Welcome!

This is my first go around with this so bear with me! I link resources for those interested in engaging with some of the content I take in!

I’m happy to be able to share some of the things/topics/activities that interest me and bring me joy with folks who I care about. One thing I’ve been realizing during this dual pandemics we’ve been experiencing is how easy it is for me to disconnect myself from others. I had a friend ask folks about this idea to stay connected through newsletter type updates and I figured that’s something that make me more accountable to staying connected with my loved ones!

My hope for this is to highlight a few things about my daily and bring folks along some paths I’m on: PhD student life (it’s very little glam but cool work), my research/work (also little glam but my passion so it works), photo (we all love good photography and i’ve learned to own that it me), then my dog (everyone loves her although she’s picky), and then other random activities I do.

I love supporting/sharing learning and learning opportunities (yes im hella nerdy about this) so thanks for being here.

A bit on me..

To start, I LOVE being in community with folks and learning with, and from, them. I figure through this medium I can work my style as I hope to support others learning as I learn (i hope that makes sense). Academia (higher education/researchers/universities etc) are often SUPER inaccessible as far as knowledge, while also alienating people through elitism, classism and some other isms and I hope through this medium I can support breaking that down since colleges are joke. Here’s a brief intro me and my work and I’ll highlight a couple projects I got going on then tag some photos and recommendations to learn about the topics that are guiding my research and thinkings (happy to talk about anything further as well just drop me a line).

My name is Kaleb Germinaro and I am a 3rd year PhD student at University of Washington-Seattle in the Learning Sciences & Human Development department, and I broadly study how people learn. I grew up in Phoenix, spent time in Philly at UPenn for undergrad and my masters (where I got interested in what I’m doing now) and now in Seattle, WA. I explore questions around how to better design learning environments to address the psychological trauma people experience in their lives (therapy helps but 1 on 1 situations aint for everyone). Some of the ways I go about doing that focuses on designing spaces for people to reflect, others focus on building materials to support mental health and wellbeing and another line of work uses maps & geographies as a way to collect data and understand how trauma can be inflicted socio-spatially (social relationships with space and spaces) (stay with me!).

Research Interests

Geography: looking at people’s relationship with places and spaces (i love seeing folks where they love being, and learning about why?!) Here’s the book Color of Law that helps situate how places and spaces are very much troubling.

Learning Sciences: I enjoy how people learn in these spaces, how can we design spaces that center peoples wellbeing as they learn? Here’s a researcher/educator who I saw speak at Drexel University when I was at Penn and he blew my mind with how CREATIVE I could be when doing research (pivotal moment for me) and his name is Dr. Chris Emdin.

Critical Theory: this may be a bit controversial for some people, as quite often people critique critical theory because it’s so cynical as it calls out what’s wrong with systems (capitalism, racism, sexism, settler colonialism) and institutions (prisons, education, politics, businesses etc.) when for me its a way to frame my work to understand how we can build solutions. So for this work I focus on Intersectionality theory from Kimberle Crenshaw (ted talk linked).

Mental Well-Being & Prevention Science: I focus on trauma (dark topic i know, and it’s sad for sure) for the sake of healing trauma. We all carry it, we all experience it (in different ways) and we all deserve to be health. Here’s the ted talk/researcher that got me into, Dr. Nadine Burke, so I operate from the understanding that people experience trauma in different ways, places, to different identities and across the life-course, so my big question is how do we design for the healing of trauma and promotion of psychological wellbeing? Here’s a book that illustrates why this is also important, The Body Keeps the Score.

Current Projects & Activities

Here’s a project a team and I did this past summer: www.bbispaces.com. This map highlights places of belonging, safety and healing as communicated through community surveys. Understanding why and how these spaces are important helps us design in the future, people are always doing good work and understanding how is important to make it the norm.

Here’s another project I helped direct and write that is a resource for university faculty to support their students wellbeing (and applicable in many other spaces). It’s open source and its called the Well-Being for Life and Learning Guidebook.

I also joined a cycling club called NorthStar Bicycle Club as a way to stay active and get outside during the middle of the pandemic (Seattle summers are the best). Never thought I’d be doing this after playing football the majority of my life but it’s proving to be pretty dope with the scenery and crew I get to ride with.

Lastly, here’s some photos of my pup and travels (i love roadtripping) my website if you want to see more photos.

diné land | northern arizona

lennon | at the old crib

Topics to touch on in the next homie letter: Redlining, Environmental Racism, Racial & Economic Justice and anything else that comes to mind please let me know! Take care of yourselves and PLEASE REST. Something to think about; what brings you joy and are you currently pursuing that? Why or why not?

p.s. if there’s something you enjoy/catches your eye and you want to know more just lmk, i enjoy sending resources/other things to dive into and obviously enjoy chatting about these topics!

-kg