Contributors

William Damon is Professor of Education at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on life-span human development and author of The Path to Purpose. Damon is a member of the National Academy of Education and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His new book (August 2021) is A Round of Golf with my Father: The New Psychology of Exploring your Past to Make Peace with the Present.

Matthew DelSesto is a founder, coordinator and instructor of the Inside-Out Program and doctoral candidate in Sociology at Boston College. He has worked in prison and jail based educational programs for the last twelve years. Matthew holds an M.A. in Theories of Urban Practice from Parsons School of Design and an M.A. in Sociology from Boston College. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, The Hearst Foundations, and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice.  He received the 2021 Robert Dentler Award for Outstanding Achievement in Public Sociology and Sociological Practice from the American Sociological Association. 

Mark Freeman is Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Department of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross.  His writings include Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative; Finding the Muse: A Sociopsychological Inquiry into the Conditions of Artistic Creativity; Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward; The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self; and, most recently Do I Look at You with Love? Reimagining the Story of Dementia. Recipient of the 2010 Theodore R. Sarbin Award from the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology as well as the 2021 Joseph B. Gittler Award from the American Psychological Foundation, Freeman is also a Fellow in the American Psychological Association and serves as editor for the Oxford University Press book series Explorations in Narrative Psychology.

Howard Gardner is the Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has studied and written extensively about intelligence, creativity, leadership, and professional ethics, and is senior director of Project Zero and co-founder of The Good Project. Gardner’s intellectual memoir, A Synthesizing Mind, was published in 2020 by MIT Press. He recently completed a national study of higher education with Wendy Fischman, The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be (MIT Press).

Kenneth J. Gergen is a senior research professor in Psychology at Swarthmore College, and president of the Taos Institute. He is internationally known for his contributions to social constructionist theory, technology and cultural change, the self, and relational practices. His major writings include Realities and Relationships: Soundings in Social Construction, The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, and Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. Gergen lectures throughout the world, and has received numerous awards for his work, including honorary degrees in both the U.S. and Europe.

Suzanne R. Kirschner is a professor emerita of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross, where she taught cultural psychology, the history and philosophy of psychology, and personality psychology. She received a doctorate from Harvard University, where she also taught and has held appointments in the departments of Social Medicine and the History of Science. Her books and articles explore how psychology and its sociocultural contexts influence and shape each other.  Recent publications include “The Oversocialized Conception of the Subject: Desire, Conflict, and the Problem of Social order” (Theory & Psychology, 30th anniversary issue, 2020) and “Subjectivity” [in Slife et al. [eds.], Routledge International Handbook of Theoretical & Philosophical Psychology, 2022). Currently, she is writing a book that integrates insights from psychological anthropology, social theory, and literary theory to develop more sophisticated psychological approaches to the study of human experience and activity.

Megan Jane Laverty Ph.D. is associate professor of Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She teaches graduate courses on ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of education. Her primary research interests are moral philosophy in its relation to education and philosophy for/with children and adolescents. Laverty has published numerous articles and is the author of Iris Murdoch’s Ethics: A Consideration of her Romantic Vision (Bloomsbury, 2007). She co-edits the Philosophy for Children Founders Series (Routledge) with Maughn Rollins Gregory, which includes Gareth B. Matthews, The Child’s Philosopher (2022). She is also co-editor of a book series Philosophies of Education in Art, Cinema, and Literature, published by Bloomsbury Academic.

Marina McCoy is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. She is the author of the books Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2013), and Image and Argument in Plato’s Republic (SUNY, 2020). Her interests range from rhetorical and literary aspects of ancient philosophy to ethics and the philosophy of mass incarceration. She is interested in the figure of Socrates, Socratic self-knowledge, and human limits. 

Dr. Alexandra Michel is a professor, author, and consultant with ivy-league academic training (Wharton Ph.D.) and practical experience in leading organizations in the US and abroad. Her research has advanced scholarship and practice. It is published in the organizational discipline’s leading outlets and is taught to other scholars in top Ph.D. programs. She serves on the editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Science. Her ideas have informed the practice of important business leaders and organizations. For example, she has worked with the Chief of Staff of Goldman Sachs to help the firm devise a new approach to executive education. Her clients include senior executives and organizations across such industries as banking, consulting, technology, business services, manufacturing, entertainment, healthcare, and education. Dr. Michel’s work has been featured in media outlets including CNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg TV, and NPR, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, MSNBC, TIME, New York magazine, Los Angeles Times, Forbes and other press in the US, China, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Romania, Argentina, and Brazil.

Constantine V. Nakassis is an associate professor of Anthropology and of the Social Sciences and associate faculty of Cinema & Media Studies and Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. He is a linguistic anthropologist with interests in semiotics; film theory; mass media; brands; and youth culture. His regional focus is Tamil Nadu, India. He is currently working on a book about Tamil cinema, entitled Onscreen/Offscreen (University of Toronto Press). He organizes the annual Chicago Tamil Forum workshop and chairs the Committee on Southern Asian Studies (2020-2023).

Gabrielle Oliveira’s research focuses on immigration and mobility — on how people move, adapt, and parent across borders. Her expertise includes gender, anthropology, transnationalism across the Americas. Merging the fields of anthropology and education through ethnographic work in multiple countries, Oliveira also studies the educational trajectories of immigrant children. She is the author of Motherhood Across Borders: Immigrants and their Children in Mexico and in New York City (NYU Press). The book has won the inaugural Erickson and Hornberger Book Award by the University of Pennsylvania's Ethnography Forum and the award for book of the year by the Council of Anthropology and Education. 

Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, Oliveira received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. Oliveira has been engaged in studying Brazilian migration to Massachusetts and has extensively focused on how immigrant children and families navigate newfound educational systems amid a global pandemic. She has worked closely with teachers in dual language programs whose students are Brazilian working to understand what the constraints are in educational practices in and out of classrooms.

Dr. R. Keith Sawyer, a professor of education at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, studies creativity, learning, and collaboration. After receiving his computer science degree from MIT, he designed video games for Atari and was a principal at Kenan Systems Corporation, where he worked as a management consultant on innovation technologies for clients such as Citicorp, AT&T, and U.S. West. Since receiving his Ph.D., he dedicated his career to research on creativity, collaboration, and learning. A jazz pianist for more than 40 years, Dr. Sawyer lectures to corporations, associations, and universities around the world on creativity and innovation. He has published 17 books and more than 120 scientific articles and his research has been featured on CNN, Fox News, TIME, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and other media. 

David Sellers is a human services professional, musician and writer.  One of six children, he was born in the small town of Beacon, New York, and he had his first encounter with the criminal justice system at the age of 15.  Through decades of experience with police and prisons since then he has seen first-hand some of the systemic problems with the US criminal justice system.  These experiences also sparked his life-long study of human development and psychology, which have led him to better understand his own behavior and others. Sellers has also consulted as a legal researcher and advocate, and he was previously assistant director of the spiritual recovery programs, Strong Tower and Resurrection House. Sellers aims to use his personal experiences with the criminal justice system to help others advance educational, psychosocial and humanistic interventions.

Dr. Anna Stetsenko is a professor in Psychology and Urban Education Ph.D. Programs at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (with previous work experiences in Russia, Germany and Switzerland). Her research is situated at the intersection of human development, philosophy, and education focusing on agency and social transformation. Rooted in Marxism and its extension in Vygotsky's project, her work advances this project and brings out its political-critical edge while connecting to contemporary critical approaches. Her work has culminated in the Transformative Activist Stance approach with implications for research and what she terms a "pedagogy of daring." This is reflected in The Transformative Mind: Expanding Vygotsky’s Approach to Development and Education (Cambridge University Press, 2017). She is widely published in English and Russian, and in translations into German, Italian and Portuguese.

Andrea Vicini, S.J. is Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics and Professor of Moral Theology in the Boston College Theology Department. Alumnus of Boston College (S.T.L. and Ph.D.), M.D. and pediatrician (University of Bologna), he also holds an S.T.D. (Pontifical Faculty of Theology of Southern Italy, Naples). He taught in Italy, Albania, Mexico, Chad, and France. He is co-chair of the international network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, lecturer, and member of associations of moral theologians and bioethicists in Italy, Europe, and the U.S. His research interests include theological bioethics, genetics, global public health, biotechnologies, environmental issues, and fundamental theological ethics. He authored Genetica Umana e Bene Comune (2008) and co-edited Ethics of Global Public Health: Climate Change, Pollution, and the Health of the Poor (2021); Reimagining the Moral Life: On Lisa Sowle Cahill’s Contributions to Christian Ethics (2020); Building Bridges in Sarajevo: The Plenary Papers of CTEWC 2018 (2019); and Just Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction (2015).

Ellen Winner is a professor emerita of psychology at Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has written more than 200 articles and is author of five books: An Uneasy Guest in the Schoolhouse: Art Education From Colonial Times to a Promising Future (2021); Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts (1982); The Point of Words: Children's Understanding of Metaphor and Irony (1988); Gifted Children: Myths and Realities (1996); How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration (2018). She co-authored three books: Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2007), Studio Thinking 2: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2013); Studio Thinking from the Start: The K-8 Art Educator's Handbook. 

She has served as president of APA's Division 10, Psychology and the Arts in 1995-1996, and received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Research by a Senior Scholar in Psychology and the Arts from Division 10 in 2000. She is a fellow of APA Division 10 and of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics. ​

René V. Arcilla is professor of philosophy of education at New York University.  He is the author of numerous articles and of the books For the Love of Perfection: Richard Rorty and Liberal Education; Mediumism: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Modernism for Existential Learning; and Wim Wenders’s Road Movie Philosophy: Education without Learning.  His scholarly and teaching interests include existentialism, modernism, and liberal education.  He has served as president of the Philosophy of Education Society and is currently co-editor of a book series published by Bloomsbury Academic entitled Philosophies of Education in Art, Cinema, and Literature.

Gregory Fried is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Boston University, and California State University LA, and Suffolk University. His research focuses on defending the liberal-democratic tradition against its critics, most particularly Martin Heidegger. Fried is also director of The Mirror of Race Project (mirrorofrace.org) exploring the meaning of race in America’s history, and he served as an executive producer for the documentary film "Before the Trees Was Strange," directed by Derek Burrows. He is the author of Heidegger’s Polemos: From Being to Politics. Together with his father, Charles Fried, he is the author of Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror. His most recent book is Towards a Polemical Ethics: between Plato and Heidegger.

Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. Prior to joining the faculty at Boston College, he was the Mellon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, and held visiting appointments or fellowships at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. A specialist on the political philosophy of the Enlightenment period, he is the author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge, 2009) and Love's Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge, 2017), and Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life (Princeton, 2019).  His most recent projects include The Political Philosophy of Fénelon, and a companion translation volume, Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings (Oxford).

Rebecca Lowenhaupt is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. A former middle-school teacher and current parent of two middle-schoolers, she teaches aspiring school and district leaders about teacher supervision, organizational theory, and research methods. Drawing on multiple methods of empirical research, her research investigates educational leadership and policy in the context of immigration with a focus on new immigrant destinations. Her scholarship has appeared in several academic journals, including the American Education Research Journal, Leadership and Policy in Schools, and the Journal of Educational Administration. She has received funding for her research from the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and the National Science Foundation. She has co-authored several books including Navigating the Principalship: Key Insights for New and Aspiring School Leaders and Parenting in the Pandemic: The Collision of School, Work, and Life at Home.

Usha Tummala-Narra, Ph.D. is a research professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Director of Community-Based Education at the Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute at Boston University. She is also in Independent Practice in Cambridge, MA. Her research and scholarship focus on immigration, trauma, race, and cultural competence and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She has served as the chair of the Multicultural Concerns Committee and Member-at-Large on the Board of Directors in American Psychological Association Division 39 (Psychoanalysis), and as a member of the APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs, the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration, and the APA Task Force on Revising the Multicultural Guidelines. Dr. Tummala-Narra is an Associate Editor of the Asian American Journal of Psychology, Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and Senior Psychotherapy Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and with APA Division 39 and Division 45. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy, published by APA (American Psychological Association) Books in 2016. Her edited book, Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance, was published by APA Books.