Eileen Landay was the Clinical Professor of English Education at Brown University, Director of Brown’s MAT Program in English Education and Brown Summer High School, and Senior Lecturer in Education for over twenty years. During that time, she co-founded and was faculty director of the ArtsLiteracy Project, which was a recipient of the President’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities “Coming Up Taller” Award in 2005. She is the author of numerous books and articles and consults regionally and nationally on adolescent literacy development, arts integration, and English education. She holds an M.A. from the Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College and an Ed.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

María del Mar Patrón Vázquez is co-founder of Habla: The Center for Language and Culture in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Her work is focused on how reading and literature can be part of the daily life of communities. At Brown she received the prestigious Presidential Teaching Award for her teaching of Spanish language classes to university students. Her unique approach to teaching involves the literature and culture of the language. Marimar has presented talks and workshops on culture, language, and pedagogy in a variety of settings including recently at the Deeper Learning conference in San Diego, the New School of Thought Institute in São Paulo, and an upcoming keynote at the STEAM conference in Barcelona . Perhaps the greatest lessons she’s learned about teaching are from her children, Luis and Sandra, who are growing up bilingual.

Kurt Wootton is co-founder of Habla: The Center for Language and Culture in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico and co-founder of ArtsLiteracy Project at Brown University. He has piloted several lab schools in the United States, Brazil and Mexico and currently facilitates Teacher Institutes for educators in New Orleans, San Diego, Chicago, and Merida. He is the co-author of A Reason to Read: Linking Literacy and the Arts and ENGAGE: Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning. The New York Times writes, “Mr. Wootton remains convinced of education’s power to transform lives. He has changed his tool of choice, however, from a mirror in which students see only reflections of themselves to a window that opens onto the rest of the world.”

Brown Arts’ IGNITE Series uplifts the spirit of artistic collaboration across Brown, Providence, the Rhode Island region, and beyond. Ignite your creative curiosity through this multi-year series of programs, activations, interventions, and investigations.