Jason BreMiller, 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).
Stephen Siperstein, Instructor
Choate Rosemary Hall
Dr. Stephen Siperstein has been teaching English and Environmental Studies for over a decade at various secondary and higher education institutions, including the University of Oregon, Stonehill College and Vail Valley Academy. He currently lives and teaches at the Environmental Immersion Program at Choate Rosemary Hall, where he designs place-based curricula in the environmental humanities, co-teaches courses with educators from other disciplines, and organizes extra-curricular environmental programming. He also teaches in the English Department and directs the school’s Writing Center. His research and publications focus on developing effective strategies for interdisciplinary climate change education, and he is co-editor of the 2016 volume Teaching Climate Change in the Humanities. Stephen is also a poet and photographer, and his work has appeared in publications such as The Hopper, Saltfront, Poecology, and Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. A central goal across Stephen’s writing, teaching, and advocacy work is to bring attention to the personal and emotional dimensions of climate change and to empower young people to take action in their communities. His current joys include tagging monarch butterflies and exploring the forests and coastlines of New England with his family.