Our trainings are led by two or more of the following trainers.
Adam Davis has been the executive director of Oregon Humanities since 2013. Prior to joining Oregon Humanities, Davis directed the Center for Civic Reflection and edited Taking Action, Hearing the Call across Traditions, and The Civically Engaged Reader. Davis has led hundreds of community conversations and trained thousands of discussion leaders across the country in partnership with social service, educational, nonprofit, and medical organizations. He has taught philosophy and literature for many years in the Clemente Course in the Humanities, a college program for adults living on low incomes. He earned his PhD from the University of Chicago and used to lead wilderness trail crews in the Pacific Northwest.
Eliot Feenstra is a facilitator, teaching artist, farmer, and theater-maker. He has been based in rural southwestern Oregon since 2012, where he's focused on local LGBTQ+ and radical histories, land-based skills, place, and theater. His most recent project, The (w)HOLE: Beyond Boom & Bust in Rural America, was a dance-theater piece based on interviews about the economy and impact of cannabis legalization in southern Oregon. Eliot holds an MA in Performance Studies from York University; he also studied social practice at Portland State University and has a BA in interdisciplinary studies from the University of Chicago. He lives with his partner on a land project in Takilma.
Jennifer Alkezweeny has been Oregon Humanities' program director since 2020. She supports the team of folks making Oregon Humanities programs happen, provides leadership for the organization's vision, and connects with organizations and communities to explore new initiatives. She is focused on connecting people to their communities and pursuing their goals while centering social justice. She has created learning spaces around the country and globe and loves that moment when the people in a room begin to harmonize. Jennifer is a deep believer in experiential learning, harnessing the knowledge in a room, finding your learning edge, and the power of silence. She's a longtime volunteer facilitator with the Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families. In her free time she can be found experimenting in the kitchen, looking at the world from behind a macro lens, or floating around in her kayak.
Lisa Naas Cook is a planner with the Columbia River Gorge Commission, where she works with many partners on long-term monitoring and climate action in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Lisa's past experience spans facilitation, education, ecological restoration, and public lands policy with the South Gifford Pinchot Collaborative, the Nature Conservancy, National Park Service, and US Forest Service. She holds a MA in applied theology from Marylhurst University and a BS in environmental science from the Ohio State University. A conversation facilitator with Oregon Humanities since 2015, Lisa has led conversations about the meaning of rest, place, and belonging in communities across the state. She is passionate about bringing deep listening and reflective conversation into professional and civic spaces where this isn't the norm. Lisa lives in the Gorge and cherishes time in the woods with her family.
Juliana Posada is a Program Lead for Oregon Humanities, where she fosters partnerships for the Conversation Project and supports Oregon Humanities’ efforts to offer programming in Spanish and about the environment. She loves learning from people, exploring what they think and why, and believes in the importance of holding space to discuss the problems confronting society and possible solutions. Juliana was born in Colombia, and has worked in rural communities there on a wide variety of environmental projects. Before joining Oregon Humanities in 2022, she coordinated and delivered inquiry-based educational programming in public schools in Brooklyn, New York. She lives in Bend.
Jason McNeal Graham is a multiethnic, multimedia, multivitamin artist living in Central Oregon. Writing, painting, and music are his three main channels. He was recently selected for the group exhibition "Black Matter,” curated by Tammy Jo Wilson. His work in music and writing has been featured on TEDx, NPR, the NBA, and several other three letter acronyms. Graham (who often presents as MOsley WOtta) was an invited resident scholar at Goddard College, a skittish alum of Diverse Intelligences Summer institute, and a humble brag Slam Poetry Champion for the State of Oregon. Graham is finishing his tenure as Bend, Oregon’s first Creative Laureate, the third such position in the nation.
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