Joint Chair, Norway

Jnbng49@gmail.com

Jan Martin Bang is a qualified Permaculture Designer and teacher. He was born in Oslo, Norway and grew up in England where he studied archaeology, geography, philosophy, education and agriculture. He was active in the English Cooperative and Trade Union Movements in the 1970’s. He moved to Israel in 1984 and was a kibbutz member for 16 years. Since 1993 he worked on environmental projects within the Kibbutz Movement. He represented the “Global Ecovillage Network” in Israel, and helped build up the Israel Permaculture Group, teaching the first Permaculture Design Courses in Hebrew. His work took him on extensive travels within the region, visiting ecovillages and teaching courses in Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus and the Palestinian areas. He was a co-worker at Camphill Solborg in Norway for 7 years, where he had domestic and administrative responsibilities. He has been co-editor of “Landsbyliv” (Village Life), the Norwegian Camphill magazine, for the last six years. He was secretary of the Norwegian Permaculture Association, and has been active within the Norwegian Ecovillage Trust. He received the Permaculture Diploma in the fields of Education and Community Development from the Nordic Permaculture Institute in 2006. He has written a book on Permaculture Ecovillage Design published by Floris Books in 2005, called “Ecovillages – a practical guide to sustainable communities”. A second book, “Growing Eco Communities – practical ways to create sustainability” was published by Floris Books in 2007. “Sakhnin – a portrait of an environmental peace project in Israel” and “The Hidden Seed – the story of the Camphill Bible Evening” were both published in 2009. He has just edited “A Portrait of Camphill” to be published this summer to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Camphill. He is currently working on several books about community and environment. He has been connected to the International Communal Studies Association since its founding conference in 1985, and in 2010 was elected President of the Association.

Joint Chair, Norway

Amsale.k.temesgen@nord.no

Amsale Kassahun Temesgen is an Associate professor of Ecological Economics and Management at Nord University Business School in Norway. Her research focuses on the intersection between human wellbeing and sustainability. She has studied this topic in ecovillages and other local communities. She has over ten years of research experience in international development, studying living conditions of populations in fragile states and in poor and middle-income countries. She has previously contributed to international reports including the State of the World’s Cities Report of UN-Habitat and the World Development Report of the World Bank.

Joint Chair, USA

dmckanan@hds.harvard.edu

Dan McKanan is the Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, where he has taught since 2008. He studies religion and radical politics in the United States, with a special emphasis on the contributions of spiritually based intentional communities. His 2007 book, Touching the World, is a comparative study of the Camphill and Catholic Worker movements; The Catholic Worker after Dorothy (2008) explores the historical development of the Catholic Worker movement. Most recently, he has published a general history of religion and the left, Prophetic Encounters: Religion and the American Radical Tradition (2011). Dan’s current research explores the contributions of esoteric and magical traditions to economic cooperation and ecological sustainability, from nineteenth-century utopian socialism to the present.

Brazil

taisamattos@hotmail.com

Taisa Mattos works as a trainer, consultant and researcher on various topics related to sustainability, social innovations and community life. Ecovillage researcher. Master´s on Psychosociology of Communities and Social Ecology at EICOS Program / UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. GEN (Global Ecovillage Network) Ambassador in Brazil. CASA Brazil (Consejo de Asentamientos Sustentables de America Latina) council member. Professor at the Post Graduation Program on Pedagogy of Cooperation and Social Methodologies (UNIP / Projeto Cooperação). Instructor and Coordinator of many EDEs (Ecovillage Design Education Programs / Gaia Education) around Brazil, since 2009, also in Argentina, Portugal and Mozambique. Part of GEN International Academic Research and Education Working Groups. Co-founder of Terra Una Ecovillage (MG, Brazil). Part of the Transition Towns Movement in Rio.

Israel

lavi@hazon.org

Aharon Ariel Lavi is a serial social entrepreneur and a professional community organizer, who integrates social activism with cutting-edge research. He is co-founder of MAKOM (Israel’s national Intentional Communities umbrella) and founder and director of Hakhel, the Jewish intentional communities incubator in the Diaspora. Lavi holds BA in Geography and Economics, MA in History and Philosophy of Science, and currently working on his dissertation at BGU, on Israel-Diaspora relations. He has published extensively on Jewish thought and economics, society, and environmentalism.

Australia

B.Metcalf@griffith.edu.au

Dr Bill Metcalf, Griffith University, Australia, is a world expert on intentional communities, past president of the ICSA, on the Editorial Board of several refereed academic journals including Communal Societies, and is International Correspondent for Communities magazine. He is the author or editor of seven books plus numerous academic and popular articles about intentional communities. Bill is a long-standing Fellow of the Findhorn Foundation.

UK

j.m.pickerill@sheffield.ac.uk

Jenny Pickerill is a Professor of Environmental Geography at Sheffield University, England. Her research focuses on inspiring grassroots solutions to environmental problems. She has published on eco-housing, eco-communities, social justice and environmentalism. She is currently completing a book on Eco-communities: Surviving well together. Further details about her work are at www.jennypickerill.info

USA

tkansas@ku.edu

Timothy Miller, PhD is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas, USA. He is a historian of American intentional communities, particularly during the 20th century. Among his books are The Encyclopedic Guide to American Intentional Communities, The Quest for Utopia in Twentieth-Century America, The 60s Communes, and American Communes 1860-1960: A Bibliography. Tim is a long-standing ICSA board member, recognised by the US based Communal Studies Association as a distinguished scholar.

Lifetime Board Member, Israel

yaacovoved@gmail.com

Yaakov Oved, PhD has been a member of Kibbutz Palmachim since its establishment in 1949. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History, Tel Aviv University. Since 1980, Yaakov has researched communes throughout the world and has published books and articles on the subject in Hebrew, English and Spanish, including the encyclopaedic Two Hundred Years of American Communes (1987). His latest book, Globalisation of Communes: 1950-2010, was published in 2012. Yaakov was a founding member of the ICSA and served as its executive director from 1985 until 2004.

Lifetime Board Member, USA

dpitzer@usi.edu

Don Pitzer is professor emeritus of history and director emeritus of the Center for Communal Studies at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville. He graduated from Whittenburg University in humanities, earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in history from Ohio State University, and was a scholar- in- residence at Harvard. For more than forty-five years the springboard for Dr. Pitzer’s research in the field of communal utopias has been the early nineteenth-century Harmonist and Owenite communities at New Harmony, Indiana. He has taught, lectured, and published internationally on New Harmony, communal history, and his theory of ‘developmental communalism’. He is a founder and first president of the Communal Studies Association and the International Communal Studies Association.

Israel

yonaprital@gmail.com

Ms. Yona Prital recently retired as Head of Yad Tabenkin Research and Documentation Center of the United Kibbutz Movement. She is a past recipient of the Excellency Award from the Jewish Agency and was the Central Shlicha for Habonim Dror North America; For twelve years, Yona was the Head of the Kibbutz Movement Education Department where she was the Kibbutz representative for the Labor Party (Israel). For the last Israeli parliamentary elections, Yona was a candidate on the Labor Party list. She lives in Kibbutz Maale Hachamisha.

USA

amye720@gmail.com

Amy Hart is a PhD student in History at UC Santa Cruz. She researches the women who joined Fourierist communities across the United States, focusing on their political engagement and social activism both during and after their involvement in community. She is also interested in communal movements of California, and has written on the Dunite community, Allensworth, Ananda Ashrama, and Halcyon. She resides in a small intentional community located outside of San Luis Obispo, California, called the Lavra.

USA

pbartelt@comcast.net

Pearl Bartelt became a Senior Fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in January 2010. She is currently working on the Roadmap Project, a grant-funded initiative involving community colleges. Previously, she served Edinboro University of Pennsylvania as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs from January 2005 until her retirement in January 2010. Dr. Bartelt began her career at the collegiate level as an assistant professor at the Community College of Philadelphia and later moved to Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in New Jersey, where she held positions as assistant, associate, and full professor. Dr. Bartelt was appointed dean of liberal arts and sciences at Rowan University in 1991 after serving as president of the College Senate. She became vice president for academic affairs at Central Connecticut State University in 1999 and provost in 2001 before joining AAC&U as a Senior Fellow from 2003-2004. She also served as a visiting senior research fellow at England’s University of Surrey from 1985 to 1986. She has been a board member of the American Congress of Academic Deans and of the International Communal Studies Association, which she previously served as president. She has been president of the Pitman, New Jersey, Board of Education and is now a board member of the Ardmore, Pennsylvania, Public Library. Dr. Bartelt’s scholarship has been in the areas of Communal Studies and Higher Education. She was educated at The Ohio State University, where she received a B.S. degree in education and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology.

USA

slloydmo@calpoly.edu

Dr. Stephen Lloyd-Moffett is an internationally known Religious Studies scholar and Professor in the Religious Studies Program at Cal Poly. He is the author of numerous articles and essays as well as Beauty for Ashes: The Spiritual Transformation of a Modern Greek Community (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press) and the forthcoming The Soul of Wine: Finding Religion in the Fruit of the Vine. Professor Lloyd-Moffett holds a B.A. in Economics and Film Studies from Claremont McKenna College, a Master of Theology degree from St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, and a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Religious Studies from University of California, Santa Barbara. Among his awards is the Cal Poly College of Liberal Arts teaching award, the President’s Community Service Award, and the San Luis Obispo Top Twenty Under Forty award. He co-founded The Lavra, an intentional community in San Luis Obispo County.

USA

deborah.altus@washburn.edu

Dr. Altus is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She has published numerous articles on caregiving for people with dementia and on shared housing arrangements for older people (e.g., intergenerational home-sharing, housing cooperatives, congregate living, Green Houses, etc.). She graduated cum laude from the University of California, San Diego, receiving honors with high distinction from the Department of Psychology. She received pre- and post-doctoral training awards from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a Mary Switzer Research Fellowship award from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, and has worked on numerous research projects funded by organizations such as the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association. She has been inducted into the NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation) Hall of Fame as a Co-op Educator. She is a former board member and President of the Communal Studies Association and a board member of the International Communal Studies Association. She is widely known for her study of intentional communities inspired by B. F. Skinner’s novel, Walden Two. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi and the Pi Chapter of TUA National Human Services Honor Society.

Israel

anton@mishol.org

Anton Marks is the general secretary of the Intentional Communities Desk, and editor of its Hebrew and English publications KOL and C.A.L.L. respectively. Anton lives in Kibbutz Mishol, founded 20 years ago, the largest urban kibbutz in the world. Kibbutz Mishol is situated in Nof Hagalil in the north of Israel, and has total membership numbers of 75 adults and 79 children.

Israel

paz_e@oranim.ac.il

Paz Elnir, Ph.D. is Director of Yad Tabenkin Research and Documentation Center of the United Kibbutz Movement. She is lecturer at the Academic Oranim College of education and the head of a national forum of teacher training principals for elementary schools in teacher colleges, at The MOFET Institute. Paz is leading educational process in the Megiddo Regional Council. Her Ph.D. Dissertation is about Activities of the Kibbutz Festival Institutes and their contribution to Israeli culture. She is a member of Kibbutz Ramat Yochanan.

Israel

ornashemer4@gmail.com

Faculty member at the School of Social Work at the Hebrew University, and member of the Research Management Board at Yad Tabenkin. A social worker, researches and teaches areas of community practice, collaborative processes, collaborative communities and cultural competence. Born in kibbutz and kibbutz member.

USA

cynthiaatina@gmail.com

Cynthia is the “community matchmaker” helping people join the hundreds of intentional communities she has visited and worked with around the globe. She is a speaker, educator, and co-director of the Foundation for Intentional Community (ic.org). Her mission is to bridge the gap between sustainable communities and mainstream society. After a decade of travel, Cynthia now lives at an ecovillage in Vermont where she’s building a passive solar home, tending a garden, and guiding yoga classes. She has a B.A. in Sustainability from Goddard College, as well as certifications in Ecovillage and Permaculture design. Learn more and book a community matchmaking session with Cynthia at www.cynthiatina.com.

UK

helen.jarvis@newcastle.ac.uk

Helen Jarvis is Professor of Social Geography Engagement at Newcastle University, UK: she gained her PhD from the London School of Economics in 1997. Her current research considers intentional communities of collaborative housing, community engaged learning and sustainable degrowth theory and practice. She was non-executive Director of UK Cohousing Network 2014-2018 and is a founding member of Cohousing upon Tyne (CoHUT) with planning approval for a 25-unit Passivhuis brownfield site development in Benwell, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Germany

Anne-kathrin.schwab@uni-vechta.de

Anne is a Scientific Assistant at the University of Siegen. Her PhD project explored political structure, conflict and power in an Ecovillage. She studied Social Science and Anthropology in Siegen, Colone and Amiens and in 2012 she studied about egalitarian hunter-gatherer groups (Khoi-San) in Namibia. Since 2012 she has worked in the University of Siegen in various projects and positions.

Israel

shadmiw.sara@gmail.com

Founder CEO of The Varda International Institute for Community Building.
Sara Is an Expert in Community Work. Developed a new way to strengthen communities: Culture of belonging through Community Building based on her former experience in building a new kibbutz in Israel, leading the young Kibbutzim movement and the intentional communities for young adults in Israel and around the world. During the last 25 years she created in Oranim college a Ba degree and a master degree in Community Building and established in the College a field department SHDEMOT to lead process of Community Building in communities in urban, rural, and peripheral localities in Israel and around the world. She Holds A BA in Sociology and political Science, MA in Political communication, and a PhD in community work and education from Tel-Aviv University.

Israel

droryuvl@post.tau.ac.il

Yuval Dror, PhD is a Professor in the School of Education, Tel-Aviv University. He researches the history of Israeli education (mainly kibbutz education) and all types of new-progressive and social-moral education. Yuval has written and edited 13 books, among them The History of Kibbutz Education: Practice into Theory (2001) and Communal Groups in Israel (2008). From 1970-2001, he was a member of Kibbutz Hamadia and since 2001, a member in the 'community neighbourhood' of kibbutz Kfar-Ruppin. Yuval is an ICSA board member.

Israel

getz@research.haifa.ac.il

Dr. Shlomo Getz is a researcher at the Institute for the Research of the Kibbutz at the University of Haifa and senior lecturer at the Academic College of Emek Jezreel. He is a member of Kibbutz Gadot.

Israel

palgi@research.haifa.ac.il

Michal Palgi, a professor of organizational sociology, is a senior researcher and the previous head of the Institute for Research of the Kibbutz and the Cooperative Idea at the University of Haifa. She was the chair and founder of the graduate program in Organizational Development and Consulting at the Emek Yezreel College in Israel and among the founders of the Action Research Center there. She is a former president of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-Management (RC10) and was Co-President of the International Work and Labor Network on “Regional and Local Development”. She is a past president of the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA).

Her areas of research and activity are organizational democracy, organizational change; gender based inequality; social justice; kibbutz society and community development. Prof. Palgi was an advisor to the Austrian-German research project ODEM (Organizational Democracy – Resources of Organizations for social behavior readiness conducive to Democracy).

USA

cfang2@gmail.com

Clara Fang started volunteering with Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL) in 2016 and now serves as the Higher Education Outreach Coordinator. In her role, she helps members conduct outreach to higher education and engage students in climate advocacy. In addition, she helps members get endorsements from university presidents and get students involved in internships with local chapters. Prior to CCL, she worked as sustainability manager at Swarthmore College and Towson University and for the City of Albany, New York. She holds a Master of Environmental Management from Yale University and a MFA in Creative Writing from University of Utah. She is currently getting her PhD in Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England.

USA

daniel@ic.org

Daniel Greenberg, PhD is Founder of Living Routes, which partners with UMass, Amherst to offer study abroad programmes based in Findhorn, Auroville and other 'ecovillages' around the world. An internationally renowned sustainability educator and lecturer, Daniel was a co-founder of Gaia Education and the Green Passport programme and has been a catalyst for greening the field of international education through chairing Task Forces for NAFSA and The Forum on Education Abroad. Daniel lives in the Sirius Community, Massachusetts.

N. Ireland

colin.harper@cctni.co.uk

Has over 30 years of combining academic work and charity work to strengthen organisations and achieve positive social change for a wide range of people. Has been a student, lecturer or researcher in every university faculty except one. Has worked in disability, women’s, victims and survivors, and youth sectors, engaging personally with people from those groups. Has personally conducted policy and public affairs work at local council, Northern Ireland Assembly, Westminster, European Union and United Nations levels.

Israel

Katzyo1@mail.biu.ac.il

Yossi Katz, PhD is a professor in the Department of Geography at the Bar Ilan University, Israel. He is a historical geographer whose research interests include settlement process and land ownership in Israel and ethnic settlements in Canada. He is the Chairperson of The Chair for the Study of the History and Activities of the Jewish National Fund (K.K.L.). He is also the Chairperson of Bar Ilan University press.

N. Ireland

Vincent.reynolds@glencraig.org.uk

Vincent Reynolds has been a coworker at the Camphill Community Glencraig in Northern Ireland since 1983. He has a wide range of experience in supporting adults and children with special needs. He has been involved in management, staff training and support for staff and co-workers at Glencraig.

UK

Anna.Neima@warwick.ac.uk

Anna Neima is a historian with a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She is the author of two books. 'The Utopians: Six Attempts to Build the Perfect Society' (2021) is about the wave of community-building that was sparked off by the First World War. 'Practical Utopia: The Many Lives of Dartington Hall' (2022) focuses on the story of a single one of these communities, set up in 1925 in South-West England. Anna is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick.

Austria

info@iriskunze.com

Iris Kunze, PhD has been a social researcher at the University of Life Sciences, Vienna, since 2011. From 2001, after living several years in two intentional communities, she researched and taught about intentional communities and sustainable ways of living at the University of Münster, Germany. As one of the European academic experts on ecovillages and intentional communities she received the Donald Durnbugh Award from the Communal Studies Association (CSA) in 2011.

Brazil

b072834@dac.unicamp.br

Beatriz Martins Arruda, M.Sc. - Architect and Urban Designer, currently Civil Engineering Ph.D. candidate at the University of Campinas - UNICAMP, and distance learning tutor at the Virtual University of São Paulo - UNIVESP. Leader of the Council for Sustainable Settlements of Latin America - CASA Brasil Network Research Group.

Israel

alongan@013.net

Dr. Alon Gan is a senior lecturer at Seminar Hakibbutzim College, Director of Research at Yad Tabenkin, And chairman of the Kibbutz and Labor Movement Researchers Forum. His research deals with the shaping of Israeli identity in general and the shaping of kibbutz identity in particular, from the inception of the Zionist enterprise to this day.

USA

betsymorris88@gmail.com

Portugal

ana.margarida.esteves@iscte-iul.pt

Ana Margarida Esteves is a Research Fellow at the Center for International Studies of the University Institute of Lisbon, ISCTE-IUL and Guest Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Economy of the same institution. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University (Providence, RI, USA). Her research and teaching encompass the relations between the social and solidarity economy, the commons and the sustainability transition movements; synergies between nature, culture and technology; and the application of critical pedagogies and art intervention to collective action and advocacy. She is a member of SEADS (Space Ecologies Art and Design), a transdisciplinary and cross-cultural collective of artists, scientists, engineers and activists that is actively engaged in deconstructing dominant paradigms about the future and develops alternative models through a combination of critical inquiry and hands-on experimentation.

Israel

alon.pauker@beitberl.ac.il

Dr. Alon Pauker is a historian studying the kibbutz and the Zionist movement. He researches the relationship between the kibbutz and other Zionist organizations, as well as the surrounding society. He is a Senior Lecturer in history and heads the Buber Center for Dialogue Education in Beit Berl College, in which Israeli intentional communities’ members pursue their academic education toward a B.Ed. degree.