PhD, Department of Urban Education, The Graduate Center, CUNY | 2024
MPhil, Department of Urban Education, The Graduate Center, CUNY | 2022
MA, The Graduate Center, CUNY | 2017
MFA, Queens College, CUNY | 2006
BFA, Wesleyan University, CT
Certifications:
Biodynamic Farming, Threefold Community Farm, NY
Regenerative Eco-Social Design, Omega Institute, NY
Forest Therapy, ANFT
Dr. Bibi Calderaro (she/her/ella) is Doctoral Lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Studies and the Environmental Justice and Sustainability Programs at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. She specializes in education’s role in magnifying climate action and justice through situated pedagogies and regenerative lenses. She has designed and implemented a week-long pedagogical experience for educators in the Hudson River estuary, gaining access to remote areas by kayak, facilitated workshops, and designed and conducted semi-formal interviews with communities across NYC about environmental issues. Her expertise and collaborative experiences as transdisciplinary artist-educator are key for mentoring community leadership, integrating academic and non-academic knowledge generation, and building relationships across constituencies and sectors. Her recent scholarship includes “Form, Shape and Content of an Industrious Unconscious—Becoming with Noisy Storks” and “Walking the Land where Fountain Avenue Begins.” Calderaro holds a PhD from CUNY Graduate Center, an MFA from Queens College and a BFA from Wesleyan University.
First-Year Seminar
ISP 100 - Justice: Who’s In and Who’s Out?
ISP Common Experience Seminar
ISP 101 - Ways of Knowing: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on New York
ISP 200-level courses
ISP 255-01 & ISP 255-02 - Technology and Culture
EJS courses
EJS 200 – Earth Justice: Introduction to Sustainability and Climate Action
Chair, Holes in the Wall Collective
Dissertation
MA Thesis
Walking as Ontological Shifter: Thoughts in the Key of Life (2017)
Peer Reviewed Journals
Form, Shape and Content of an Industrious Unconscious—Becoming with Noisy Storks (2024)
Walking the Land where Fountain Avenue Begins, The Center for Sustainable Practices in the Arts, special guest-edited issue on Walking. CSPA Quarterly, Q26, 2019, pg. 58-77.
Walking as Ontological Shifter, Interartive, Dec. 2018
We Weave and Heft by the River. Environment, Space, Place, Spring 2017 vol.9-1, pg.136-149 (co-authored with The Coastal Reading Group).
Monograph chapters
For Nothing at All, Cadence. Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary Gallery, NY. (2024)
Mediating the subject of psychoanalysis: A conversation on bodies, temporality, and narrative (2023, in collaboration)
Foreword, co-authored with Patricia Ticineto Clough. In Walking Methodologies in a More-than-Human World, S. Springgay and S. Truman, Routledge University Press, 2018.
On or About Cageness, Notations: The Cage Effect Today, 2012. Hunter College, Times Square Gallery, CUNY
Research Papers
Transposing Nomenclatures—Performing Treaty Relationship (2021)
Transposing Infrastructural Remedies—Performing Breakdown (2021)
On Metaphors and their Material Implications: Thinking with Satoyama Landscapes (2020)
Walking the Land Where Fountain Avenue Begins (2019)
Some Practical and Epistemological Collaborative Possibilities Despite History (2019)
Thinking with Forests—Expanding the Ecologies of Agency (2019)
National Science Foundation, Build and Broaden Grant, with The Climate Justice Initiative team at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, (2024-2027)
Teaching Fellowship, China at CUNY Initiative (Spring 2025)
Seminar Fellowship, China at CUNY Initiative (Fall 2024)
The Graduate Center, CUNY, Gittell Dissertation Fellowship, (2023-2024)
The Graduate Center, CUNY, Doctoral Student Research Grant, Travel Grant, (2023)
Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences Summer Research Fellowship. For research on Satoyama and agricultural heritage sites; Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan, (2022)
Publics Lab, Curriculum Enhancement Grant; for Urban Education Program at CUNY the Graduate Center, with the Restorative Justice facilitation group, (2021-2022)
Humanities New York, Public Humanities Fellowship. For research on the C.A.R.E. Program, (2020-2021)
Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, NY. Research Development Fellowship, (2019-2020)
The Graduate Center Fellowship, CUNY, (2018-2023)
The Provost’s Enhancement Fellowship; CUNY, (2018-2023)
My research investigates the human relationships between land/water and knowledge as indicators of broader cultural patterns. I see these relationships as signs of the long-term health—or dysfunction—of economic and socio-political systems. How societies understand and act upon land reveals underlying values that shape both cultural resilience and ecological sustainability.
Central to my work is the study of education as a site of transformation. I focus on how pedagogical practices, particularly land-based approaches, can open pathways toward an ecological economy. Land-based pedagogies emphasize direct engagement with place, reciprocity, and responsibility, challenging extractive models of development and fostering knowledge practices grounded in care and sustainability.
By connecting questions of land, culture, and pedagogy, my scholarship bridges environmental humanities, political economy, and critical education studies. I aim to highlight the limits of current systems while also envisioning alternatives that prioritize ecological well-being and social justice.
Overall, my research advances education as a catalyst for cultural change. By centering land as both a source of knowledge and a partner in learning, I seek to contribute to reimagining how societies transition toward more just, resilient, and ecologically grounded futures.