Speakers

Photo of Kai Cheng Thom wearing a white v-neck top and looking off to her left. The background behind her is red.Kai Cheng Thom, MSW, MSc is an internationally published, award-winning writer, performer, somatic coach and conflict consultant based in Toronto/tkaronto, Canada. She is the author of five award-winning books in multiple genres including poetry, fiction, and memoir, as well as the advice column “Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse” and various other publications. A widely acknowledged expert practitioner in the area of trauma resolution, group facilitation, and conflict resolution, Kai Cheng works with individuals and groups to support transformative change and trauma healing. Kai Cheng is the developer of the Loving Justice methodology, a somatic and spiritual approach to Transformative Justice and faculty of the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education. She believes in love, lasagna, and the power of human connection.

Photo of Dr. Schalk smiling at the camera. She is wearing brown glasses, dangling earrings, and a yellow v-neck top. The photo background is yellow.Dr. Sami Schalk (she/her) is an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Schalk’s interdisciplinary research focuses on disability, race, and gender in contemporary American culture. She is the author of Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction (2018), which argues that Black women writers of speculative fiction reimagine the possibilities and limits of bodyminds, changing the way we read and interpret categories like (dis)ability, race, gender and sexuality within the context of these non-realist texts. She is also the author of the forthcoming Black Disability Politics (2022). Dr. Schalk is a fat Black queer disabled femme, a pleasure activist, and a board member for Freedom Inc., a Black and Southwest Asian feminist activist and advocacy organization in Madison, Wisconsin. You can follow Dr. Schalk on Twitter and Facebook.