Dr. Donna Binns teaches courses in English education, technical communication, and composition and rhetoric. She has published articles in Indiana English, Kansas English, The Dangling Modifier and Illinois Association of Teachers of English Bulletin. Her research interests include the transition from high school to college writing and composition pedagogy. She serves as a member of the Council on Teacher Education at EIU and as Co-Director of the Eastern region for the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. She is currently the Director of English Education in the English Department.

Ms. Christine Eblin is a graduate student in Elementary Education with a focus in language arts. She is also completing a certificate in reading instruction while working fulltime. Her work focuses on young adult and children’s literature, as well as representations of multi-cultures in film.

Professor Joseph K. Heumann is emeritus faculty in the Communication Studies Department at EIU and teachers film genre courses for off-campus students. His research interests include film and ecocriticism, deep focus, and the films of John Ford and Howard Hawks. He has co-authored three books: Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge (SUNY Press 2009), That’s All Folks?: Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features (University of Nebraska Press 2011), and Gunfight at the Eco-Corral: Western Film and the Environment (University of Oklahoma Press 2012). He is currently drafting a book examining films responding to our basic needs, Ankle Deep in Blood: Everyday Ecodisasters in Documentary and Fictional Films. His work has appeared in Film Quarterly, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, Jump Cut, and other film and literary journals.

Film critic and scholar Chuck Koplinski has been participating in the EVFF since 2004, when he introduced Citizen Kane and Wuthering Heights to crowds of over 700 viewers at the Will Rogers Theater in Charleston.  Having studied film at Columbia College in Chicago, he's been reviewing films for over 15 years for Central Illinois publications including the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette and Springfield’s Illinois Times.  A member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, he has a weekly film segment on WCIA-TV and MIX 94.5 FM.   

Dr. Robin L. Murray teaches courses in film studies, English education, and multicultural American literature. Her research and service interests are in ecocriticism and film studies, women's studies, and composition theory and practice. She has co-authored three books: Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge (SUNY Press 2009), That’s All Folks?: Ecocritical Readings of American Animated Features (University of Nebraska Press 2011), and Gunfight at the Eco-Corral: Western Film and the Environment (University of Oklahoma Press 2012). She is currently drafting a book examining films responding to our basic needs, Ankle Deep in Blood: Everyday Ecodisasters in Documentary and Fictional Films. Her work has appeared in Film Quarterly, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, Jump Cut, and other film and literary journals. She also directs the Eastern Illinois Writing Project (www.eiu.edu/~easternnwp) and coordinates the Film Studies Minor.

Craig Titley (Workshop Facilitator) is a Hollywood screenwriter whose film credits include 20th Century Fox’s Cheaper by the Dozen and Warner Brothers Scooby Doo. A native of Mattoon, Illinois, he is a graduate of EIU and also of the Peter Stark Motion Picture Producing Program, University of Southern California. He is currently earning his Ph.D. in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute.