Dr. Ashley Colby is currently interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. As a qualitative researcher Ashley tends to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She earned her PhD focusing on environmental sociology from Washington State University in 2018. Ashley is the author of Subsistence Agriculture in the US: Reconnecting to work, nature and community, where she explores the social and political aspects of small scale food production in Chicago. Ashley has travelled to over 30 countries on 5 continents, and currently directs the Rizoma Field School in Colonia, Uruguay, which focuses on experiential learning on the area of sustainability and agroecology. Ashley on the Executive Board of the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI) based in North America, on the Steering Committee of the Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production Network for FutureEarth, and has founded a collective working toward a sustainable future called Doomer Optimism.