Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney Dr Emiliana Tonini is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Youth Mental Health and Technology team at the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney. She received a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 2016, a Master of Science in Neuroscience in 2018, and a PhD in Neuroscience in 2023. Her doctoral work focused on investigating the associations between environmental risk factors for psychosis, genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia, and neural correlates of schizotypy in a population including individuals on the psychosis spectrum. Her work focuses on sleep-wake cycles and circadian rhythms in the context of emerging mood disorders in adolescence.
Reader in Psychology, University of the West of Scotland I am an environmental psychologist specialising in the role of the learning environment in the educational process and environmental design within healthcare and work environments. Recent projects have focused on dementia-friendly design in care homes and identifying and evaluating the impact of new school buildings on students and teachers
Assistant Professor of Instruction, University of South Florida Dr. Emily P. Courtney is an assistant professor and social psychologist at the University of South Florida. Her research program employs an existential perspective on contributors and impediments to health and well-being, with added considerations for individual, cultural, and gender-based differences. Primarily, Dr. Courtney uses terror management theory to investigate issues related to deadly disease, breast cancer, health communications, and value salience.
Professor of Practice of Climate Security, National Defense University I am a Professor of Practice at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University, where I focus on climate security and the reintegration of formerly armed actors (FAAs), such as military veterans, ex-guerrillas, former cartel members, and ex-insurgents. I also serve as the President and Chair of the Corioli Institute, hold a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship at the London School of Economics and Political Science, am an Affiliated Faculty member at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and the Lead Researcher at the University of Chicago’s Office for Military Affiliated Communities (OMAC). As a political anthropologist, I have published and been interviewed in a wide range of academic peer-reviewed, popular, and practitioner forums across more than 20 countries. I have additionally consulted regularly with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) since 2016 in the Latin American, Arab, and African regions on climate security, migration, and reintegration. I earned my Doctorate and Master’s degrees in Comparative Human Development from The University of Chicago, an MBA from Simmons College, and have completed several Executive Certificates in Climate Change, Leadership and Leading Change (Harvard Kennedy School), and Conflict and Fragility Management (Geneva Graduate Institute).
Living Earth Collaborative Postdoctoral Fellow, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis I am a Living Earth Collaborative postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis working with Dr. Jonathan Losos and a former National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow. My postdoctoral research focuses on the impacts of urbanization and environmental racism in Eastern Gray Squirrels. I received a PhD in Biological Sciences from Fordham University in New York City, where I worked in the Munshi-South lab. My PhD work, on how urbanization affected the evolution of feral pigeons in the Northeastern Megacity (Boston, MA to Washington, DC), was featured on Saturday Night Live and led The New York Times to refer to me as the “Pigeon Stalker”. In addition to my dissertation research, I am a co-founder and editor of the urban evolution blog Life in the City: Evolution in an Urbanizing World.
Assistant Professor of Spanish World Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Auburn University Ezekiel Stear teaches Spanish and Colonial Latin American Literature at Auburn University and researches Indigenous texts from colonial Mesoamerica and the Andes. His book, Nahua Horizons: Writing, Persuasion, and Futurities in Colonial Mexico (University of Arizona Press, 2025) examines the key roles the Nahua texts from Central Mexico have played in shaping culture. His articles and book chapters similarly question the notion that the Spanish erased Native cultures in the Americas.
