Dr. OreOluwa Badaki (Dr. O) is a Research Scholar at the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work examines how power moves through bodies and spaces within food and land systems. As a writer, movement practitioner, researcher and educator, Dr. O works with youth and their communities to explore food and environmental justice through the creative and performing arts. She started BEL to build on the many conversations with students, community members, and colleagues invested in more embodied environmental and ecological learning, and is grateful to be able to grow in community with those at the center of this work.

Andreia Davies is passionate about using arts and culture as a catalyst for social change. With years of experience in community-driven education, she is dedicated to creating spaces where people can connect, learn, and grow together. Now pursuing a Master’s at Teachers College, Columbia University, Andreia’s work focuses on how education can foster sustainable futures, particularly within traditional communities in South America, with a special emphasis on Brazil. She is deeply interested in the ways ecoagriculture and social movements intersect with education, and how arts and culture can inspire inclusive, transformative learning.

Niambi Murray is a classroom educator from progressive and traditional school settings. Her teaching also includes African diasporic and social dance throughout NY, NJ and Maryland. Prior to her career in education she worked on policies related to social justice in the state of Maryland. Curating a means for environmental justice through cultural arts integrated within educational systems is among the primary goals of her work. Her deepening of interest led her to take “The Body as (Con)text during her graduate studies at Teachers College Columbia University from this journey she excitedly joined BEL.

Tatiana Vasquez is a masters student in the Clinical Psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. With a background in biotechnology, she hopes to combine her research interests of the interaction between environment and biology in her own research one day. As a Lab Assistant, her primary focus is on the logistics and support of this lab.

Asstan Cisse is a third-year student at Barnard College of Columbia University, majoring in biological sciences and minoring in education with a focus on environmental education. Before college, she was part of the Food Justice Writing Group led by Dr. O at the Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram's Garden. There, she met Dr. O, sparking a mentorship that inspired numerous writing projects exploring creative writing in the context of environmental activism and education. Together, they were finalists in the Writing Climate Pitchfest in Hollywood, California, with a TV script about a young girl's journey to save her home through environmental activism. Asstan's introduction to BEL was shaped by her creative writing background and her passion for bridging biological sciences with the social humanities. She is a young researcher driven by curiosity about the future of science and education.

Natacha Robert is an educator, activist and artist. Currently, she is a doctoral student at Teachers College Columbia University in the department of curriculum and teaching. Her research focuses on African-centered education with additional research interest in culturally relevant education and decolonization. She is the founder of Elimu for Liberation, an African centered educational company that provides resources to parents and teachers to help them teach African descended youth about their history. As an activist she has worked with various community organizations toward uplifting African descended people. Currently she works to help free political prisoners as a member of the North East Political Prisoner Coalition. As an artist she writes poetry and creates visual and digital artwork. For her dissertation work, she plans to examine the collaborative curriculum practices between independent African centered schools and families and plans to incorporate the arts into her dissertation.

Tenzin Lee is investigating/wayfinding how the story of land is inscribed generationally in our spirituality, body, speech, and mind and how the becoming of relationship to the land regenerates into medicine. Her interests and research have included postmaterial science of spirituality, nonlocal consciousness, distant intention, and sacred spaces; colonial mentality, neurodecolonization, and cultural healing; nature and forest therapy; indigenous Buddhist psychology and Tibetan medicine; ancestral mapping; decolonial psychological science; and cultural and spiritual practices for mental health. Their interbeing with land pedagogy in understanding the body led to Dr. O’s course The Body as (Con)text and BEL. Tenzin is grateful for learning from and with the BEL community that is guided by wisdom and compassion. She is planning to apply for a Doctorate program in Counseling Psychology.

Katie Garcia is an artist and Spirituality, Theater, and SEL Integration specialist. She started participating in BEL in the Summer of 2024 after taking Dr. O’s course at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her interest in the lab came through her desire to develop an ecological theater workshop where theater can serve as a medium to explore and reimagine our relationship with the land, fostering a more profound, embodied understanding of this connection. Currently, her biggest participation in the lab revolves around Brazil’s project, her home country, and how she can bridge the connection between her journey as an educator in the US and Brazil.

After close to two decades working at the intersection of performing arts and social justice as theater teacher with the New York City Department of Education, Sasha began her studies as a doctoral student with the Education and Anthropology program at Teachers College, Columbia University in 2022. Sasha’s work with BEL engages in research centering collaboration amongst teachers and inquiry grounded in decolonizing theory which is embodied and understood as more than intellectual notion. Her doctoral project focuses on the ways that embodied processes and alteration in place and location are impacted by the political economies or power dynamics within eras of globalization and virtual education. She is currently ethnographically exploring pedagogies and meaning associated with Afro Cuban Folkloric dance as it moves between religious ritual in Cuba to public dance studio in New York City. Eventually she hopes to expand her research scope to the burgeoning globalized market of virtual dance education platforms in order to get a sense of the impact that on-line learning has on educative practices that center the body and place.

Stella is a second-year master's student in the Spirituality, Mind, and Body psychology program at TC. Their special interests intersect aesthetics, education, moral philosophy, and depth psychology through spiritual pedagogies and perspectives for mind-body-spirit integration. Their goal is to foster transreligious and transpersonal approaches to international conflict resolution and peacebuilding.