Director of the Center for Montessori Studies and Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Hartford, Connecticut, USA. She has worked with colleagues, allies and accomplices in community to address systemic inequities for over three decades. Her teaching expertise focuses on the personal “reflexes” and professional identity transitions fostered through dynamic inquiry and the use of meta-cognitive tools with both undergraduate and graduate level pre-service teachers as well as credentialed teachers across the career continuum. An activist for children and families, Dr. Bray’s research is grounded by a community context and consistently emphasizes human capacity as knowledge producers as well as knowledge consumers. Bray is a National Commissioner for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (USA) and an alumna of the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education Program at Harvard University. She earned her B.A. and M.Ed. from Sarah Lawrence College and her Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Bray integrates her research, theory, and practice through the URBAN network by focusing on public scholarship and is helping to develop emerging educational spaces as a co-founder of Planes of Learning.

Bodeene Amyot Cairdeas is the Digital & Audiovisual Archivist at James Madison University Libraries. Prior to joining JMU, she was the Mukurtu Hub Manager at the University of Oregon Libraries. She earned a BA in History from Carleton University, an M.Ed. from the University of Hartford, and postgraduate certificates in Archival Studies and Documentary Production. She also holds an AMI Primary teaching diploma and a certificate in Information and Library Science. Her passion for ethical curation, epistemic justice, Montessori education, and taxonomies has led her to projects such as the Montessori Glossary Community Project, which she is tremendously grateful to be a part of. Her research interests include community-engaged learning using oral histories, ethically-minded and culturally sustaining digital curation practices, and accessible audiovisual archives.

Montessori Trainer at the Montessori Scholengemeenschap Amsterdam: Montessori Mastery Post bachelor Diploma; Montessori Coordinator and trainer for introduction and foundation courses; Teacher at the Pedagogy Department of the University of Applied Science Amsterdam (HvA); Teacher English L2; Coach; Speaker; Generally energetic person with a cosmic vision of life.