2025-2026 ISEEN Online - Facilitator Bios

BIPOC Experiential Educators

Ané Ebie-Mouton teaches Middle School Speech and Debate, and Highschool Creative Writing and IB Literature and Performance at The Awty International School. Ané works with her learners to cultivate a beloved classroom community, foregrounding curricular decolonization and learning about one's authentic self in relationship with the society in which they live. This work is catalyzed through the transdisciplinary confluence of the Arts and Humanities. Ané looks forward to facilitating conversations through this framework with resources that prompt conversations that equip, empower, activate!

Leading School Change

Derek Kanarek is the Upper School Head at the Catlin Gabel School (Portland, OR). Derek is all about the promise of competency-based learning + experiential learning to transform education for students. He sees school change efforts primarily as challenges of learning that call on us to meet each educator where they are to help them learn and grow. Derek completed his PhD in Education Leadership at Teachers College in 2020 with Dr. Ellie Drago-Severson; his research focused on how teacher leaders learned and used learning-oriented leadership. He also trained as a coach with the Columbia University Executive Coaching Program. Derek and his partner and three boys are happiest when exploring the Pacific Northwest’s beaches, forests, and rivers.

Elizabeth (Beth) Pillsbury PhD is a historian, teacher, ceramic artist, and the School Director of Maybeck High School in Berkeley, California. She believes that through an interdisciplinary approach to experiential learning, students have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of their academic studies as well as to develop new passions, interests, and capacities.

Environmental Leadership

Olivia Tandon is an Upper School science teacher and the Assistant Director of Experiential Education for Sustainability at the Pingry School in New Jersey. She has worked at Pingry for eight years, helping to bring a rotating drum composter, a flock of chickens and a large vegetable production garden to the school. She also collaborates with teachers to create experiential, place-based lessons on sustainability, farm to table agriculture and outdoor education. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Biology, an M.A. in Earth Science Education and an M.Ed. in Private School Leadership. In her free time, she enjoys hiking with her dogs, training for and competing in triathlons, and cooking home-grown meals with her fiancée Kaylee.

Heidi Maloy is an Upper School science faculty member, beginning her 22nd year, at Cary Academy in Cary, NC. She completed a fellowship in Indigeneity in 2024 focusing on land and land use from an Indigenous perspective. She teaches advanced environmental science and alternates teaching advanced environmental policy and a farming class through our Center for Community Engagement. She is teaching ecosystem biology as the science component of an interdisciplinary course under the topic, “what sustains us,” with teachers of cultural geography, English and data science. She received her BA in environmental studies from Lake Forest College and her MS in biology focusing on ecosystem ecology from the University of New Mexico. Before coming to Cary Academy, she taught science at Albuquerque Academy. For relaxation, she enjoys playing with her dog, Kody, and gardening to support pollinators both at school and at home.

Community Engagement for Social Justice

Sarah McLean is the Head of Global Stewardship at St. George's School in Vancouver, Canada. Sarah is passionate about experiential education both inside and outside of the classroom. She is particularly interested in exploring the connection between purposeful integration of DEIJ and reconciliation into program design, and authentic community engagement experiences. Sarah is involved with student leadership programs, faculty education and coaching. Outside of school, she enjoys taking her two little kids on hiking trips in the forest, long distance running and baking (and eating) delicious cakes.

Transformational Teaching & Learning

A veteran of independent school education, Gwyneth Connell brings a breadth and depth of experience to her role leading academic innovation at Pomfret School. Over the course of her career, she has taught history at Millbrook School in New York and Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn; served as dean of faculty at Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts; and worked as dean of teaching and learning at Blair Academy in New Jersey. She holds a master's degree in private school leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in American studies from Amherst College, and she loves nothing more than talking to her fellow nerds about nerd stuff.

Student Leadership

Meg Anderson-Johnston (she/her) is currently serving as the Assistant Director of Upper School at University Prep in Seattle, WA. In her seventeen years in education, Meg has worked as an instructional aide, classroom teacher, advisor, dean, and coach. In her current role, Meg is focused on helping students become compassionate, equity-minded student leaders and facilitators. She is excited to connect with others working with students to build leadership skills.

Jennifer Tory is a Subject Team Leader and teacher in the English department at Greenwood College School in Toronto. She also coaches soccer and helps with the house program. She is passionate about inquiry-based learning and fostering student leadership skills in the classroom. Previously, she has worked as a Student Life and Leadership Coordinator, an instructional coach, and an experiential cohort leader, giving her experience working with curricular and non-curricular elements of school life. Outside of work, you can find Jennifer running, biking, hiking, paddling and anything else that gets her out into nature whenever possible.

Experiential Global Education

Gillian Johnson is the Director of Global Engagement and an Upper School Spanish teacher at the Pingry School in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Gillian holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Spanish literature from the University of Virginia, where she also taught undergraduate-level Spanish classes before teaching at Hilton Head Preparatory School in South Carolina. Now at Pingry, Gillian enjoys working with her colleagues to develop a wide range of Global Programs that challenge students to go outside of their comfort zone and grapple with real-life issues facing our world today. In her free time, Gillian enjoys trying out every local playground with her two kids, long distance running, and going to shows with her husband.

Melanie Spransy is the Director of Global Education and an Upper School World History Teacher at Ravenscroft School in Raleigh, North Carolina. She holds a Master’s in Education from NC State University and has been teaching for almost 12 years. She is passionate about global travel and has visited 36 countries. She enjoys working with educators to build facilitation skills that encourage students to become culturally responsive global citizens. Outside of school, Melanie loves teaching yoga and spending time with her young son, beagle, and partner.

Outdoor Education

Mike Chapman is Director of Outdoor Education at the Dunn School in Los Olivos, California. After attending Davidson College, he served in a variety of educational roles, including as a housing reconstruction crew chief with the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana/Office of Disaster Response, a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and a Marine Corps peacekeeping operations advisor in the Republic of Georgia. Prior to joining the Dunn community, he served as an instructor with the Cadet Corps Leadership Program at St. John’s College High School in Washington, DC.