About the author

                    Christy McConnell, PhD is Professor of Educational Foundations and Curriculum Studies at the University of Northern Colorado. Since 2007 and the completion of her national award-winning dissertation, Greening Our Future: The Practices of Ecologically Minded Teachers, she has researched experience in education and ecological mindedness. Her co-authored book, Lesson Planning with Purpose: Five Approaches to Curriculum Design(Teachers College Press) was awarded O. L. Davis Distinguished Book for the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum in 2020 and Honorable Mention for Outstanding Book from The Society of Professors of Education in 2023. She also co-authored Using Educational Criticism and Connoisseurship for Qualitative Inquiry (Routledge) and has given over 50 academic presentations on her research. She is an experienced public speaker, offering a keynote address, “Teaching in the Moment: Education in the Age of Tomorrow,” in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the International Conference on Education, and her American Association for Teaching and Curriculum Presidential Address, “Wisdom Seekers: The role of intuitive evaluation in teaching, curriculum, and research,” in Louisville, Kentucky. Most recently Christy has shared her work on ecological experiences at The American Association for Teaching and Curriculum in a panel presentation, “The Nature of Belonging,” and in April 2025 she will be presenting “Educative Ecological Experiences: Reconnecting with Nature” at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association (average of 15,000 attendees annually). She was named Master Scholar in 2011 by her alma mater, University of Denver, and has served as Editor of Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue. To complement her academic writing, Christy will complete her Master of Arts in Professional Creative Writing with an emphasis in nonfiction in Autumn 2025 from the University of Denver. When not writing or conducting research, Christy can be found exploring nature in the American Southwest with her son, Jackson, and dogs, Ryerson and Rugby.