Katherine Hernandez, Institute Director
Phillips Exeter Academy
Jason BreMiller teaches English and serves on the Environmental Stewardship Committee at Phillips Exeter Academy. He has taught extensively within the scope of field-based environmental humanities courses, including courses in environmental literature and adventure literature. Jason previously served as PEA’s sustainability coordinator, supporting student environmental groups on campus, developing sustainability curriculum and teaching a project-based design thinking class. A former National Outdoor Leadership School instructor, Jason continues to develop curriculum for and lead place-based field excursion, most recently to Iceland and Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. He has presented and written on the intersection of Harkness pedagogy and experiential education, and his primary professional and intellectual interests involve the relationship between indoor and outdoor classrooms and orienting his students to the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change. His essays have appeared in NAIS, The Leader, and Terrain.org (forthcoming).
Summer Morrill, Leader
Phillips Exeter Academy
Summer Morrill earned a B.S. in biology from Tufts University and went on to complete her PhD in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During this time, she conducted research in genetics at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Currently, Summer teaches introductory biology and genetics at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH. She focuses on building curriculum that will engage students at all levels with scientific thinking and creativity, which has included introducing yeast as a model organism for student learning and research and starting a new course on the Genetic Basis of Cancer. She enjoys collaborating with others in the Science department to develop and carry out projects that promote creativity and streamline best teaching practices. Previously, she worked as a Teaching Development Fellow and an Instructor of TA training and Curriculum Development at MIT.
Tina Grotzer, Principal Research Scientist
Harvard University
Tina Grotzer is a principal research scientist, a member of the faculty of education, and a senior researcher at Project Zero. She is an expert in the learning sciences and cognitive sciences. She has been working in grounded, informal and formal contexts for applying cognitive science findings for three decades. She teaches courses in sustainability, complexity, and climate change as well as cognition and learning, and its applications to learner behaviors, pedagogy, instruction and school design. Her work considers what it means to be an expert learner and how to leverage research towards supporting students in developing adaptive expertise to help them learn how to learn about and navigate challenges of the future. Grotzer is the faculty director of the Next Level Lab (NLL) funded by Accenture Corporate Citizenship. The NLL focuses on the future of work in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. Her work with NLL seeks to redefine visions of optimal learning and work performance with project strands focused on what it means to be an expert learner and on preparing for green jobs for the future.