Dear Human at Future's Edge: Science, Creativity and Climate Futures | Biographies

"Dear Human at Future’s Edge: Science, Creativity and Climate Futures" is a conference focused on the intersection of climate science, art and ecopoetry. The program will celebrate two recent companion publications: the Fifth National Climate Assessment report, the U.S. Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses, and Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States from palomapress.org

View the full conference program.

Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Banatao Auditorium at 310 Sutardja Dai Hall, Berkeley, CA

SPONSORS

Presented by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative. Co-sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry and the Berkeley Climate Change Network (BCCN).

ADMISSION INFORMATION

Register in advance

Banatao Auditorium, 310 Sutardja Dai Hall is wheelchair accessible. Please view this website for more details about accessing the Banatao Auditorium. If you require an accommodation for effective communication or information about campus mobility access features to fully participate in this event, please contact Tiff Dressen at tddressen@berkeley.edu.

BIOGRAPHIES

Headshot of Aileen Cassinetto, a Filipino and American poet. She is smiling. She has straight, long dark brown hair, a light almond skin tone, and dark brown eyes. She is wearing a black collarless shirt.

Aileen Cassinetto

Aileen Cassinetto co-edited, with Luisa A. Igloria and Jeremy S. Hoffman, the award-winning anthology, Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States. She co-presented the anthology and microsite at the 2023 American Geophysical Union's Annual Meeting, and at Exploratorium After Dark co-sponsored by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. She is a 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and 2023 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 honoree for her contributions in building regenerative and equitable communities through the arts. You can find more about her at aileencassinetto.com.

Headshot of Shreya Chaudhuri, an Indian American student at UC Berkeley. She is outside and smiling. She has long, straight black hair and a light brown skin tone. She is wearing a multi-colored collarless blouse.

Shreya Chaudhuri

Shreya Chaudhuri is a third-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, majoring in Environmental Science and Geography and minoring in Global Poverty & Practice and Data Science. Her family is from India, so she grew up seeing the inequity in environmental impacts, which motivated her to become involved in the environmental space from a young age. She's passionate about supporting Indigenous sovereignty across the world, studying the revival of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and building equitable climate solutions. She runs a 501c(3) non-profit called Project Planet that is about creating decolonial environmental content. One of their main projects is a course called Decolonizing Environmentalism, which is offered to students at Berkeley. She also works part-time as a Climate Action Fellow at the Student Environmental Resource Center, where she builds projects on student engagement and equity within UC Climate Policy. On campus, she's involved with the Students of Color Environmental Collective and a Conservation+Tech Fellowship. Her experience and current work lies in the intersection of scientific research, policy, education, and advocacy to approach climate solutions.

Candid photo of Tiff Dressen. They are at the edge of a rocky beach and smiling. They have short dark brown hair and a pale skin tone. They are wearing glasses and fresh kelp around their shoulders like a scarf and a blue t-shirt.

Tiff Dressen

Tiff Dressen is a Project Policy Analyst in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at UC Berkeley. Their latest book of poetry entitled Of Mineral was published by Nightboat Books in 2022. Songs from the Astral Bestiary (lyric& Press, 2014) is their first full-length collection of poetry. They enjoy typesetting and letterpress printing at the San Francisco Center for the Book.

Selfie of C.S. Giscombe, a Black American poet. He is outdoors and smiling. He has a long salt-and-pepper beard and a light brown skin tone. He is wearing a blue helmet and blue bike-riding shirt. The scenery in the background is beautiful.

C. S. Giscombe

C. S. Giscombe teaches at the University of California’s Berkeley campus, where he is the Robert Hass Chair in English.  His prose and poetry books include Negro Mountain, Prairie Style, Ohio Railroads (“a long poem in the form of an essay”), Similarly (selected poetry and new work), Border Towns, etc. In progress are Railroad Sense and Medicine Book.  He is a long-distance cyclist.

Headshot of David Hassler. He is outdoors and smiling. He has a short salt-and-pepper beard, short gray hair, and a light, tanned skin tone. He is wearing eyeglasses and a white collared shirt. He is under the canopy of green trees.

David Hassler

David Hassler is the Bob and Walt Wick Executive Director of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University, co-developer of the Dear Human microsite (https://dearhuman.poetsforscience.org), and the author or editor of ten books of poetry and nonfiction. He co-founded Traveling Stanzas, a community arts project which brings poetry to the most urgent and evolving needs of our communities through expressive writing interventions, interactive exhibits, and digital platforms. In 2017, he collaborated with poet Jane Hirshfield to create the Poets for Science project and interactive exhibit which travels to universities, museums, and conferences and collaborates with organizations and individuals to explore the intersection of art and science.

Headshot of Leke Hutchins, a young Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) man. He is facing the camera and smiling. He has short black hair and an almond skin tone. He is wearing a light blue collared shirt.

Leke Hutchins

Leke Hutchins is a Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) PhD Candidate in the Environmental Science, Policy and Management Department at UC Berkeley. His socio-ecological graduate work focuses on Indigenous food and data sovereignty and biodiversity conservation in Hawaiʻi. Specifically, socially, he talks to farmers to understand their motivations for farming, the barriers they face, and the type of impact they have on their respective communities. Ecologically, he utilizes tools from community ecology and genomics to understand how whole communities of insects respond to different levels of crop diversification.

Selfie of Luisa A. Igloria, a Filipina American poet. She is outdoors and looking into the camera seriously. She has straight, shoulder-length black hair and a light almond skin tone. She is wearing colorful earrings and a mauve button-up shirt.

Luisa A. Igloria

Luisa A. Igloria is the author of Caulbearer (Immigrant Writing Series Prize, Black Lawrence Press, 2024), Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Co-Winner, 2019 Crab Orchard Open Poetry Prize), The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (2018), 12 other books, and 4 chapbooks. She is lead editor, along with co-editors Aileen Cassinetto and Jeremy S. Hoffman, of Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the U.S. (Paloma Press, 2023), offered as a companion to the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5). Originally from Baguio City, she makes her home in Norfolk, VA where she is the Louis I. Jaffe and University Professor of English and Creative Writing at Old Dominion University’s MFA Creative Writing Program. She also leads workshops for and is a member of the board of The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk. Luisa is the 20th Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia (2020-22), Emerita. During her term, the Academy of American Poets awarded her a 2021 Poet Laureate Fellowship. You can find more about her at www.luisaigloria.com.

Candid photo of Marisa Lin, a Chinese American poet. They are indoors on stage and speaking to an audience. They have long, wavy black hair. They are under a purple spotlight and wearing a dark-colored shirtdress that has a white pattern.

Marisa Lin

Marisa Lin (she/they) is a daughter of immigrants and Minnesota native. She was a 2023 Poetry Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Arts Research Center and her work is forthcoming or published in Poetry South, Porter House Review, Cimarron Review, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day. Their chapbook, DREAM ELEVATOR, was published by Kernpunkt Press (March 2024). Marisa graduates in 2024 with a Master’s Degree of Public Policy from UC Berkeley.

Selfie of Karen Llagas, a Filipino and American poet. She is indoors and smiling. She has straight, long dark hair and a light almond skin tone. She is wearing a dark wine red scarf and black leather-like jacket. The background is out of focus.

Karen Llagas

Karen Llagas’ new poetry collection, All of Us Are Cleaved, was published by Nomadic Press in 2023. Her first collection of poetry, Archipelago Dust, was published by Meritage Press in 2010. A recipient of a RHINO Founder's Prize, Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize & a Hedgebrook residency, her poems and reviews have also appeared in various journals and anthologies. She lectures at UC Berkeley and divides her time between San Francisco and Los Angeles. You can find more about her at www.karenllagas.com.

Allyza Lustig stands in an art gallery next to a very large, bright green poster. Lustig is smiling and wearing eyeglasses. She has medium brown hair and a light skin tone. She is wearing a large colorful scarf, an event lanyard, and dark pants.

Allyza Lustig

Allyza Lustig is a Senior Manager on the National Climate Assessment team at the US Global Change Research Program, where she helps manage the assessment process and led the development of Art x Climate. Allyza has an interdisciplinary social science background with a focus on the boundary space between climate science and decision making. She is also a painter and is passionate about the power of art as a means of documenting climate change and inspiring action.

Selfie of Craig Santos Perez, a Pacific Islander from Guam. He is outdoors and smiling. He has a short black beard and a light almond skin tone. He is wearing a black baseball hat, brick red neck scarf, denim blue t-shirt, and black backpack.

Craig Santos Perez

Craig Santos Perez is a Pacific Islander from Guam. He is the co-editor of eight anthologies and the author of seven books of poetry and the academic monograph, Navigating Chamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization. Most recently, he won the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry for his collection of poetry from unincorporated territory [åmot].

Headshot of Alice Plane. She is indoors and smiling. She has straight, long brown hair and a pale skin tone. She is wearing a light grey jacket and a blue blouse. The background is out of focus.

Alice Plane

Alice Planefocuses on the various stakes that climate change poses to the planet’s ecosystems, including human societies, with a specific perspective on equity. She has worked in France, Madagascar and Afghanistan, assuming roles of humanitarian and aid program officer, consultant, and diplomat for France and for the E.U. From 2016 to 2020, she headed the Climate Unit within the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, coordinating international climate negotiations for France. She served as an expert reviewer for the International Panel on Climate Change's latest special reports and its 6th assessment review (2021-2022).

Decorative blue color block.

Bruce Riordan

Bruce Riordan directs the Berkeley Climate Change Network, a collaboration of 300+ faculty and staff at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) who are working in the climate change arena. We connect researchers for interdisciplinary projects, help to raise money for climate research, and build stronger connections between Berkeley academics and off-campus climate leaders from government, CBOs, and the private sector. You can read more about him at this link.

Headshot of Linda Rugg, a Swedish American scholar. She is outside and smiling. She has short gray hair and a pale skin tone. She is wearing eyeglasses, a black collared shirt unbuttoned over a burgundy floral blouse. The background is out of focus.

Linda Haverty Rugg

Linda Haverty Rugg has been a professor in the Scandinavian Department at UC Berkeley since 1999, and she served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research 2018-2023. She has long been engaged with the Environmental Arts and Humanities in her teaching and research and is particularly eager to see how the Arts and Humanities can connect with the Natural and Social Sciences to address climate change and climate justice. She has published two books on visual self-representation and autobiography and is currently working on a micro-history of Swedish colonial America, with special attention to Swedish and Native American relations.

Selfie of Kim Shuck, a Cherokee Nation poet. She is outdoors and looking into the camera seriously. She is wearing a straw hat, heather sweater, and black collarless blouse. Photo is almost black and white with a slight blue tint.

Kim Shuck

Kim Shuck is a visual artist and poet. Shuck served for three and a half years as the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco. She has most of the expected degrees, awards, publications, ephemera, bills, worry lines and anxieties that pertain to being a full time creative. Kim is working on a series of small anthologies from around California, finishing up a three-year project about manifest destiny , and a map of San Francisco in poems by residents of all of the neighborhoods. She organizes at least three poetry events a month and wakes up daily to watch the sunrise.

Candid photo of John Shoptaw. He is outdoors and smiling. He has short gray hair and a rosy pale skin tone. He is wearing eyeglasses, a gray polo shirt, and a sage green sweater. He is standing close to a redwood tree and looking away.

John Shoptaw

John Shoptaw was raised in the Mississippi River floodplain of “Swampeast” Missouri.  He teaches poetry and ecopoetry in the English Department of UC Berkeley.  His Times Beach won the Notre Dame Review Book Prize and the Northern California Book Award in Poetry.  He has published poems and ecopoetics essays in Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.  His poetry is anthologized in Treelines, The Ecopoetry Anthology, and The New Sent(i)ence.  His new poetry collection, Near-Earth Object, will be published, with a foreword by Jenny Odell, by Unbound Edition Press in March 2024.

Headshot of Brian Sonia-Wallace. He is indoors and smiling. He has a short brown beard, short brown hair, and a pale skin tone. He is wearing a brown newsboy hat, a yellow vest, and a white collared shirt. He is sitting at a desk.

Brian Sonia-Wallace

Brian Sonia-Wallace (RENT Poet) uses dialogue at typewriters to bridge communities, and has been a full-time poet-for-hire for a decade. He was the Poet-in-Residence for the Mall of America, Amtrak Trains, and the National Parks, and most recently completed a term as Poet Laureate for the City of West Hollywood. Brian's work appears in such places as The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and American Poets, and he is the author of the memoir The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America with a Typewriter (Harper Collins) and two books of poetry: Maze Mouth and I Sold These Poems, Now I Want Them Back

Headshot of Aanan Varma. He is outside and smiling. He has short curly black hair, a short black beard, and a medium brown skin tone. He is wearing eyeglasses and a blue and green plaid button-up collared shirt. The background is out of focus.

Anand Varma

Armed with a degree in integrative biology from UC Berkeley, Anand Varma has devoted years to developing innovative techniques—even building some of his own equipment—to create intimate, dramatic, and surprising images of nature. His ultimate goal: to spark a sense of wonder about our world. Through his work, Anand illuminates what the naked eye cannot see—from the secret life cycle of the honeybee to the lightning-fast behaviors of hummingbirds. He is a National Geographic Explorer and award-winning photographer based in Berkeley, California where he recently launched a science photography studio called WonderLab to invent new ways of visualizing the natural world. His book Invisible Wonders was published by National Geographic in 2023.

Headshot of Sarah Vaughn. She is outside and smiling. She has long curly brown hair and a light brown skin tone. She is wearing a collarless white blouse. She is under the canopy of green trees and the background is out of focus.

Sarah E. Vaughn

Sarah E. Vaughn is an Associate Professor of Anthropology working at the intersection of environmental anthropology, critical social theory, and science and technology studies.  Vaughn has conducted archival research and ethnographic fieldwork of experts and ordinary citizens implementing climate adaptation projects throughout the circum-Caribbean. This research has primarily focused on Guyana and Bermuda. She is particularly interested in the way climate adaptation addresses the politics of potentiality in cultures of engineering, wetlands and coastal-scapes, and historical narratives of settlement.  Vaughn is the author of numerous articles and the award winning book Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation (Duke University Press, 2022).

A black and white headshot of Claire Wahmanholm. She is outdoors and smiling. She has wavy, long blonde hair and a pale skin tone. She is wearing a dark sleeveless blouse. The background is out of focus.

Claire Wahmanholm

Claire Wahmanholm is the author of Wilder (Milkweed Editions 2018), Redmouth (Tinderbox Editions 2019), and, most recently, Meltwater (Milkweed Editions 2023), which was a finalist for the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the 2024 Minnesota Book Award. Her work has most recently appeared in, or is forthcoming from, High Country News, Blood Orange Review, The Anarchist Review of Books, and The Hopkins Review. A 2020-2021 McKnight Writing Fellow, and the winner of the 2022 Montreal International Poetry Prize, she lives in the Twin Cities.

Headshot of Maw Shein Win, a Burmese American poet. She is outside and smiling. She has long, straight white hair in pigtails and a light brown skin tone. She is wearing a blue collarless blouse with a chevron pattern. The background is out of focus.

Maw Shein Win

Maw Shein Win’s most recent poetry collection is Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn) which was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book Award, and shortlisted for CALIBA's Golden Poppy Award for Poetry. She is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA. She teaches in the MFA Program at the University of San Francisco. Along with Dawn Angelicca Barcelona and Mary Volmer, she is a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse, a new literary community. Win’s full-length collection Percussing the Thinking Jar (Omnidawn) is forthcoming in Fall 2024. you can read more about her at mawsheinwin.com.

Topics

Environmental Arts & Humanities Initiative topic page