Sophia Stephenson

Executive Director

Sophia Stephenson joined AEEA in 2018. She has been involved with environmental education for almost two decades, working at nature centers, an educational farm, and a local government department where the focus was solid waste management and resource conservation. She holds a degree in environmental, soil, and water science from the University of Arkansas. She is trained as a workshop facilitator for Project Learning Tree and Project WET.

Michelle Viney

President

Communities Unlimited | 2018-2020

Michelle is a Development Management Specialist for Communities Unlimited. She is a native of Northwest Arkansas whose childhood fascination with the outdoors influenced her career. Michelle has been involved in environmental education and conservation for over 15 years with experience developing and delivering curriculum related to a wide variety of environmental topics. She has coordinated numerous conservation events around Northwest Arkansas and has actively engaged hundreds of volunteers in conservation and restoration activities.

Michelle has a BA from Hendrix College in Environmental Ethics and a Masters in Management and Leadership from the George Herbert Walker School of Business with Webster University. Michelle is actively involved in her community. Currently she serves as the President of the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society Chapter. She was the 2015 Volunteer Chair for the Washington County Habitat for Humanity Women’s Build Committee. She is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Beaver Watershed Alliance and the Multi-Basin Regional Water Council. Michelle is an active Project Learning Tree facilitator, training teachers and educators around Arkansas. In her free time she enjoys gardening, reading, canoeing, and exploring her own backyard with her family.

Tabbi Kinion

Co-Secretary

Arkansas Game & Fish Commission | 2019-2021

Tabbi is currently the Education Division Chief for Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. She has served as the Statewide Education Coordinator for Colorado Parks and Wildlife and as a Nature Center Interpretive Specialist for Jefferson County Open Space at Lookout Mountain Nature Center. Tabbi believes that AEEA should serve as the local professional organization for the 65 AGFC Education Division Staff Members. She would like to build a strong connection and understanding of the work that AEEA does and contribute as a board member in order to ensure that this organization meets the needs of environmental educators across Arkansas. As an active member of the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education (CAEE) for 18 years, she was involved in the writing, public comment, and adoption process for the Colorado Environmental Education Plan that was adopted by the State Board of Education in 2015. She also served on a wide variety of CAEE committees over the years, including the advisory committee.

Tiffany Dunn

Co-Secretary

Recycle Saline | 2018-2020

Tiffany Dunn is the Executive Director for Recycle Saline: A Solid Waste District. In this position, she oversees the award winning, YEA! Team program working with teachers and students on recycling programs in Saline County schools. With her passion for working with kids and educating them about recycling she developed and annually produces Re-Fashion Bash “Where Green Is The New Black” a recycling fashion show where students create designs out of recycled and reusable material for the runway.

Tiffany received her BA in Business Administration in Marketing from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is very committed to her community, actively serving on the Board of Directors for Keep Bryant Beautiful, Benton Matters, AEEA, and SWANA. She is also a member of the Arkansas Recycling Coalition. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her daughter visiting parks, hiking, and traveling.

Dr. Kristina Bondurant

Treasurer

DRKB Science and Solutions, ATC Scientific Consultant, & Analytics Department, AFMC | 2019-2021

Kristina is a scientist with experience in biomedical research, food testing, epidemiology, program evaluation, and education. She currently consults as a microbiologist at a food testing lab and as an epidemiologist at a local non-profit. She is active in the Little Rock School District, bringing hands-on science demonstrations and investigations to her neighborhood elementary school two days a week. She has a strong interest in education in Arkansas and believes there are many ways to bring groups together for environmental education and to support environmental efforts in the state. Her family engages in various outdoor activities throughout Arkansas and it is important to her that her children continue to experience all that our state offers. She believes that playing an active role through the AEEA board to keep Arkansas the Natural state would be an honor.

Brad Robertson

Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas | 2018-2020

Larry Kenemore, Jr.

Stat-Medicament Disposal | 2018-2020

Larry spent his retirement years from 2005 to 2013 working on his inventions. His first project was looking at how recycling was being accomplished, and then how to make it more convenient so that a greater number of items could be collected. After numerous different sizes, colors, dividers, materials, and lastly in-home tests, the current container is the result. Larry was able to see his idea come to fruition. A container that fits right inside your kitchen, collects more recycling items than any other recycling program, “including plastic bags, Styrofoam, computer parts, glass, and sorts them as they are placed inside. During this process he found that pharmaceutical, OTC medications, and vitamins are polluting are drinking water and that there is no known way to remove these pollutants. Thus hatched the concept of his Stat-Medicament-Disposal bottle.

Bo Verser

Pangburn High School | 2019-2021

Bo teaches physical science, environmental science and physics at Pangburn High School. He has served on the Audubon Arkansas Board of Directors and is currently serving on the Audubon Arkansas Important Bird Areas Technical Committee. Bo has a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Fish and Wildlife Management from Arkansas Tech University. He has studied birds, insects, and plants and their ecological interdependencies for many years. He has been humbled by how daunting the task is to teach students things they don’t know but ought to know. He considers the task of educating people about our environment and how to be proper stewards of it one of the most noble and crucial endeavors one could engage in. His late-in-life career change to teaching was based in no small part on this. AEEA seems to be a natural fit to him.

Ashely Harris

White Line Waste | 2020-2022

Ashley is an Arkansas Master Naturalist and feels passionately about environmentalism and conservation.  She believes the most important thing she can do with her “one wild and precious life” is to teach, share, and instill this passion in the next generation that will be stewarding the planet.  She brings political, organizational, and environmental experience to the organization. While completing her business administration degree at the University of Arkansas, Ashley also completed courses in sustainability, low impact development. She is committed to environmental education and believes in the mission of AEEA.

Krissy Thomason

AR Dept of Agriculture – Forestry Division | 2020-2022

Kristine (Krissy) Thomason is the Urban Forestry Coordinator for the Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s Forestry Division. Krissy’s forestry roots began in her native Texas, where she received her Bachelor of Science in Forestry degree from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1999. She began her forestry career with Weyerhaeuser, but then branched out, becoming a licensed paramedic and later earning a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from the University of Central Arkansas. While teaching in public and private school for 11 years, she grew concerned about the increasing number of children growing up with limited exposure to the out-of-doors and to environmental stewardship, which prompted her to become trained in Project WET and Project WILD and to become a Project Learning Tree facilitator. Her career cycled back to forestry when she joined the Forestry Division in 2019 as a county forester. Krissy lives in southwest Arkansas, serves on the Arkansas Urban Forestry Council and on the state’s steering committee for Project Learning Tree, and is incredibly proud that her three girls, ages 12, 7, and 5, love camping and spending time outdoors.

Whitney Reushling

City of Conway – Dept of Sanitation | 2020-2022

Whitney Reuschling is a technical writer and strategic communicator with a knack for engaging multimodal audiences of all ages in educational and organizational facilitation. Currently, you can find her in K-12 classrooms, university halls, and throughout the greater community discussing recycling and sustainability for the City of Conway, Arkansas. Having been in the field of higher education and student programing for more than a decade, finding herself in environmental education has been a learning and research thrill. Outside of her Monday through Friday, Whitney is a mom, wife, Alpha Chi Omega alumna, and graduate of both Missouri State University and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Sim Barrow

Fayetteville School District

Sim Barrow is the Environmental Science Coordinator at the Fayetteville School District, where he coordinates and supports environmental education and sustainability initiatives at the schools. Sim also leads outdoor science field days for elementary and high school students at the Lake Fayetteville Environmental Study Center, one of the longest-running municipal-school environmental education facilities in the country. His focus is to apply student-centered learning strategies that achieve meaningful, rigorous and equitable outdoor learning experiences for all students. Prior to working in Fayetteville Public Schools, Sim worked at the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust as their Communications and Development Coordinator and led the outreach and education efforts there. His first foray in environmental education was as a cave guide at Blanchard Springs Caverns near Mountain View, Arkansas. Sim has a B.S. degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology from Arkansas Tech University and a M.S. in Entomology from the University of Arkansas.

Jessica Jones

Expo Committee Chair

Really Cool Environmental Business | 2019-2021

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