Project Team

Dr. Karen Harris taught high school English and Humanities for 27 years. She developed the curriculum for Friendship in Literature, a course she taught to students in grades 10-12 for a decade at Brookline High School (MA), which served as inspiration for this institute. She’s received numerous awards and grants, and written curriculum for institutes, schools, and organizations. She writes the popular substack Wising Up, Together and writes essays for publication. She was teacher-leader at the Favorite Poem Project’s Summer Institute, 2001-2018. She directed the FILFA Institute in 2022, and was awarded this generous grant from NEH to offer it again in summer, 2024.

Dr. Stephan Ellenwood directed the five-year Loving Well project and is an internationally recognized expert on moral and character education. He served as Department Chair for a large Curriculum and Teaching Department in the Boston University School of Education for more than three decades. He is a published scholar and a sought-after speaker on character education and curriculum reform. He co-directed the FILFA Institute in 2022.

Dr. Robert Pinsky is a celebrated and award-winning poet, with many collections, translations, and honors to his credit. He was a two-term poet laureate of the United States. During his tenure, from 1997-2000, he created the Favorite Poem Project to document, promote, and celebrate poetry’s place in American culture. He created the Favorite Poem Project’s Summer Institute for Educators (2000-2018) in conjunction with the Boston University School of Education. He will speak and work with teachers examining friendship in poetry and friendship between poets and writers. He teaches Creative Writing at Boston University.

Lashon Daley is an assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature with a specialization in Black children’s literature. She earned her PhD in Performance Studies with a Designated Emphasis in New Media from the University of California, Berkeley. Her book project, Black Girl Lit: The Coming of (R)age Performances in Contemporary U.S. Black Girlhood Narratives, 1989-2019, charts how children’s literature, film, television, and social media has helped shape our cultural understanding of what it means to be young, Black, and female in the U.S. As a scholar, dancer, and writer, Lashon thrives on bridging communities through movement and storytelling.

Dr. Daley will lead a talk on Morrison’s novel Sula, particularly as it speaks to the intersectionality of race and gender within female friendships, and as it pertains to her research on the friendships between and among black girls. She’ll be joining us virtually from San Diego on July 19th.

Keira Flynn-Carson is an English teacher (grades 10-12) at School within a School, Brookline, Massachusetts. She has designed and taught theme-based courses for over 16 years, including Dark Literature, Feminism and Literature, and Literature of Love. She does social-emotional and social justice programming at Brookline High School, and has expertise in special education, and community-building and advisory approaches within high schools. She will work in support of teacher curriculum development teams. She is also serving on the participant selection committee.

Dr. Niobe Way is Professor of Developmental Psychology and the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity at New York University. She is the author of Deep Secrets about the friendship of boys. She is also past President of the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA) and co-director of the Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education at NYU. Her work focuses on the intersections of culture, context, and human development, with a particular focus on social and emotional development and how cultural ideologies influence developmental trajectories. She will speak on friendship identity and gender.

Dr. Zach Rossetti is an Associate Professor of Special Education at Boston University. His research examines the social belonging and participation of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with a special focus on how educators and parents can facilitate friendship opportunities between students with and without disabilities. He will add to teachers-participants’ understanding of friendship at different developmental stages, the connection between family dynamics and friendship, and the ways teachers can support friendships between students with and without learning disabilities.