, David Heyman’s production company based at Warner Bros, which is best known for the HARRY POTTER series. At Heyday, he has served as Producer on THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS and Executive Producer on PADDINGTON and PADDINGTON 2. Prior to Heyday, Clifford oversaw production and development for The Montecito Picture Company, the Paramount-based partnership between Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock, where he produced UP IN THE AIR, among many other films. Prior to Montecito, Clifford was Vice President of Production at Warner Bros and at Walt Disney/Touchstone Pictures. Clifford began his career as an independent producer in New York. He graduated from Yale in 1991. He currently serves as Board President for The Independent School Alliance for Minority Affairs in Los Angeles. He is a founding board member of Outer Coast College.
Christian Correa
Franklin Templeton
Christian Correa
Christian Correa is President and Chief Investment Officer of Franklin Mutual Series, the global equities value investing group at Franklin Templeton. He previously worked at Lehman Brothers and wrote code at SPL Worldgroup. Christian is a member of the board of the All Stars Project of New Jersey, which uses the developmental power of performance to transform the lives of youth from poor and underserved communities. Christian earned a B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics from Claremont McKenna College, an M.A. in economics from Northwestern University and is a graduate of Harvard Law School.
Tukaan Dan
Outer Coast Year Student
Tukaan Dan
Tukaan ‘Ezra’ Dan is Outer Coast’s current OCY 2023-25 student representative on the OC Board of Trustees. Tukaan joined Outer Coast in the spring semester of OCY 2023 after graduating from S.A.V.E. High School in 2019. As the administrative assistant for OC’s 2023 Summer Seminar with First Alaskans Institute, Tukaan was a teacher’s assistant for Yeidikook’áa Dionne Brady-Howard. Tukaan grew up in Anchorage with three older siblings, connecting with his Yup’ik heritage at summer fish camp on Stuart Island near Stebbins, Alaska with his grandma. Tukaan wrote for his school newspaper, Eagle’s Cry, for three years while also working with Alaska Teen Media Institute as a youth radio producer. Some of Tukaan’s interests include doing subsistence activities outdoors, cooking for friends and family, hiking, and kayaking.
Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins
Alaska House of Representatives
Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins
Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (founder) was born and raised in Sitka and represents Southeast Alaska in the Alaska Legislature. During and after his time studying at Yale, Jonathan founded Alaska Fellows Program and Historical Restoration Interns program. Jonathan began to explore creating a new institution of higher education in Sitka summer 2014. In January 2015, he visited Deep Springs, and soon after made the decision to embark on the Outer Coast project.
Louise Davis Langheier
Peer Health Exchange
Louise Davis Langheier
Louise Davis Langheier is the Founder and former-CEO of Peer Health Exchange (PHE), a non-profit organization tasked with giving teenagers the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy decisions. They do this by training college students to teach a comprehensive health curriculum in public high schools that lack health education. Since its founding in 2003, PHE has trained 4,000 college student volunteers to deliver health education to 40,000 low-income public high school students in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Louise has served on the Boards of other missions and organizations she believes in — from Dwight Hall at Yale (Yale’s center for public service and social justice) to Generation Citizen, America Achieves, and the Cow Hollow School. Louise was a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow. Louise lives in San Francisco with her husband, their three boys, and their dog.
Shanik Morales-Tapia
Outer Coast Year Alumnus
Shanik Morales-Tapia
Shanik Morales-Tapia is a member of the Outer Coast Year 2022-2023 Student Body and graduated from John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, CA.
Joe Nelson
Sealaska
Joe Nelson
Joe Nelson (Board Chair) is Chairman of Sealaska, a for-profit Alaska Native Corporation owned by more than 22,000 Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian shareholders. He serves as a director on Spruce Root’s board and ex-officio trustee for Sealaska Heritage Institute. Joe has been a Sealaska director since 2003 and has been board chair since 2014. Joe also serves as a director for Alaska Legal Services. Joe is a Brown Bear (Teikweidí) from Yakutat. He is also a Kwáashk’I kwaan yádi. His Tlingit name is Kaá Ax Gú. Joe grew up commercial fishing and subsistence living in Yakutat. After graduating from Yakutat High School, Joe completed a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a Master’s degree in American Indian Studies from UCLA. He also has a juris doctorate from Loyola Law School. Joe, his wife, Crystal, and children, Job, Nora, and Jude, live in Juneau.
Alana Peterson
Spruce Root
Alana Peterson
Alana Peterson is Executive Director of Spruce Root, a “triple bottom line” economic development corporation in Southeast Alaska. Born and raised in Sitka, Alana is Tlingit — a Raven of the Luknahadi (Coho) clan. She served as a small business development volunteer in the Peace Corps Peru from 2009-2011. Since she has worked in economic development for Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and Sealaska. Alana and her husband, Jose, also own the Backdoor Cafe, a local Sitka institution.
Roger Schmidt
Sitka Fine Arts Camp
Roger Schmidt
Roger Schmidt has been the Executive Director of Sitka Fine Arts Camp (Alaska Arts Southeast, Inc.) since 2000. During this time, the summer program has grown from a two week camp serving 40 adolescent students to a ten week program serving 1,000 students ages five to adult. In 2010, Roger negotiated the donation of the historic Sheldon Jackson School which had closed its doors in 2007. Subsequently, he has overseen the restoration of the campus by harnessing the support of thousands of volunteers and donors. Under Roger’s leadership, the Camp has grown to include a year-long arts advocacy program that offers a performing arts series, a statewide teacher training institute, after school arts classes for all ages, and a vibrant young performer’s theater program. Roger graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory with degrees in philosophy and trombone performance with additional music studies at the Aspen Music Festival, Pierre Monteux School and internationally in London and at the Bruckner Conservatory in Austria.
Derek Schrier
Indaba Capital Management
Derek Schrier
Derek Schrier is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Indaba Capital Management, LP. He previously worked at Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C. and Goldman, Sachs & Co. Derek lived and worked in South Africa between 1992 – 1994 and during that time managed the elections research and polling for the African National Congress’s political campaign during South Africa’s first-ever democratic and non-racial elections in 1994. Derek is a board member of Matriculate, a non-profit organization that expands college access for high-achieving high school students. He serves as Chair of the Advisory Board for the Boston Review, an independent political and literary forum. Derek also is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Councils at Stanford Law School and Princeton University. Previously, he chaired the Board of the African Leadership Foundation and was a trustee and early funder of the African Leadership Academy. Derek is also co-founder, along with his wife, of the Cameron Schrier Foundation. Derek earned an M.B.A. from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He attended Princeton University where he graduated with an A.B. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
Bryden Sweeney-Taylor
Outer Coast
Bryden Sweeney-Taylor
(bio on Current Staffulty page)
Board of Advisors
Carol Bazarsky
Bazarsky Family Foundation
Carol Bazarsky
Carol Bazarsky received her degree in medical communications from Ohio State University and has been involved throughout her career in enhancing education in Newport, RI — serving on numerous boards and committees, including the Newport Public Education Foundation. In addition, Carol is president of a private family foundation whose primary focus is enhancing elementary and secondary education. Carol brought the educational music program “Little Kids Rock” to the Newport Public School System and is working on bringing a literacy program to Newport County. She is currently serving on the strategic planning committee of FabNewport, a fabrication workshop where lab members use innovative technologies and materials to make (almost) anything.
David Bazarsky
Samuel’s Realty Co.
David Bazarsky
David Bazarsky is president of a real estate development company in Newport, RI. After practicing law at Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago he returned to Rhode Island to develop commercial real estate. David has served as board chair of St. Michael’s Country Day School and Child & Family Services of Newport County. He serves on the boards of Salve Regina University (where he teaches Business Law in the MBA program) and a local bank (where he chairs its audit committee). David has also served on the board of Portsmouth Abbey School, Newport Hospital, and the Newport Preservation Society. David holds a B.S. from Boston University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from the University of Miami.
Nicole Borromeo
Alaska Federation of Natives
Nicole Borromeo
Nicole Borromeo is executive vice president and general counsel of Alaska Federation of Natives. A Doyon shareholder, she earned her B.A. from the University of Alaska Anchorage and J.D. from University of Washington School of Law. Prior to joining AFN, she clerked for Judge Patricia Collins (ret.) and worked in the Anchorage office of Sonosky, Chambers, Sasche, Miller & Munson, one the premier Indian law firms in the U.S. Nicole was raised in McGrath, and now resides in Anchorage.
Bruce Botelho
Former Alaska Attorney General
Bruce Botelho
Bruce Botelho served as Alaska Attorney General from 1993 to 2002 and mayor of Juneau for four terms, from 1988-1991, and again from 2003-2012. Bruce was born and raised in Juneau, graduating Juneau Douglas High School and going on to earn his B.A. and J.D. from Willamette University. Bruce’s record of civic service prolific, including serving as president of Alaska Conference of Mayors, director for Alaska Municipal League, trustee to the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, and chair of Conference of Western Attorneys General. Bruce is also an Eagle Scout, and has served as president of Boy Scouts of America’s Southeast Alaska Area Council. Bruce lives in Juneau.
Lisa Busch
Sitka Sound Science Center
Lisa Busch
Lisa Busch began working as the executive director of the Sitka Sound Science Center in 2010. She and Roger Schmidt spearheaded the revitalization of the Sheldon Jackson Campus in the wake of the former Sheldon Jackson College’s sudden closure. Under Lisa’s leadership the Science Center staff has grown from two to 20 and has brought dozens of science educators and researchers to Sitka, most notably through the Scientist in Residency Fellowship and Scientists in the Schools.
Ed Cohen
Carlin Ventures
Ed Cohen
Ed Cohen received his B.A. from Amherst College and J.D. from the University of Virginia. Ed became general counsel at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette at the age of 26. Ed served as President and CEO of the New York State Urban Development Corporation from 1975-1977. He became a partner in McKinsey & Company in 1977, and in 1980 he was recruited to start the organization which became General Atlantic Partners. He was managing partner from 1980-1992 and chairman from 1992-1995. Ed is a founder of the Echoing Green Foundation, New Leaders for New Schools, and the Four Times Foundation. He initiated and funded Dartmouth Medical School’s efforts to promote the effective functioning of the medical school in Pristina, Kosova. He served as President and Chairman of the Manhattan Theatre Club, Co-Chairman of The MacDowell Colony and Chairman of City Year. He currently serves on the Board of America Achieves and New Profit in Boston. Ed is President of Carlin Ventures, Inc. in New York City.
Anne Fadiman
Yale University
Anne Fadiman
Anne Fadiman is an essayist and reporter. A former NOLS instructor, she won a National Book Critics Circle Award for her first book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, and has written a memoir, The Wine Lover’s Daughter, as well as two essay collections, Ex Libris and At Large and At Small. As the Francis Writer in Residence at Yale, Anne teaches nonfiction writing and serves as a mentor to students who are considering careers in writing or editing. In 2012 she received the Brodhead Prize for Teaching Excellence. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Major General Laurie Hummel
National Guard Bureau
Major General Laurie Hummel
Laurie Hummel served as Adjutant General-Alaska and Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs from 2015 to 2018, overseeing 4,100 soldiers and airmen. Laurie started her military career commissioned into the Military Intelligence Corps in 1982 and served 30 years in the Active Component Army in a variety of intelligence assignments, and also served as a consultant to the Defense Intelligence Agency and Woodrow Wilson Center. She deployed on several missions in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, including advising the Afghan National Army’s leaders of the National Military Academy of Afghanistan. MG Hummel holds graduate degrees from the University of Colorado (Ph.D.), Penn State (M.S.), Army War College (M.S.S.), University of Alaska Anchorage (M.Ed.), and a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy, where she has also taught as a professor.
Temp Keller
Templeton Learning
Temp Keller
Temp Keller is a social entrepreneur working to increase student agency and access in K-12 education. He is the Co-founder and CEO of Templeton Learning, founded to leverage the human and financial capital of the Keller Family and build high quality, highly accessible K-12 education models for 21st century learners. Temp also serves as the President of Templeton Academy, a family of independent micro schools with locations in Washington, D.C. and Nashville that exist to revolutionize access to Student agency by nurturing young people from all backgrounds into purposeful adults who use their gifts in a way that brings them joy and serves others. The model affords deeper, purpose-centered, experiential learning though block teaching, core advisory, and using cities as classrooms. A former fifth grade teacher, Temp was the Founder, former President and Chairman of Resources for Indispensable Schools and Educators (RISE), a national nonprofit that worked to recognize and retain effective teachers in public schools serving low-income communities. In 2004 he was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship for “innovative, entrepreneurial solutions to some of the world's most pressing social problems.”
Temp serves on several for-profit and non-profit boards, including TK Capital, the Loomis Chaffee School, Kids Science Labs, Austin Achieve Public Schools and Hillside Early Childhood Center. He also serves on the advisory boards of Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas, Outer Coast, a new two-year institution of higher education in Sitka, Alaska, and the Coalition for College, which works to bolster lower-income, under- resourced, and/or first-generation students success in college and beyond. He received his B.A. in Politics from Princeton University, where he currently serves on the President’s Advisory Council, and his MBA from The University of Chicago. Temp, his wife, Kerry, and their three young children live in Austin, Texas.
L. Jackson Newell
University of Utah; Deep Springs College (Emeritus)
L. Jackson Newell
Jack Newell served as president of Deep Springs College from 1995 to 2004 as well as Dean of Liberal Education at the University of Utah for 16 years, where he built a nationally-celebrated arts and sciences core curriculum required of all undergraduates. Jack’s teaching has been awarded the Hatch Prize for Teaching Excellence. He has been designated a Presidential Teaching Scholar, appointed to the special rank of University Professor, and recognized as the State of Utah’s first Professor of the Year. He has written a number of books, including a history of Deep Springs College and L.L. Nunn. Jack attended Deep Springs College, earned his M.A. in history and theology at Duke University, and earned his Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of universities at Ohio State University.
Brian Rogers
University of Alaska Fairbanks (Emeritus)
Brian Rogers
Brian Rogers was the Chancellor of University of Alaska, Fairbanks from 2008-2015. Before UAF, he was partner and CFO at the consulting firm Information Insights; served as Vice President of Finance for the University of Alaska statewide system; and represented Fairbanks in the Alaska Legislature. Brian holds an M.P.A. in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Richard Shaw
Stanford University
Richard Shaw
Richard Shaw has led Stanford’s undergraduate admissions and financial aid office since 2005. He is a nationally recognized leader in undergraduate admission, combining experience in both private and public institutions. Prior to joining Stanford, Shaw served as dean of admissions and financial aid from 1993 to 2005, director of admissions at the University of Michigan from 1988 to 1993, associate director of admissions and records at the University of California-Berkeley from 1983 to 1988 and in various admission and residence positions at the University of Colorado-Boulder from 1972 to 1981. He is a member of—and has served in leadership positions for—several national admission groups, including the College Board, American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, Consortium on Financing Higher Education and National Association of College Admissions Counselors. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth and a master’s degree in college student personnel, guidance, and counseling from the School of Education at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Shaw served on the Outer Coast Board of Trustees from 2020-2022.
Janelle Vanasse
Mt. Edgecumbe High School
Janelle Vanasse
Janelle Vanasse is superintendent of Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska. As superintendent of Alaska’s premier public boarding school for over 400 rural and Native students since 2016, Janelle has deep background in rural education, previously serving as director of secondary education for the Lower Kuskokwim School District, principal of Bethel Regional High School, and executive director of Yuut Elitnaurviat, a Bethel non-profit that provides vocational training to youth and adults. Before Sitka, Janelle lived in Bethel for over 20 years.
Caroline Daws
Outer Coast Year Spring '22, Fall '23
Katherine Ding
Outer Coast Year Spring '21
Katherine Ding
Katherine was born in Hangzhou, China. She immigrated to Chicago as a child, where she grew up on the south side. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame with degrees in English and philosophy, she fell in love with California and has lived there ever since. She holds a Masters degree in English from UC Irvine and is finishing her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches college writing courses at UC Berkeley and through the Prison University Project at San Quentin. Currently, Katherine is interested in exploring how the essay form can combine critical and personal reflections, and is learning how to use everyday experience as a vehicle for philosophical reflection.
David Egan
Outer Coast Year Fall '20, Fall '21
David Egan
David was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, and has a deep love for the Pacific Northwest. He completed his DPhil in philosophy at the University of Oxford in 2011 and since that time has taught at Oxford, McMaster University, the University of Chicago, and Hunter College (CUNY). David is also a playwright with work professionally produced on both sides of the Atlantic.
Nicholas Gooding
Outer Coast Year Spring '21
Nicholas Gooding
Nicholas received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2019, writing a dissertation on Aristotle’s discussion of love and friendship; since then, he’s been an instructor in philosophy at Berkeley and a visiting professor at Deep Springs College. He’s taught courses on a wide range of philosophical topics, with a particular emphasis on moral and political philosophy. Prior to embarking on his PhD, Nicholas worked in outdoor education, leading high school students on month-long backcountry trips in the Pacific Northwest.
Ḵaagwáaskʼ Ishmael Angaluuk Hope
Summer Seminar ʼ18
Ḵaagwáaskʼ Ishmael Angaluuk Hope
Ḵaagwáaskʼ is an Inupiaq and Tlingit poet, storyteller, actor, and playwright living in Juneau, Alaska with his wife Lily Hope and five children. Notable recent projects include his second poetry collection, Rock Piles Along the Eddy; serving as a lead writer for Kisima Ingitchuna: Never Alone, produced by the Cook Inlet Tribal Council and E-Line Media; and co-directing, with Scott Burton, Lineage, Tlingit Art Across Generations, a documentary on Tlingit art produced by KTOO Public Media.
Adam Haar Horowitz
Outer Coast Year Spring '23
Adam Haar Horowitz
Adam Haar works to translate brain science into experiences and interventions, with a focus on sleep and dreams. He is a co-inventor of the Dormio device and Targeted Dream Incubation technique, both tools which help people guide their dream content. At the moment he is building tools for nightmare treatment with psychiatrists at the US Dept of Veterans Affairs, and bridging art and neuroscience in overnight museum installations with artist Carsten Höller. He’s proud to serve on the board of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior, where he works on neuroscience-based prison policy change, and on the planning committee for the Dream Engineering Symposium series focused on scientific ethics and education. Adam got his PhD at MIT working between the MIT Media Lab, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Harvard Medical School. In the rainy season he can be found mushroom foraging, on sunny days hackysacking, and when the cold comes in the woodshop. You can learn more here.
Barbara Johnson
Summer Seminar '20
Barbara Johnson
Barbara was born to a French mother and an American father in Benin. She grew up in Italy, before moving to Canada and finally Alaska, the place she decided to call home. She now lives in Anchorage within Denai’na Elnena (Dena’ina Country). She is a PhD student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in the Natural Resources and Sustainability program, researching the economics of small water systems in rural Alaska and consulting on applied economics projects. She regularly teaches Intro to Economics courses and has an MSc in Resource and Applied Economics from UAF and a BA in Environmental Studies from McGill University in Canada. Barbara is the co-founder of 49th Rising, an Alaska based non-partisan advocacy group putting a face on the statistics about sexual violence and pushing forward legislation to make Alaska as safe as it is beautiful. In her spare time Barbara likes exploring the outdoors, and her projects this summer include learning to packraft, fish, harvesting plants and berries and working on her dissertation.
Justin Kim
Summer Seminar '23
Justin Kim
Justin Kim received his BA from Yale and his MFA from the American University in Washington, D.C. He currently teaches at Smith College and has previously taught at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Yale, and Deep Springs College, where he served as dean for three years. He has also taught at both the University of Michigan and Cornell branches of the Telluride Summer Association Program. His seminar teaching focuses on the intersection of art and culture, and the reciprocal relationship between art and historical movements. Previous courses include Modernism Through Modern Art, Archetype and Contemporary Art, and Negative Capability in Art and Culture: Romanticism to the Present. A visual artist, his studio practice is based at The Elizabeth Foundation in New York City. He has exhibited in New York and across the Northeast and his work is included in public and private collections.
Lizzie Krontiris
Summer Seminar '21, '22, '23
Lizzie Krontiris
Lizzie Krontiris received her PhD in Political Theory at Yale University in 2019. She wrote her dissertation on Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the common world” and the problem of building shared reality in politics. She is currently a faculty member in the Writing Program at Wellesley College and teaches first-year writing courses on topics including the problem of lying in politics, the purpose and social function of higher education, and the way that work gets valued and shaped by modern capitalism. She has also taught courses for Yale College, the Warrior-Scholar Project, Chicago’s Odyssey Project, and the GCE Lab School in Chicago.
Sol Neely
Summer Seminar '19, '20
Sol Neely
Sol was a citizen of the Cherokee Nation living in the Raven Bioregion of the Pacific Northwest and the traditional homeland of the Tlingit (Lingít Aaní). In 2009, he earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University’s Philosophy & Literature program, where he wrote his dissertation on practices of restorative and critical pedagogy. As an Associate Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Alaska Southeast, he taught courses in cultural studies, literary and critical theory, philosophy, and Critical Indigenous Studies in an interdisciplinary context. He published widely and served on the Editorial Advisory Boards for Public Philosophy Journal and the Criminal Justice and Philosophy book series. In Fall 2012, Dr. Neely started a prison education program in Juneau called The Flying University, which brings university students inside the local prison for mutual and collaborative study. During Summer 2019, while on sabbatical, Dr. Neely traveled the Trail of Tears with his daughter and father as three generations of Cherokee citizens. In 2020, Neeley became Associate Professor of English at Heritage University in Toppenish, Washington. A beloved educator everywhere he worked and a crucial member of the Outer Coast community in its formative years, Sol Neely unexpectedly passed away in 2022.
Jenell Paris
Summer Seminar '19
Jenell Paris
Jenell is a Professor of Anthropology at Messiah College. She earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from American University, with a focus on African American urban life. She teaches at Messiah College, a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, in areas including research methods, gender studies, and cultural anthropology.
Jocelyn Saidenberg
Outer Coast Year Fall '22
Jocelyn Saidenberg
Jocelyn is a writer, performer, and scholar who has taught in a variety of settings including the Prison University Project at San Quentin and UC Berkeley. Her most recent publications include kith & kin and Dead Letter. She is currently working on a collaborative poetic project with LA-based visual artist Cybele Lyle for Kelsey St. Books and a collection of lyric essays—meditations on a poetics of reading and writing, their queer somato-sonic kinship, in ancient and contemporary poetry.
Sanjena Sathian
Outer Coast Year Fall '20
Sanjena Sathian
Sanjena is a novelist. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Prior to Iowa she worked as a reporter in San Francisco and Mumbai. She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, and Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). Her novel Gold Diggers was published in 2021.
Joel Alden Schlosser
Summer Seminar '20, '22, '23
Joel Alden Schlosser
Joel Alden Schlosser is Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science at Bryn Mawr College, where he has been a faculty member since Fall 2014. Prior to that, he held the Julian Steward Chair in the Social Sciences at Deep Springs College, where his teaching was featured in the CNN Documentary Film Ivory Tower (2014). He has published articles and chapters on topics ranging from ancient figures such as Thucydides, Herodotus, and Euripides to contemporary writers such as James Baldwin, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, and Claudia Rankine in journals including Political Theory, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Theory & Event, Law, Culture, and Humanities, and Raritan. His first book, What Would Socrates Do?, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014 and was featured in an interview by Andy Fitch in the Los Angeles Review of Books. His second book, Herodotus in the Anthropocene, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2020. His teaching ranges from classic texts like Plato’s Republic to current figures such as Angela Davis. At Deep Springs, he especially loved teaching Public Speaking, one of only two curricular requirements at the college. At Bryn Mawr, he has enjoyed interdisciplinary collaborative courses (called 360 Clusters) as well as first year writing courses, named for Bryn Mawr’s Nobel Prize recipient, Emily Balch. Joel taught Living a Democratic Life at the 2020 Summer Seminar, How to Do Nothing (co-taught with Lizzie Krontiris) at the 2022 Summer Seminar, and How to Have a Life (co-taught with Lizzie Krontiris) at the 2023 Summer Seminar.
Sharon Schuman
Summer Seminar '18
Sharon Schuman
Sharon earned degrees in English from Stanford (BA) and University of Chicago (PhD) before teaching at Deep Springs College, Willamette University, University of Oregon, and the Michigan TASP. Her publications include articles about Shakespeare, English Poetry, American Literature, and Writing. Since 2015 she has given presentations about her book, Freedom and Dialogue in a Polarized World, in Oregon, California, Sweden, and Italy. Beyond academia, she writes essays for newspapers and magazines in Oregon, and she has an active career as a violinist.
X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell
Summer Seminar ʼ18, ʼ19, ‘20, Lingít MOOC
X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell
X̱ʼunei carries the Tlingit names X̱’unei and Du Aaní Kawdinook, and the Haida name Ḵ’eijáakw. He lives in Juneau with his wife and bilingual children, and is from the Tlingit, Haida, and Yupʼik native nations. He speaks & studies the Tlingit language, and advocates for indigenous language revitalization. He is an AssociateProfessor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast, has a Ph.D. in Hawaiian and Indigenous Language Revitalization from Ka Haka ʻUla o Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, and also is a Northwest Coast Artist, musician, and filmmaker.
Ilegvak Peter Williams
Outer Coast Year Fall '21
Ilegvak Peter Williams
Ilegvak is a Yup’ik culture bearer, artist, designer, filmmaker, and educator based in Sitka, Alaska. His hand-sewn works repurpose skin from self-harvested traditional foods, bridging worlds of Indigenous art, fashion, and subsistence. Ilegvak completed artist residencies at Santa Fe Art Institute and Institute of American Indian Arts and has guest lectured and/or taught skin sewing at Yale University, Stanford University, UCLA, Portland Art Museum, and Alaska State Museum, among others. His art has been shown at museums and galleries across North America.
His presentations at New York Fashion Week and Fashion Week Brooklyn in 2015 and 2016 led to profiles in The Guardian and The New York Times. He co-produced the documentary Harvest: Quyurciq, which received a Native Peoples Action project grant and screened internationally. He was a 2020 Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow and nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant.
Cathryn Klusmeier
Outer Coast Year Spring '24
Cathryn Klusmeier
Cathryn is a writer and fisherman living and working in Sitka, Alaska. She holds a master’s degree in medical anthropology from the University of Oxford, where her work focused on Alzheimer’s and other non-communicable diseases. She also holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Cathryn is the recipient of a 2021 Pushcart Prize, the winner of the 2018 MIT Media Lab’s Resisting Reduction Essay Competition, the winner of the 2018 Crazyhorse Creative Nonfiction Prize, and author in the book Against Reduction: Designing a Human Future with Machines. Cathryn has twice been a notable essay in The Best American Essays series and has received fellowships and recognition from the University of Oxford, the Banff Mountain Film Festival, the Sitka Fellows Artist Residency, Agni Literary Journal, the Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize, Narrative Magazine’s “30 Below 30”contest, Hunger Mountain’s Creative Nonfiction Prize, and the Southampton Review’s Frank McCourt Memoir Prize. In her spare time, Cathryn loves to hike and run. Read more about Cathryn and her work here.
Past Faculty
Caroline Daws
Outer Coast Year Spring '22, Fall '23
Katherine Ding
Outer Coast Year Spring '21
Katherine Ding
Katherine was born in Hangzhou, China. She immigrated to Chicago as a child, where she grew up on the south side. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame with degrees in English and philosophy, she fell in love with California and has lived there ever since. She holds a Masters degree in English from UC Irvine and is finishing her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches college writing courses at UC Berkeley and through the Prison University Project at San Quentin. Currently, Katherine is interested in exploring how the essay form can combine critical and personal reflections, and is learning how to use everyday experience as a vehicle for philosophical reflection.
David Egan
Outer Coast Year Fall '20, Fall '21
David Egan
David was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, and has a deep love for the Pacific Northwest. He completed his DPhil in philosophy at the University of Oxford in 2011 and since that time has taught at Oxford, McMaster University, the University of Chicago, and Hunter College (CUNY). David is also a playwright with work professionally produced on both sides of the Atlantic.
Nicholas Gooding
Outer Coast Year Spring '21
Nicholas Gooding
Nicholas received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2019, writing a dissertation on Aristotle’s discussion of love and friendship; since then, he’s been an instructor in philosophy at Berkeley and a visiting professor at Deep Springs College. He’s taught courses on a wide range of philosophical topics, with a particular emphasis on moral and political philosophy. Prior to embarking on his PhD, Nicholas worked in outdoor education, leading high school students on month-long backcountry trips in the Pacific Northwest.
Ḵaagwáaskʼ Ishmael Angaluuk Hope
Summer Seminar ʼ18
Ḵaagwáaskʼ Ishmael Angaluuk Hope
Ḵaagwáaskʼ is an Inupiaq and Tlingit poet, storyteller, actor, and playwright living in Juneau, Alaska with his wife Lily Hope and five children. Notable recent projects include his second poetry collection, Rock Piles Along the Eddy; serving as a lead writer for Kisima Ingitchuna: Never Alone, produced by the Cook Inlet Tribal Council and E-Line Media; and co-directing, with Scott Burton, Lineage, Tlingit Art Across Generations, a documentary on Tlingit art produced by KTOO Public Media.
Adam Haar Horowitz
Outer Coast Year Spring '23
Adam Haar Horowitz
Adam Haar works to translate brain science into experiences and interventions, with a focus on sleep and dreams. He is a co-inventor of the Dormio device and Targeted Dream Incubation technique, both tools which help people guide their dream content. At the moment he is building tools for nightmare treatment with psychiatrists at the US Dept of Veterans Affairs, and bridging art and neuroscience in overnight museum installations with artist Carsten Höller. He’s proud to serve on the board of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior, where he works on neuroscience-based prison policy change, and on the planning committee for the Dream Engineering Symposium series focused on scientific ethics and education. Adam got his PhD at MIT working between the MIT Media Lab, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Harvard Medical School. In the rainy season he can be found mushroom foraging, on sunny days hackysacking, and when the cold comes in the woodshop. You can learn more here.
Barbara Johnson
Summer Seminar '20
Barbara Johnson
Barbara was born to a French mother and an American father in Benin. She grew up in Italy, before moving to Canada and finally Alaska, the place she decided to call home. She now lives in Anchorage within Denai’na Elnena (Dena’ina Country). She is a PhD student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in the Natural Resources and Sustainability program, researching the economics of small water systems in rural Alaska and consulting on applied economics projects. She regularly teaches Intro to Economics courses and has an MSc in Resource and Applied Economics from UAF and a BA in Environmental Studies from McGill University in Canada. Barbara is the co-founder of 49th Rising, an Alaska based non-partisan advocacy group putting a face on the statistics about sexual violence and pushing forward legislation to make Alaska as safe as it is beautiful. In her spare time Barbara likes exploring the outdoors, and her projects this summer include learning to packraft, fish, harvesting plants and berries and working on her dissertation.
Justin Kim
Summer Seminar '23
Justin Kim
Justin Kim received his BA from Yale and his MFA from the American University in Washington, D.C. He currently teaches at Smith College and has previously taught at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Yale, and Deep Springs College, where he served as dean for three years. He has also taught at both the University of Michigan and Cornell branches of the Telluride Summer Association Program. His seminar teaching focuses on the intersection of art and culture, and the reciprocal relationship between art and historical movements. Previous courses include Modernism Through Modern Art, Archetype and Contemporary Art, and Negative Capability in Art and Culture: Romanticism to the Present. A visual artist, his studio practice is based at The Elizabeth Foundation in New York City. He has exhibited in New York and across the Northeast and his work is included in public and private collections.
Lizzie Krontiris
Summer Seminar '21, '22, '23
Lizzie Krontiris
Lizzie Krontiris received her PhD in Political Theory at Yale University in 2019. She wrote her dissertation on Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the common world” and the problem of building shared reality in politics. She is currently a faculty member in the Writing Program at Wellesley College and teaches first-year writing courses on topics including the problem of lying in politics, the purpose and social function of higher education, and the way that work gets valued and shaped by modern capitalism. She has also taught courses for Yale College, the Warrior-Scholar Project, Chicago’s Odyssey Project, and the GCE Lab School in Chicago.
Sol Neely
Summer Seminar '19, '20
Sol Neely
Sol was a citizen of the Cherokee Nation living in the Raven Bioregion of the Pacific Northwest and the traditional homeland of the Tlingit (Lingít Aaní). In 2009, he earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University’s Philosophy & Literature program, where he wrote his dissertation on practices of restorative and critical pedagogy. As an Associate Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Alaska Southeast, he taught courses in cultural studies, literary and critical theory, philosophy, and Critical Indigenous Studies in an interdisciplinary context. He published widely and served on the Editorial Advisory Boards for Public Philosophy Journal and the Criminal Justice and Philosophy book series. In Fall 2012, Dr. Neely started a prison education program in Juneau called The Flying University, which brings university students inside the local prison for mutual and collaborative study. During Summer 2019, while on sabbatical, Dr. Neely traveled the Trail of Tears with his daughter and father as three generations of Cherokee citizens. In 2020, Neeley became Associate Professor of English at Heritage University in Toppenish, Washington. A beloved educator everywhere he worked and a crucial member of the Outer Coast community in its formative years, Sol Neely unexpectedly passed away in 2022.
Jenell Paris
Summer Seminar '19
Jenell Paris
Jenell is a Professor of Anthropology at Messiah College. She earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from American University, with a focus on African American urban life. She teaches at Messiah College, a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, in areas including research methods, gender studies, and cultural anthropology.
Jocelyn Saidenberg
Outer Coast Year Fall '22
Jocelyn Saidenberg
Jocelyn is a writer, performer, and scholar who has taught in a variety of settings including the Prison University Project at San Quentin and UC Berkeley. Her most recent publications include kith & kin and Dead Letter. She is currently working on a collaborative poetic project with LA-based visual artist Cybele Lyle for Kelsey St. Books and a collection of lyric essays—meditations on a poetics of reading and writing, their queer somato-sonic kinship, in ancient and contemporary poetry.
Sanjena Sathian
Outer Coast Year Fall '20
Sanjena Sathian
Sanjena is a novelist. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Prior to Iowa she worked as a reporter in San Francisco and Mumbai. She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, and Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). Her novel Gold Diggers was published in 2021.
Joel Alden Schlosser
Summer Seminar '20, '22, '23
Joel Alden Schlosser
Joel Alden Schlosser is Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science at Bryn Mawr College, where he has been a faculty member since Fall 2014. Prior to that, he held the Julian Steward Chair in the Social Sciences at Deep Springs College, where his teaching was featured in the CNN Documentary Film Ivory Tower (2014). He has published articles and chapters on topics ranging from ancient figures such as Thucydides, Herodotus, and Euripides to contemporary writers such as James Baldwin, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, and Claudia Rankine in journals including Political Theory, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Theory & Event, Law, Culture, and Humanities, and Raritan. His first book, What Would Socrates Do?, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014 and was featured in an interview by Andy Fitch in the Los Angeles Review of Books. His second book, Herodotus in the Anthropocene, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2020. His teaching ranges from classic texts like Plato’s Republic to current figures such as Angela Davis. At Deep Springs, he especially loved teaching Public Speaking, one of only two curricular requirements at the college. At Bryn Mawr, he has enjoyed interdisciplinary collaborative courses (called 360 Clusters) as well as first year writing courses, named for Bryn Mawr’s Nobel Prize recipient, Emily Balch. Joel taught Living a Democratic Life at the 2020 Summer Seminar, How to Do Nothing (co-taught with Lizzie Krontiris) at the 2022 Summer Seminar, and How to Have a Life (co-taught with Lizzie Krontiris) at the 2023 Summer Seminar.
Sharon Schuman
Summer Seminar '18
Sharon Schuman
Sharon earned degrees in English from Stanford (BA) and University of Chicago (PhD) before teaching at Deep Springs College, Willamette University, University of Oregon, and the Michigan TASP. Her publications include articles about Shakespeare, English Poetry, American Literature, and Writing. Since 2015 she has given presentations about her book, Freedom and Dialogue in a Polarized World, in Oregon, California, Sweden, and Italy. Beyond academia, she writes essays for newspapers and magazines in Oregon, and she has an active career as a violinist.
X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell
Summer Seminar ʼ18, ʼ19, ‘20, Lingít MOOC
X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell
X̱ʼunei carries the Tlingit names X̱’unei and Du Aaní Kawdinook, and the Haida name Ḵ’eijáakw. He lives in Juneau with his wife and bilingual children, and is from the Tlingit, Haida, and Yupʼik native nations. He speaks & studies the Tlingit language, and advocates for indigenous language revitalization. He is an AssociateProfessor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast, has a Ph.D. in Hawaiian and Indigenous Language Revitalization from Ka Haka ʻUla o Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, and also is a Northwest Coast Artist, musician, and filmmaker.
Ilegvak Peter Williams
Outer Coast Year Fall '21
Ilegvak Peter Williams
Ilegvak is a Yup’ik culture bearer, artist, designer, filmmaker, and educator based in Sitka, Alaska. His hand-sewn works repurpose skin from self-harvested traditional foods, bridging worlds of Indigenous art, fashion, and subsistence. Ilegvak completed artist residencies at Santa Fe Art Institute and Institute of American Indian Arts and has guest lectured and/or taught skin sewing at Yale University, Stanford University, UCLA, Portland Art Museum, and Alaska State Museum, among others. His art has been shown at museums and galleries across North America.
His presentations at New York Fashion Week and Fashion Week Brooklyn in 2015 and 2016 led to profiles in The Guardian and The New York Times. He co-produced the documentary Harvest: Quyurciq, which received a Native Peoples Action project grant and screened internationally. He was a 2020 Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow and nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant.
Cathryn Klusmeier
Outer Coast Year Spring '24
Cathryn Klusmeier
Cathryn is a writer and fisherman living and working in Sitka, Alaska. She holds a master’s degree in medical anthropology from the University of Oxford, where her work focused on Alzheimer’s and other non-communicable diseases. She also holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Cathryn is the recipient of a 2021 Pushcart Prize, the winner of the 2018 MIT Media Lab’s Resisting Reduction Essay Competition, the winner of the 2018 Crazyhorse Creative Nonfiction Prize, and author in the book Against Reduction: Designing a Human Future with Machines. Cathryn has twice been a notable essay in The Best American Essays series and has received fellowships and recognition from the University of Oxford, the Banff Mountain Film Festival, the Sitka Fellows Artist Residency, Agni Literary Journal, the Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize, Narrative Magazine’s “30 Below 30”contest, Hunger Mountain’s Creative Nonfiction Prize, and the Southampton Review’s Frank McCourt Memoir Prize. In her spare time, Cathryn loves to hike and run. Read more about Cathryn and her work here.