Nissa Coit

is an irrepressible creative and a friend of the bees. She holds a Master’s degree in Entomology from the University of California at Davis and a B.S. in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her academic background is in apiculture; she studied honey bees in both undergraduate and graduate school, where she applied her biological training to practical management and research of honey bee hives to learn about honey bee biology, behavior, ecology and management. However, she realized that while honey bees are important to pollinate conventional food systems, focusing on just one aspect of the problem would not help fix the systemic threats we are facing. After a period of disillusionment with researching honey bees, due to their dilemmatic position between supporting and being supported by vested interests in the monoculture system of industrial agricapitalism, she has begun to find renewed inspiration in studying the literal and metaphorical lessons of honey bee sociology. Nissa is EcoGather’s Learning Network Steward, as such she’s responsible for transplanting all of our learning assets into a well-tended digital garden and managing it as a learning commons. She also helps to facilitate our EcoGatherings and work on Intentional Communities. In her free time she enjoys all sorts of handicrafts like pottery, sewing, knitting, and candle-making.