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About the author
Whitney Aragaki is an educator, parent, and learner from Hilo, Hawai?i. She supports students to learn through a lens of abundance that honors place, people and cultures. Her teaching focuses around conversations, practices and systems that sustain the intimate inter-relationship of public education, community and environment. Whitney is a fifth-generation Hawai?i Island resident of Japanese ancestry. She is the daughter of two educators, and was a student in her mother’s biology class. She currently serves as a high school science teacher at her alma mater, Waiakea High School and as a Professor of Practice and Faculty Lead at Reach University. Her two children also thrive in this supportive public-school ecosystem. Whitney has a Bachelor of Arts in biology from Swarthmore College, a Master of Science in Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science from the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Education from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa College of Education. Whitney, a National Board Certified Teacher, is the 2022 Hawai?i State Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year Finalist. She is a 2021 Presidential Awardee for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching and a 2023 Obama Foundation USA Leader.
Kirstin J. Milks teaches AP Biology and introductory science at Bloomington High School South in Bloomington, Indiana, where she also serves as a STEM team coach and mentor. Kirstin loves collaborating with students and community members to learn together in inclusive and responsive environments, as well as supporting and making public the work of teaching and learning—all with the goal of helping youth build a just and sustainable world. A graduate of Stanford University’s Schools of Medicine (PhD) and Education (MA), she is a National Board Certified Teacher, a Presidential Awardee for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching, a Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellow, the 2025 president of the National Association of Biology Teachers, her Girl Scout council′s Leader of the Year, and a Senior Fellow at the Knowles Teacher Initiative. She’s worked with organizations including the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the College Board, SXSW EDU, Educating for Environmental Change, and schools across the country to envision, engineer, and enact the future of education, with a focus on humane and socially-responsive science teaching. When she’s not teaching or volunteering with Girl Scouts, Kirstin enjoys visiting the local library with her family, practicing all-ages taekwondo, and singing along at top volume to local radio.
