Moira Pirsch
Moira Pirsch is a poet, scholar, and co-founder of AHAS: Archive for Health, Arts & Spirit, a nonprofit dedicated to resilience programming, arts-based research, and collaborative initiatives at the intersections of health, culture, and spiritual well-being. She has led statewide projects in Hawaiʻi such as the development of the Youth Poet Laureate Program, trauma-informed professional development for teachers, and creative wellness programming for children and families.
Moira holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University's Teachers College and a Masters Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She continues her research as a Coyle Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Literacy Education and as a Research Affiliate with Columbia University’s Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study. With roots in the Midwest and three generations of family in Hawaiʻi, she now bridges her work across Hawaiʻi and North Carolina, focusing on arts-health initiatives, teaching artist training, and poetic memoir projects such as Blessings for Everything.
Her scholarship and practice are deeply grounded in the transformative power of the arts to build community, foster healing, and expand literacy in its broadest sense.
- Outstanding Dissertation Award, American Education Research Association (AERA), Spirituality SIG (2018)
- Excellence in Teaching Assistance Award, (1 TA) General Studies Student Council, Columbia U (2018)
- Dean’s Grant for Student Research, Teachers College, Columbia University (2017-2018)
- Dean’s Fellow for Teaching and Diversity, Teachers College, Columbia University (2017-2018)
Ph.D., English Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
M.Ed., Arts in Education, Harvard University
B.A., English Literature, University of Minnesota
- Pirsch, M. (Forthcoming) Lords above us and within us: Race, Spirituality and Hip Hop Based Education. Journal of Interreligious Dialogue
- Rajan, S. Roberts, K. Guerra, L. Pirsch, M. Morrell. E. (2017) Integrating health education efforts into core curriculum classrooms: Successes, challenges, and implications for urban middle schools. Journal of Adolescent Health
- Pirsch, M. (2011, March 28). A Place to Blossom. Minnesota Women’s Press.
- Pirsch, M. (2010, December 1). Learning to Live. University of Minnesota’s English Alumni Newsletter. Winter 2010. http://english.umn.edu/engagement/newsletter2010.php?entry=263366.
- Pirsch, M. (2010 December). Broken Backbones. In HECUA’s Newsline Newsletter (pp 3). Minneapolis, MN
- Pirsch, M. (2010 October 10). UWomen Rap. Minnesota Women’s Press. http://www.womenspress.com/main.asp?SectionID=124&SubSectionID=27&ArticleID=3759
- Pirsch, M. (2008) A Quilt. In Someone Might Hear You: An Anthology of First Wave Poets (pp 50). Madison, WI: OMAI/First Wave Press
- Pirsch, M. (2008). We Women. Printed in Minnesota Youth Writers Poetry Chapbook. Minneapolis, MN
- Pirsch, M. In Kepecs, S. (2006) Hip Hop Goes to College. Wisconsin People and Ideas (pp. 14-19). Fall 2006.
