Pat Steenland is a lecturer in the College Writing Programs at the University of California Berkeley. She has a PhD in English literature from Brown University. Her interests lie in the intersections of story, culture, and history. She has conducted several People and Stories Programs, including one that ran for seven years at A Friendly Place, a homeless women’s shelter in West Oakland. Recently, she has been teaching for the American Cultures Program at Berkeley and was named a Chancellor’s American Cultures Public Scholar for her work with Harry Williams in her class Researching Water in the West. For his part in this collaboration, Harry Williams was awarded the first American Cultures Community Scholar Award.