Robin Gunkel is the Creator and Director of Mushroom City Art Festival, first conceived in 2012 and held in fall 2013. Through her work with Mushroom City, Robin was inspired to pursue a doctorate. Robin now holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Sustainability Education from Prescott College in addition to holding a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Naropa University. Robin works as an academic advisor at Maryland Institute College of Art and will be co-teaching Science of the Environment at the University of Baltimore this fall 2023. Robin has been a community organizer in Baltimore since 2009 when she began working as a coordinator for Bloom Baltimore, a social and mobilization network for regenerative planetary culture.  Robin has also lived and taught abroad in Japan and studied in Northern Ireland. She is most passionate about how social networks can work beside forest networks to support both social and ecological justice. 

Holly Wheat is a Maryland native mycophile with a focus on common edible and medicinal fungi. Section hiking the Appalachian Trail is a long-standing passion of hers, and is also how she discovered her love of wild foods and natural medicine. Holly has been involved with MCAF since 2015, and aims to lead walks that are easily understood by those who are new to mushroom identification and foraging. 

Miles Gannett is a singer-songwriter, musician, and music producer inspired by psychedelic mushrooms, social justice, and American music traditions, combining these influences to create an idiosyncratically psychedelic and subversive Americana music. Gannett’s interest in mushrooms deepened while attending Goddard College in Vermont, during which time he studied the history and philosophy of psychedelic mysticism in the West, of which the life and (translated) words of Maria Sabina and the mythological writings of Carl Ruck had a particular impact. These studies influenced his 2021 solo album Meridian, a mushroom-inspired country album featuring the songs “Spores on Grass,” a tongue-in-cheek history of Ergot fungus rendered as a bluegrass tune, and “Maria Sabina,” a tribute to the life, struggles, and influence of the eponymous Mazatec wise woman and poet. Since performing at the first annual Mushroom City Art Festival in 2013 with his band Fractal Cat, Gannett has performed frequently at MCAF over the years and has gradually become involved in supporting the musical operations of the festival as a sound engineer and organizer.

Sunny is an avid lover & purveyor of all things myco & fungi related, with a focus on learning, teaching, & sharing the many wholistic aspects & benefits of fungi & how integral they are for the health & wellbeing of huemanity, the planet, & for all of the kingdoms of nature. He has also been feeding, bringing everyONE together, & educating the local community of MD about eating plants, & their healing properties through the many local vegan & plant based companies he has worked with. Sunny has an eclectic mix of experience from his passions & love for farming, permaculture, shamanism, wholistic medicine {psychospiritual, emotional, & physical wellbeing} through many different non~invasive healing modalities, commUNITY organizing {co~ordinating, creating, & volunteering for multi~day & single day festivals, gatherings, workshops, & events centered around environmental sustainability, inclusivity, wholistic health & wellbeing, music, {he}arts, crafts, & more}, plant based nutrition, phytoremediation, nature, music, visual {he}arts, how to live sustainably by creating little to zero waste & causing no harm through a compassionate, heart centered awareness of our connection to all walks of life by teaching & empowering everyONE he meets that we are all ONE & that anything we set our heart & mind to we can become & create! He is also currently creating a mission based non~profit that will be the foundation for building multiple wholistic wellness centers, animal sanctuaries, & new earth intentional commUNITIES throughout MD, PA, NC, VA, OH & beyond!