Dr. Zoe Lewis is a senior lecturer in early years at Birmingham City University. Zoe became a teacher and leader in early years settings after spending over 25 years volunteering as a group leader and outdoor activities adviser with the charity GirlGuiding UK. She completed her doctorate at the University of Sheffield in 2022, exploring young children’s ‘creative encounters’ in a forest school and art gallery through a posthuman and feminist materialist lens. Her current research interests continue to focus on creativity, outdoor learning and enabling environments with play, exploration, sensory and embodied ways of knowing being a consistent thread.