Susana M. Morris is a scholar of Black Feminism, Black Digital Media, and Afrofuturism. She received her Ph.D. from Emory University and has previously taught at Spelman College and Auburn University. She is the author of Close Kin and Distant Susana M. Morris is the founding director of the Earthseed Lab and Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is the author of Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature (UVA 2014), co-editor, with Brittney C. Cooper and Robin M. Boylorn, of The Crunk Feminist Collection (Feminist Press 2017), and co-editor, with Brittney C. Cooper and Chanel Craft Tanner, of the young adult handbook, Feminist AF: The Guide to Crushing Girlhood (Norton 2021). Her research and teaching interests explore Black women’s relationships to Afrofuturism, the Anthropocene, and feminism. She is currently at work on a cultural biography of Butler, Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler.

Brandy Pettijohn is co-producer and host of the Earthseed Afrofuturist podcast and a doctoral student in Digital Media, in the School of Literature, Media, and Communications at the Georgia Institute of Tech in Atlanta Georgia. She also holds a Master’s degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Georgia State University. Her academic research employs Black feminist thought, post-phenomenology, art history, and archival studies to address absences that occur in design research. She is particularly interested in creating opportunities for community involvement in narrative experiences and helping to dismantle barriers between institutions and communities.

Trinh Bui is an artist/owner of Aesthetic.origins and an undergraduate student studying Literature, Media, and Communication with a minor in Leadership Studies at Georgia Institute of Technology. Bui’s role in Earthseed is working on branding and web design. Bui aspires to work professionally in the fine arts and entertainment industry, as well as, social enterprise. Besides being a digital artist, Bui holds other passions within the arts. She choreographs, sings, does photography, and plays piano. Bui hopes after she graduates that she will create a social impact through art.