Juan Carlos Castro (Ph.D.) is a Professor of Art Education at Concordia University. He was Chair of the Department of Art Education from 2017-2022. He is the editor of the book: Mobile media in and outside of the art classroom: Attending to identity, spatiality, movement, and materiality (2019) in which he and his team examined how mobile media coupled with creative production networks knowledge in urban environments to create educational and civic engagement with teens and young adults. His current research, as the Principal Investigator of the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded project: Investigating the Creative Practices of Youth in Digital Visual Learning Networks, looks at how young people use digital visual networks to support creative practice outside of formal schooling. Before joining the faculty at Concordia University, Juan Carlos has taught at the University of Illinois, the University of British Columbia, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland Institute College of Art, and the Burren College of Art. Juan Carlos is a former National Board Certified Teacher and taught visual art and photography at Towson High School in Maryland. As a high school art teacher, his teaching and curriculum were awarded a Coca-Cola Foundation Distinguished Teacher in the Arts from the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts and twice awarded with a U.S. Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award. In 2013, he was awarded the Manuel Barkan Memorial Award, and in 2022 the National Higher Education Art Educator Award, both from the National Art Education Association. Juan Carlos served as the Chair of the National Art Education Association Research Commission from 2018 to 2020. He is also co-editor of the books entitled: Educational, Psychological, and Behavioral Considerations in Niche Online Communities (2014) and Youth practices in digital arts and new media: Learning in formal and informal settings (2015).
