Claudine Michel is Professor Emerita of Black Studies, University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), where she served for over three decades in multiple capacities, including her last position as Assistant Vice Chancellor, Student Affairs. She holds a B.A. from the École Normale Supérieure (also studied at the Faculté d'Ethnologie), Université d'État d'Haiti, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Education from UCSB. In the 1980s she produced educational television series (Dodo Titit and Pawol Ti Moun) for Télévision Nationale d'Haiti. Crossing traditional boundaries in education, religion and Black Studies her research addresses core family values and reconceptualizes alternative modes of knowledge production, ways of being, and pedagogical interventions. Volumes authored or co-edited include: Aspects Moraux et Educatifs du Vodou Haïtien • Etude Comparative des Théories du Développement de l'Enfant • Black Studies: Current Issues, Enduring Questions • The Black Studies Reader • Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth and Reality • Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture: Invisible Powers • Brassage: An Anthology of Haitian Poetry • Remembrance/Re-Mémoire: Loss, Hope, Recovery after the Earthquake in Haiti. Since 1997 she has been editor of the Journal of Haitian Studies and is a founding member of Kosanba, a Scholarly Association for the Study of Haitian Vodou and Kalfou, a Journal of Comparative Ethnic and Relational Studies. Honors include teaching awards from UCSB, awards from the Haitian Studies Association (HSA), and the Jean Price-Mars Medal from the Faculté d'Ethnologie (UEH). Dr. Michel is a former president of HSA and currently serves as its Executive Director.

Dr. Moïse is currently a CLIR/Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Curation for Haitian Visual Arts. She works jointly with the Grinnell College Library and the Waterloo Center for the Arts. Dr. Moïse will play a central role in coordinating the Haitian Art Digital Crossroads project (HADC). The HADC aims to make the Haitian art collection of the Waterloo Center for the Arts, the largest publicly held collection of Haitian art in the world, digitally accessible as a preparatory study for the creation of a digital hub for a network of online resources in Haitian and Caribbean studies. In addition to managing this project, she will collaborate with cultural and academic institutes within Haiti and the Diaspora to build awareness of this collection as she develops her 'mitan-morphic' theory. With the use of augmented reality, her research bridges the reclaimed narrative of the contemporary Haitian artist's diverse cultural production, artistic protest, religious heritage and mythologies to create a compelling portrait of a historically significant and intensely complex identity in flux. By analyzing their art production processes, Dr. Moïse has identified the Haitian signature where the artist has the ability to reshape the artistic narrative from traumatic to triumphant. Her post-doctoral research focuses on the use of fine art (paintings and sculptures) that has been donated, converted and utilized as Voudou objects within Voudou peristils. The significance of her research develops the anthropologic landscape of visual art beyond the cultural works, such as religious significance, logistical placement, artistic provenance.