Ebubekir Cakmak is a Turkish educational researcher who specializes in digital and media literacy, digital storytelling, and issues of representation. Until 2016, he was a tenured professor in the faculty of education at Abant Izzet Baysal University. He helped to author the national Media Literacy Curriculum for the Turkish Ministry of Education in 2014, and contributed to the curricul;um in Secondary Reading, Writing and Authorship as well.
Bethany Larrañaga is a graduate of the University of North Texas, where she studied Radio, Television and Film with minors in Communication Studies and Spanish Language. During her time at UNT she was an executive producer at North Texas Television’s entertainment department and a producer for their Nightly News. She has also served on the committee for the Festival de Cine Latino Americano as their volunteer coordinator and actively participated in a number of arts and film events.
Kathleen Jackson has spent the majority of her career in higher education, primarily in the areas of academic advising, training, and career development. Currently the Career Advisor in the College of Business at URI, she works with juniors and seniors preparing them for the workplace. In this role she creates and delivers an on-line career development class that is a degree requirement in the business school. It was this class that drew her to the Summer Institutes in Digital Literacy.
Michelle Ciccone is an educator, curriculum developer, and researcher passionate about digital literacy, media literacy, and digital citizenship. She is a PhD student at University of Massachusetts Amherst. In a previous position, she was a Technology Integration Specialist at Foxborough High School in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Dr. Jiwon Yoon (Ph.D., Temple University) is a researcher, educator, and activist with more than 20 years of experience teaching media literacy in various educational settings, including public/private schools, alternative educational settings, universities, and teacher education programs in the U.S., South Korea, and China. She was an associate professor of media studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago (2010-2017, tenured).