Barbara Bickel, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Art Education, Emerita at Southern Illinois University and Co-founder of Studio M*: A Research Creation Lab Intersecting Arts, Culture and Healing currently based in Canada. She is an artist-researcher-teacher, and is co-founder and former Editor-In-Chief of the Springer book series Studies in Arts-Based Educational Research, as well as co-founder and Senior Editor of Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal. She is author of Art, Ritual and Trance Inquiry: Arational Learning in an Irrational World, co-author with R. Michael Fisher of Art-Care Practices for Restoring the Communal: Education, Co-Inquiry and Healing and co-editor with Susan Walsh and Carl Leggo of the book Arts-Based and Contemplative Practices in Research and Teaching: Honoring Presence.Dr. Rita L. Irwin is Artist, Researcher and Teacher deeply committed to the arts and education. She is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Art Education in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Rita served as Associate Dean of Teacher Education at UBC from 2005-2015 and Head of the Department of Curriculum Studies from 1999-2005. Rita has been Educational Leader for a number of provincial, national and international organizations including being President of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, Canadian Association of Curriculum Studies, Canadian Society for Education through Art and the International Society for Education through Art.Richard Siegesmund is Professor of Art+Design Education, Emeritus at Northern Illinois University. He holds a Ph.D. in Art Education from Stanford University. From 2001-2011, he served at the University of Georgia, Lamar Dodd School of Art. His scholarship deals with arts-based research methodology, aesthetics as a philosophy of care and how these research directions lead to anew conception of visual literacy as a fundamental human skill. With Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, he co-edited "Arts-Based Research in Education: Foundations for Practice." The second edition of this book came out in 2018. His journal articles have appeared in Phi Delta Kappan, Studies in Art Education and the International Journal of Art & Design Education. He is also former President of Integrative Teaching International, an organization that seeks to reimagine the first-year learning outcomes of post-secondary art and design education. He has twice been Fulbright Scholar and has received fellowship awards from the Getty Education Institute for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. As Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association, he is also a recipient of the organization's Manuel Barkan Memorial Award for significance of published research.
