Chris Willey (he/him), is the Director of Technology at Islands of Brilliance, where he engages neurodivergent individuals with creative technologies. Willey's work revolves around developing Digital Academy programs for the 14+ community, leading a team of Creative Technologists, and supporting community upskilling efforts. Willey's mission is to make the education revolution irresistible. He is a trailblazer in teaching and learning, focusing on emerging creative technologies. Drawing inspiration from the metaphor of gardening, Willey cultivates a teaching philosophy that centers around fostering growth, nurturing creative curiosity by building resource-rich learning environments, and emphasizing the process.Willey is an Adobe Creative Innovator. He gets to collaborate with a distinguished community of creative educators on a global scale with the sole purpose of generating lifelong learners. With over a decade of teaching at the college level, his expertise spans digital art, digital painting, animation, audio/video production, 3D modeling, and game engines.Willey founded the Immersive Media Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, an interdisciplinary research space focusing on emerging creative technologies such as extended reality and early explorations of generative AI. Willey has traveled the world to teach and exhibit art, written textbooks on art and design, curated art exhibitions at museums, and is a self-professed teaching and learning wonk. Trained as a new media artist, Chris Willey holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. He currently lives and works with his wife and their adorable/legendary racing dachshund Barnaby in Cudahy, Wisconsin.