Dr. Cala Coats is Associate Professor of Art Education at Arizona State University.Her teaching and research use artistic inquiry methods to explore intersections of ethics and aesthetics in pedagogical practice and curriculum theory around questions of ecological interconnectedness and collective change. At ASU, she serves as Associate Director of Curricular Affairs for the School of Art and Graduate Advisor for the Art Education Program. She has published in a range of academic journals, and recently published New Materialisms and Embodied Encounters in Education: Curiosity's Vital Potential (Bloomsbury). Dr. Coats also serves as Co-Editor of The Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education. In 2024, she was awarded the Mac Arthur Goodwin Award for Distinguished Service within the Profession (NAEA), and in 2021, she was awarded Pacific Region Higher Education Art Educator Award (NAEA).