William Estrada is an arts educator and multidisciplinary artist. He is a partner artist with JTNWI’s Just Transition Visioning Project. William Estrada grew up in California, Mexico, and Chicago. His teaching and art-making practice addresses inequity, migration, historical passivity, and cultural recognition in historically marginalized communities. He documents and engages experiences in public spaces to transform, question, and make connections to established and organic systems through discussion, creation, and amplification of stories through creativity already present. He is currently a faculty member at the UIC School of Art and Art History and a Teaching Artist at Telpochcalli Elementary School. He has worked as an educator with Chicago Arts Partnership in Education, Hyde Park Art Center, SkyArt, Marwen Foundation, Urban Gateways, DePaul University’s College Connect Program, Graffiti Institute, Vermont College of Art and Design, Prison + Neighborhood Art Project, and the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

William’s art and teaching are a collaborative discourse of existing images, text, and politics that appoints the audience to critically re-examine public and private spaces. As a teacher, artist, and cultural worker, he reports records, reveals, and amplifies experiences you find in academic books, school halls, teacher lounges, kitchen tables, barrios, college campuses, and in the conversations of close friends to engage in radical imagination. William is currently engaging in collaborative work with the Mobilize Creative Collaborative, Chicago ACT Collective, and Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative.

William has presented in various panels regarding community programming, arts integration, and social justice curricula. William was awarded the 2016 Teaching Artist Community Award from 3Arts Chicago, the Inaugural 2017 Artist in Residence for the Artist as Instigator Residency Program at the National Public Housing Museum, the 2021 National Leadership Award from the National Guild for Community Arts Education, the Inaugural 2023 Imagine Just Fellow, the 2023 NALAC Catalyst for Change Fellow, was named “The People’s Art Teacher” in The Reader’s People Issue 2023, a 2024-2025 cohort member for the Mural Arts Initiative’s Strength Through Solidarity Initiative, and a recipient of the 2024 3Arts Next Level Award.

His current research is focused on developing community-based and culturally relevant projects that center power structures of race, economy, and cultural access in contested spaces to collectively imagine just futures through intentional and slow collaborations with people in the places they call home.

Deb Chubb has lived in Northwest Indiana for most of her life. She graduated from Indiana University with a law degree from Valparaiso University School of Law. For seven years, she developed a private law practice that served clients throughout Northwest Indiana. She then became the Executive Director of a non-profit pursuing their mission to improve access to high-quality early childhood education and care. During her 17 years in this position, she developed dozens of programs to support families and children, secured millions in grant funds, and helped thousands of women navigate the barriers to financial security in education, housing, transportation, parenting, employment, and health care. 

Passionate about the Indiana Dunes since she was a child, Deb served on the Executive Committee of Save the Dunes for ten years. She also helped found the Northwest Indiana Citizens’ Climate Lobby chapter, a national nonprofit lobbying Congress for a federal carbon fee that supports the transition away from fossil fuels by returning carbon fees back to citizens. She has led and served on several boards and commissions, including the Lake Michigan Region League of Women Voters, the Trail Creek Watershed Partnership, Indiana NOW, and Michigan City's Commission for Women and Sustainability Commission. 

Deb serves as the City of Benton Harbor, Michigan, CDBG Manager, writing and implementing federal and state grants.

Donnita Marion Scully serves on the NAACP Michigan City Branch 3061-B as the assistant secretary, environmental climate justice chair, and the branch’s Soul Power Program director.

She received her associate of science in nursing degree from Purdue University and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Science in nursing education from Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. Donnita has been married for 47 years and raised six sons. She has fourteen grandchildren. She has been a nurse since 1984, working in many specialty areas. Part of her nursing work included creating and serving as the executive director of a home visiting program for pregnant women and their families. She also worked as the congregational nurse coordinator for St. Anthony Hospital in Michigan City, Indiana, the Community Health Nurse Coordinator for Head Start in Michigan City, and the Nursing Department Chair at Ivy Tech Community College in Crown Point. Donnita is a member of R.E.N.W. MC Church in Michigan City, Indiana, where she serves as an intercessory prayer warrior, Sunday School teacher, praise and worship leader, and sings in the church choir. 

Donnita enjoys public speaking on various topics, particularly topics related to environmental health and justice and social determinants of health. She enjoys instructing people about solar and other distinct types of renewable energy. Her belief is…. When doing business, organization and creating free-flowing processes are valuable, and her life’s passion is to elevate individuals to a higher level of thinking toward high-level wellness.

Nancy Walter is a lifelong resident of the Calumet Region and retired after a 30-year career with the federal courts. She is active in several community justice organizations as service to the planet and its people is deeply embedded in her call as a Lutheran Deaconess. She resides with her husband Jack and their cat, who is firmly in charge.