GII Symposium 2026

emareena danielles has been studying and exploring barriers to learning, and what it means to be a “better teacher,” for over 25 years. Their work grew from the intersection of education, violence, harm reduction, and moves in service of repairing our relationship with learning, and the practice of teaching as a transformative process. emareena grounds their work in what they hear from community thought leaders, impacted people and families, learning also from thinkers, activists, mystics, practitioners, and healers.

Their formal education includes a Master’s of Science in Teaching from Portland State University, and a B.A. in Communications from the University of North Carolina – Charlotte. emareena has been studying and exploring barriers to learning, and what it means to be a “better teacher,” for over 25 years.

Their book “Building a Trauma-Responsive Educational Practice: Lessons from a Corrections Classroom” (2022) is the first book about the impacts of trauma on adult learners, and their chapter, “Educational Wholeness: Urgent, Possible, Irresistible” (2026) invites us to reimagine what education could be.