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Madara Mason is the director of the Honors ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø. Madara is an Honors graduate herself, and is an experienced educator and innovator, with over 20 years of experience at UAF managing teams and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses for multiple departments. Known for her service-driven leadership, she has played a pivotal role in advancing innovation, most recently spearheading the Making is Learning Lab. Her dedication to community-based problem-solving, rooted in hands-on, transdisciplinary methods, ensures that our classrooms and labs are spaces where creative and critical thinking thrives.

Madara's academic and professional background ranges from literature to the visual arts to instructional design. Her transdisciplinary approach to understanding the world is something she tries to weave into the fabric of the Honors ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø each day. 

Isla is so excited to call Fairbanks her newest home! She grew up in Wyoming, where her love for nature, adventure, and snow began. After high school, she spent two years attending Carleton ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in Minnesota before transferring to the University of Wyoming where she received a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology with Honors. She then spent two incredible years in Appalachian Ohio working in public health and working as a Community Health Worker in villages and unincorporated communities throughout Southeast Ohio. 

In her free time, Isla enjoys picking up hobbies for a year and then forgetting they exist. The ones that have stuck, though, are singing, playing soccer, walking (pretty much to and from anywhere - sub-zero temps permitting), and watching movies. Curiosity is at the center of everything Isla does, she’s always learning something new about botany, neuroscience, philosophy, history… you name it!

Throughout her life, Isla has been drawn to understanding people’s lived experience and working to meet people where they are. Isla believes that community-driven problem-solving is the key to sustainable solutions. Isla hopes to bring what she’s come to understand through working with people from all walks of life: That when you believe in your own gifts and pursue growth, it doesn’t just transform your own life, but also lifts up those you love and strengthens your community. Isla is excited to help folks get started on their college path and connect with the resources that can help them pursue what matters to them.

Dr. Katie Villano Spellman was born and raised in Alaska. She has dedicated her career to the interface of social justice and science and has found the overlap for her passion in both areas through climate change education and research. Katie received her bachelor's in Biology from Whitman ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in Walla Walla, WA. She worked in homeless services and co-founded a street newspaper with members of the homeless community in Tacoma, Washington before returning home to Fairbanks to pursue a Masters and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at UAF. In between the two graduate degrees, she worked as the ecological education program director at the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, in Homer, Alaska. Her research is split evenly between plant ecology and education research, with public engagement in and access to the scientific process as a unifying theme in both areas.
Her ecological research focuses on how a warming climate influences boreal and tundra plant communities through non-native species introductions, changes in phenology, and wildfire. Her education research investigates the effectiveness of different climate change learning strategies and science engagement models.
She collaborates regularly with students, teachers, and community members across Alaska (currently in more than 35 communities) and in 122 countries around the globe to address climate change issues and increase access to science at local and global scales.

John is an artist, art educator, and interdisciplinary researcher focused on the integration of art and science as well as the broader role aesthetics play in people’s relationships to the environment. John’s own artwork explores themes of human-nature relationships and transformation across time, and he draws inspiration from multiple disciplines including philosophy, natural sciences and anthropology. He has also helped to develop academic interdisciplinary programs at UAF with emphasis on climate change, health sciences, and global thinking.