WOHESC

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray works at the intersection of social justice and climate emotions in service of climate justice, especially in Gen Z. She is the author of two books, The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture (Arizona, 2013), on the political emotion of disgust in environmental thought, and A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet (California, 2020), an existential toolkit for the climate generation. Her most recent edited book brings together 30 scholars, activists, teachers, and students who explore climate emotions in higher-ed teaching and learning-- The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World came out in 2024. Ray is interviewed and has published widely on emotions and climate justice in the LA Times, Scientific American, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Edge Effects, KCET, and Zocalo Public Square. Ray is also a certified mindfulness teacher through the UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center.

Judy Bluehorse Skelton has worked with federal and state Indian Education programs throughout the Northwest for 18 years, creating cultural activities focusing on traditional and contemporary uses of native plants for food, medicine, ceremony, and healthy lifeways. Judy is author of six collections of essays for teachers, including Native America: A Sustainable Culture (1999), and Lewis & Clark Through Native American Eyes (2003); she wrote and recorded 24 segments on Health & Healing and Sacred Landscapes for Wisdom of the Elders radio programs, airing on Public Broadcasting and AIROS (American Indian Radio on Satellite). As Senior Instructor, Judy is full-time faculty in Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University, teaching Intro to Native American Studies, Environmental Sustainability – Indigenous Practices, Indigenous Gardens & Food Justice, and Indigenous Women Leaders.

Nineteen-year-old Brianna Fruean has not let age be a deterrent when it comes to advocating for climate change issues in her native Samoa and the wider Pacific. In fact, her youth has served as an advantage when speaking to her peers about the need to take urgent action on an issue that looms large in their lives In addition, she’s emerged as a voice of Pacific youth on climate change, speaking on behalf of the region’s young people at international summits. At 11, Brianna became a founding member of the grassroots climate change movement 350.Samoa and leader of the environmental group “Future Rush”, which have rallied youth and communities alike in Samoa and the wider Pacific region to tackle climate change and embrace sustainable development.

Thea Prieto is the author of From the Caves, which won the Red Hen Press Novella Award, the First Horizon Award, and the INDIES Book of the Year Award for Literature. Her writing has appeared in Poets & Writers, The Kenyon Review, Longreads, Seneca Review, CRAFT Literary Magazine, and New Orleans Review, among other journals, and she edited Stranged Writing: A Literary Taxonomy, which is a multimedia anthology of defamiliarized creative writing. She teaches creative writing and publishing at Portland State University and Portland Community College, and she also prunes orchards seasonally in Northern California.

Sarah Stoeckl, PhD, is program manager in the Office of Sustainability at the University of Oregon. Her work at the UO focuses on campus and community outreach, including support for sustainability in research, curriculum, co-curricular activities and student programming, and community engagements. She also supports the office's communications strategy and content creation that tells the university's sustainability story, and development of sustainability policy and plans. Before starting this position in 2018, she worked in technology and education. Sarah earned her PhD in literature from the UO in 2012.