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Meet the Faculty

Co-Director

Mikaela Simms

Mikaela Simms is co-director of Spark Teacher Education Institute and has been working as WSESU Director of Equity and Social Justice for 15 years. She arrived in Vermont by way of the San Francisco Bay Area and Guinea West Africa; where She taught middle school with an emphasis on Social Justice. In her current roles she emphasizes humanizing every situation and making connections across disciplines and other dividing lines.

“Our job as educators is to be curious about every human, student and colleague. It is through deep inquiry that we learn about ourselves and the equitable world we wish to build.”
Faculty

Kelly Junno

Kelly Junno holds a masters degree in Teaching for Social Justice from Marlboro College and is a graduate of the Spark Teacher Education Program. She has been working in schools for over ten years, including eight years as a classroom teacher. She currently teaches third grade in Northampton, MA and is a founding member of her school's diversity equity committee. In her daily practice as a teacher, she strives to help students make meaning of their world and humanize all people, starting with each other.

"Spark has influenced me to see the classroom as part of the world. … I'm able to connect what's happening in our classroom to what's happening in the larger school community or town, state, country, and world. "
Co-Director

Maresa Nielson

Maresa is co-director of Spark and an experienced elementary educator. She currently teaches 2nd grade in Springfield, Vermont. In addition to her MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management and her MAT in Teacher for Social Justice k-12, Maresa holds K-12 teaching and principal's licenses. She has a passion for understanding and analyzing science, and drawing connections between and among nature and the lives of humans.

"I believe it is in the interest of all children to constantly reinforce a worldview where the lives of people come before profit. This is a cornerstone of the work we do at Spark."
Faculty

Nina Kunimoto

Nina Kunimoto, Ph.D. graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston – Urban Education, Leadership and Policy Studies Program. She is faculty and chair of sociology and diversity studies at Edmonds College in Seattle, Washington. Her areas of research are teacher education, decolonial/abolitionist pedagogy, social justice, and dialectical materialism. She collectively hosts the Indigo Radio podcast, a project of the Spark Teacher Education Institute, aiming to deepen understanding and make connections about global issues and with classrooms.

“Spark teaches investigative pedagogy and I am practicing that everytime I attend Spark. There is no other place that uses this pedagogy, backed up with principles and theory.”
Faculty

Anna Mullany

Anna Mullany is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Her research at Emory examines the terrain of harm reduction interventions (or lack thereof) in the rural North Georgia Appalachian counties for women who are pregnant or postpartum and use illicit substances. She has a PhD in Public Health from UMass Amherst and has taught at both UMass Amherst and Clark University in Worcester, MA. The focus of Anna's work is the political economy of health, rural poverty within the U.S., non-profits, health activism, and gender violence.

"Spark continues to teach me that in understanding the present moment we must also deeply examine and know history; in doing this we more fully understand the relations between humans, the material world we live in, and how to organize and act for a better, more just society for all of us."
Faculty

Becca Polk

Becca Polk is an alumni of the SPARK program and received her Masters in Conflict Transformation and a Masters in Teaching for Social Justice. She has 10 years of experience teaching in the public schools, most recently teaching Middle School Social Studies in Springfield Vermont. Becca currently resides in Morocco working to create educational projects related to ecology and early childhood learning.

"A decade after graduating the SPARK program, the conversations continue to challenge me to learn more and become a better teacher. The current conditions necesitate deeper analysis and energy to build a better world. Being part of the Spark community helps me do that!”