A white person with short curly brown hair, brown eyes, and a blue collared shirt smiles at the camera.

Stepha Velednitsky

ASST COOP EXT ADVISOR

M.S., Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Trauma-informed Instruction
Culturally responsive and culturally sustaining approaches
Inclusive facilitation
Participatory research
Visual and creative methods
  • UCCE CONTRA COSTA COUNTY
Stepha comes to UC Cooperative Extension with 17 years of experience in education, including garden and environmental education for K-12 youth across the Bay Area, undergraduate instruction and career mentorship, and community-engaged research with learners of all ages.
 
Her work focuses on supporting future-readiness for historically underserved youth across the East Bay through applied research, workshops, presentations, community partnerships, curricula and program development. She is passionate about advancing accessible, trauma-informed, and culturally sustaining instructional practices, using creative research and teaching methods (including games, mapping, and visual storytelling), and learning alongside youth, educators, and community partners. 
 
 Stepha offers free consultation and thought partnership, practical tools and resources, and hands-on workshops and presentations for youth and adults at youth-serving organizations around the East Bay. If you're interested in learning more, please reach out to velednitsky@ucanr.edu!
 
Relevant Publications
 

Lobenstein, M. M., Velednitsky, S., Skluzacek, J., & Rossiter, B. (2025). Bringing Lived Experience into Curriculum Review: A Proposed Participatory Model. The Journal of Extension, 63(4), 17.

Lobenstein, M.M., Velednitsky, S., Skluzacek, J., Rossiter, B., & Curtis, T.K. Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Participatory Curriculum Review Model. Journal of Extension. (forthcoming)

Bley, K., Caldwell, K., Kelly, M., Loyd, J., Roth, R. E., Anderson, T. M., Bonds, A., Plevin, J., Madison, D., Spencer, C., Sims, T., Archuleta, C., Ellner, Z., McDowell, T., Nestel, C., Noterman, E., Smith, N., Velednitsky, S., Underwood, N., Darlington, R., Gao, Y., George, A., Miller, A., Prestby, T., & Vongkusolkit, J. (2022). A Design Challenge for Transforming Justice. GeoHumanities.

Loyd, J. M., Velednitsky, S., Diaz, I., Ibrahim, S., Giddings, C., Caldwell, K., Bonds, A., Hawkins, R., & Mountz, A. (2022). Dear Feminist Collective: How Does One Take up Slow Scholarship (in the Midst of Crises)? In Rosenberg, Mark W., Lovell, Sarah, and Stephanie E. Coen (eds.) Handbook of Methodologies in Human Geography. New York: Routledge.