Bree Kessler is a designer, educator, researcher, and writer.

She is the co-founder of Participate, a social impact studio that specializes in participatory processes, as well as the founder of Object Histories, a design firm that honors and builds on the histories of everyday materials. 

She is currently developing a co-designed multi-generational learning lab.

She is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Psychology studying and experimenting with do-it-yourself urbanism. She also holds graduate degrees in natural resource management, public health, social work, psychology, and a certificate in online instructional design.

To pay the bills, she develops and teaches online and in-person courses in civic engagement, environmental studies, public health, research methods, urban design, and women’s studies. She also sometimes raises money for organizations, advises on capacity-building strategies, and conducts field-based ethnographic evaluations.

Her writing on topics such as bluegrass music, community gardening, emerging cuisines, reality TV, and wildlife biology have appeared in several regional and national magazines. Her story on tapping for birch syrup was nominated for the Alaska Press Club’s “2021 Best Humor Story.” She hasn’t won the award yet. She also won nothing when she appeared as a listener-contestant on the NPR radio show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

She did feel like she won the lottery when The New York Times featured her family’s life above the Arctic Circle in “52 Places We Love in 2021.” She is the author of the (almost out-of-print) travel guidebook, Moon: Big Island of Hawaii.

She only takes family photos if there is a Supreme Court justice available.