teaches high school visual art at Deerfield High School. He currently serves as the Secretary and Executive Board Member for the Illinois High School Art Exhibition (www.IHSAE.org), of which he is the co-founder. He also serves as the Advocacy Taskforce Chair for the Illinois Art Education Association of which he was a former Secretary. This role includes facilitating discussions with key policy officials in the state and across the country in support of fine arts programming in Illinois. Chris is also a sponsor for Peer Helpers and serves on the DHS STEAM Engine Committee. He is the 2016-17 recipient of the IAEA Early Educator of the Year award.

With a social constructivist education philosophy, Chris has facilitated numerous student-led, large forum projects focused on practical and socio-emotional learning where individuality is essential. Advocating for STEAM curricular systems which bridge intersections across disciplines and learning communities is a core mission of his work. He believes the purpose of education should be to build a functioing democracy in which all benefit. Socially engaged and problem-based art projects are central curricular motivators. Student centered learning is a cornerstone, but metacognition which is crafted through reflective and responsive practices are the driving targets.

"Through our scientific and technological genius we have made of this world a neighborhood, and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood... We must all learn to live together as one. Or we shall perish as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality." Martyin Luther King Jr.