2026 Keynote Speakers
Lisa Kay, EdD, ATR-BC
Friday 1 PM Super Session Keynote Speaker
Lisa Kay’s creative voice is enhanced by the integration of her identities as an artist, art therapist, art educator and qualitative and arts-based researcher. Her academic life has provided rich opportunities and pursuits; however, those things that nurture and provide Lisa joy are her creative collaborations with students and colleagues.
A board-certified art therapist and art educator, Dr. Kay’s research interests combine her curiosity about artistic development, the psychology of child art, artists with disabilities and the healing potentials of the creative arts with children, adolescents and adults. Her publications concern the intersections and collaborations of contemporary art education and school art therapy, art making with adolescents who have experienced trauma and adversity, and the use of creative arts and visual imagery as both pedagogical and research methods.
Lisa’s book Therapeutic Approaches in Art Education brings together ideas and resources from her art education research and art therapy practice. Her co-edited book Restorative Practices in Education through the Arts explores ways the arts address trauma-related issues with a particular focus on healing beyond adversity. This book provides beneficial and practical strategies from and for professionals in the fields of art, art education, art therapy, museum education, special education, social work, and school psychology.
Lisa Kay is a Professor in the Department of Art Education and Community Arts Practices, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University and earned an Ed.D. from Northern Illinois University. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate art education and art therapy courses at Tyler, Lisa has taught art therapy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Moholy Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, Hungary.
Prior to completing her doctorate, Lisa earned two degrees from the University of Memphis - a B.F.A. in Graphic Design and an M.A. in Individual Studies, a degree that combined coursework in sociological, psychological and special education theories with Art Therapy. After completing her master’s, she finished a 2-year post-graduate certificate at the St. Louis Institute of Art Psychotherapy.
Peter H. Reynolds
Saturday 9 AM Super Session Keynote Speaker
Peter Hamilton Reynolds is a Canadian author and illustrator of children's books and is the founder of the educational media company FableVision. Reynolds was born in 1961 in Canada with his identical twin brother, Paul, who collaborates as author on several children's books (Going Places, Full STEAM Ahead), and is CEO of the Reynolds educational media firm FableVision. He attended the Massachusetts College of Art and Fitchburg State College where he received the Communications Student of The Year Award in 1983, Alumni Recognition Award in 1999 and was awarded the title Litterarum Humanarum Doctor (L.H.D) in 2007 for his substantial contributions to education and the arts.
Reynolds is best known for his children's books about authentic learning, creativity and self-expression, including The North Star, Ish, The Dot, and So Few of Me. The Dot, published by Candlewick Press, has been published in over twenty languages, as well as in Braille, and has won a number of awards, including the Oppenheim Platinum Toy Award, Borders Books' Original Voices 2003 Award, and the Christopher Medal,as well as the American Library Association's 2005 Carnegie Medal of Excellence for the book's animated adaptation. Reynolds has also published a book series for young children, based on the character "SugarLoaf." Published by Simon & Schuster, the first two books in this series are titled My Very Big Little World and The Best Kid in the World. Reynolds's award-winning publishing work also includes the best-selling Judy Moody series written by Megan McDonald, Eleanor Estes's The Alley and The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Judy Blume's Fudge series, and Ellen Potter's Olivia Kidney books. His collaboration with Alison McGhee called Someday spent two months on the New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Books.
In addition to his children's books, Reynolds also created the award-winning animated short films, The Blue Shoe and Living Forever, as well as the film adaptations of his books,The Dot and Ish. Together with the Burkinabe model and activist, Georgie Badiel, he has co-created "Water Princess" which tells the story of Badiel's homeland of Burkina Faso's need for aquifers. The book was released in the Spring of 2016.
Reynolds lives in Dedham, Massachusetts and is the co-owner of his family's book store, The Blue Bunny Bookstore, and is the founder of the civic-powered revitalization group Dedham Square Circle. He is a Distinguished Eagle Scout.
Heather Hansen
Saturday 1 PM Super Session Keynote Speaker
Heather Hansen is a prominent American kinetic performance artist who uniquely merges fine art with contemporary dance. Born in Burley, Idaho, she studied theatre design in Washington before moving to Yokohama, Japan, to study traditional Butoh dance under the legendary master Kazuo Ohno. This training heavily influenced her artistic philosophy, leading her to use her entire body as a fluid drawing tool on floor-sized canvases.
She is most renowned for her breakthrough series "Emptied Gestures," where she sits or lies on massive sheets of paper, sweeping raw charcoal and pastels with both hands to create large, symmetrical, abstract patterns. Videos of her hypnotic live drawing process went viral online, capturing millions of views globally. Today, she splits her time between New Orleans and Joshua Tree, and she exhibits her physical, movement-based artwork internationally in major museums and galleries.
Jean Shin
Sunday 9 AM Super Session IV Keynote Speaker
Jean Shin is known for her sprawling and often public sculptures, transforming accumulations of discarded objects into powerful monuments that interrogate our complex relationship between material consumption, collective identity, and community engagement. Often working cooperatively within a community, Shin amasses vast collections of everyday objects—Mountain Dew bottles, mobile phones, 35mm slides—while researching their history of use, circulation, and environmental impact. Distinguished by this labor-intensive and participatory process, Shin’s creations become catalysts for communities to confront social and ecological challenges.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the U.S., Shin works in Brooklyn and Hudson Valley, New York. Her work has been widely exhibited and collected in over 150 major museums and cultural institutions, including solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Shin has received numerous awards, including the Frederic Church Award for her contributions to American art and culture. Her works have been highlighted in The New York Times and Sculpture Magazine, among others.
Her body of work includes several permanent public artworks commissioned by major agencies and municipalities, most recently a landmark commission for the MTA’s Second Ave Subway in NYC. She is a tenured Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute and holds an honorary doctorate from the New York Academy of Art.
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