Abigail Perez Aguilera

            Westminster College, Salt Lake City
 

-Abigail Pérez Aguilera (PhD, 2016) researches and writes about contemporary Indigenous movements, literature written by women of color and its connections to environmental social movements, forced displacement, gender violence, and global politics. Her most recent work appears in Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos (ed. Joni Adamson and Salma Monani; Routledge, 2017). She co-organized the recently created Special Interest Group at ASLE on Indigenous Ecocriticism. In the Summer of 2016 she traveled to Peru and Bolivia to conduct field research and establish connections and relationships with different organizations, universities, and environmental justice activists. In the future, she plans to establish a study abroad experience for students at Westminster College. She is currently working on a translation of poetry and short stories by indigenous women in Mexico and Guatemala.  

Jeff Torlina

                Associate Professor of Sociology Behavioral Science Department

-Jeff Torlina is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Behavioral Science Department. His Ph.D. is from the State University of New York at Albany in 2003.  Jeff has wide-ranging interests and specializes in structured inequality, work, ideology, and theory.  A motivating theme across all his research, which is ethnographic and qualitative, is a challenge to prevailing ideologies and theories which devalue members of disadvantaged groups.  Jeff teaches courses on political economy, social movements, work and occupations, gender, race, education, theory, agriculture and food systems, and several other subjects.  He is a member of the Association for Humanist Sociology, the Working Class Studies Association, the Rural Sociological Society, and the Pacific Sociological Association.  Before joining the faculty at UVU Jeff was a construction worker and the owner/operator of a small country store in the Hudson River Valley of New York State with his wife Cathy.  He grew up in the Detroit area, and his hobbies involve the outdoors and food cultivation.

Leonardo Figueroa-Helland

            Chair and Professor of Politics, Justice, and Global Studies at Westminster College, Salt Lake City

-Dr. Figueroa-Helland is Chair and Professor of Politics, Justice, and Global Studies at Westminster College (Salt Lake City, Utah). His research focuses on critical global studies and international relations, global political ecology, decolonial studies, indigenous cosmopolitics, and world systems analysis. He has published and co-authored in journals across different disciplines such as Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, the UNESCO Journal of Higher Education and Society (co-authored with Abigail  Perez Aguilera), and the Journal of Critical Education and Policy Studies (with Abigail Perez Aguilera). His latest articles are forthcoming in the journal Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature (STTCL), the Journal of World Systems Research, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, and in the edited volume Social Movements and World-System Transformation which will contain his most recent article titled “Indigeneity vs. ‘Civilization’: Indigenous Alternatives to the Planetary Rift”. Dr. Figueroa-Helland has presented his research at different institutions and conferences throughout North and Central America as well as Europe, such as the Political Economy of World Systems Conference, the International Studies Assoc. Conference, the Global Studies Association Conference, the Mexican Assoc. of International Studies Conference, the American Indian Studies Assoc. Conference, the Critical Ethnic Studies Assoc. Conference, the Ethnicity, Race & Indigenous Peoples Conference of the Latin American Studies Assoc., among others. He obtained his PhD in 2012 from the School of Politics & Global Studies at Arizona State University, where he graduated with “distinction” for his dissertation on Indigenous Philosophy and World Politics which he is currently transforming into a book manuscript.

MacLeans A. Geo-Jaja

            Professor of Economics and Education, Brigham Young University

-Macleans A. Geo-JaJa is Professor of Economics and Education at Brigham Young University, where he directs the Research Program in Rights in Education, Capabilities Deprivation, and Right to Development. He is currently a Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellow and a Visiting Research Professor at Zhejiang Normal University, china. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Nigerian Think Tank and on numerous journal editorial boards, including the editorial consulting board of International Review of Education a UNESCO journal. Co-author with Majhanovich, Suzanne, on Economics, Aid, and Education; Implication for Development for Development; co-editor with Shizhou Lou; and Yong Y.; of Education, Poverty, and Development in sub-Saharan Africa; co-editor with Majhanovich, Suzanne, of Education, Language and Economics: Growing National and Global Dilemmas; and the Politics of Education Reforms: Globalization, Comparative Education and Policy Research. Professor Geo-JaJa is author or co-author of significant tier one journal articles, and numerous book chapters and others on education and development in Africa.

Michael Minch

            Professor of Philosophy, and Peace and Justice Studies at Utah Valley University.  Director, Summit: The Sustainable Mountain Development and Conflict Transformation Global Knowledge and Action Network

-Dr. Minch is the founder and director of The Summit Knowledge and Action Network. He is a professor of Political Philosophy at Utah Valley University. He helped found the Peace and Justice Studies Program at UVU, and was its first director for 12 years, stepping down in 2016 to devote more time to Summit. He does research and writes in a wide set of fields, including democratic theory, peacebuilding theory, theories of justice, and reconciliation, and theology. He is now working on a book on the relationship between democracy, morality, and peace that goes beyond conventional democratic peace theory literature. He also does research, teaching, and peacebuilding work in Northern Ireland, Haiti, the Balkans, West Africa, and Russia. Minch is on the Board of Directors of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and the Global Peace Education Forum

Patience Kabamba

            Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Utah Valley University

- From the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dr. Kabamba earned his Master’s in Development Studies from the University of Durban (South Africa) after his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the Jesuit School of Philosophy in Paris. In addition, he has a Master’s degree in Philosophy from Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, and a Ph.D. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University. He has taught at leading universities around the world, and worked for the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank in various countries in sub-Saharan Africa. He is an expert in conflict, development, and governance in Africa. He is now at Utah Valley University.

Susan Merrill

            Peace and Justice Studies, Utah Valley University

- Ms. Merrill is an academic and a peacebuilder. She taught at the US Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, US Army War College; where she also served as Senior Governance Advisor (2007-2009); at the USAWC, she also served as the USAID Professor (2005-2006). Merrill also taught at the Command and General Staff College, Marine Corps, Quantico, Virginia (2006-2007); and for the International Resources Group (2007). She was the Senior Governance Advisor to USAID/Iraq-Baghdad, January-April, 2007; and the Mission Director, Office of General Development, USAID in Cambodia, 2003-2005. She has served in other senior management positions for USAID in Jamaica, Nicaragua, Liberia, El Salvador, Bosnia, and Iraq, serving in over 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. She is Chief of Party, The Mitchell Group, and has run Evaluation and Analytical Services Projects for USAID in various African locations. She directs a $9.0 million project in West Africa, conducting research in democracy, governance, violence, extremism, gender, and peacebuilding. Merrill also teaches at Utah Valley University.
 

Thomas Bretz

            Assistant Professor of Environmental Philosophy, Utah Valley University

-Thomas Bretz is assistant professor for environmental philosophy at Utah Valley University. He received his PhD in philosophy at Loyola University Chicago where he wrote his dissertation on Derrida’s contributions to environmental philosophy. He is currently working on the possibility of developing social and ethical relationships with non-human beings.