explore the intersection between art and science
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explore the intersection between art and science -
Dan Jay
Dan received his BSc in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Toronto (1979) and PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University with Guido Guidotti (1985). He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows (1985-88) and Hoffmann-Laroche Fellow and Markey Scholar (1989) with David Hubel at Harvard Medical School. His first academic position was assistant professor in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University rising to the rank of John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences (1989-98). He joined Tufts University School of Medicine in 1998 rising to the rank of full professor (2001 in Physiology with a secondary appointment in the Department of Neuroscience and then 2015 in Developmental, Molecular and Chemical Biology). He is currently Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University since 2017.
Dan is rare in that he has had a parallel career in the visual arts. As a Junior Fellow he did both science and art, and he was provided with a laboratory as well as an art studio for three years. During this time, he studied with the sculptor William Reimann and had two solo shows. In recent years, he has combined art and science with a unique perspective of a scientist’s mind and an artist’s eye. Dan develops new art media from scientific materials such as liquid nitrogen, magnetic fields and elements of the Periodic Table to express inspiration in his science from childhood to the present day. Dan has shown this work widely including Harvard University, Massachusetts State House, Boston Convention Center, Aidekman Arts center (Slater Concourse), the French Cultural Center, Whitehorse Cultural Center (Yukon), the Danforth Art Museum, the Museum of the National Center for Afro-American Artists, the Ontario Science Centre, the Peabody Essex Museum and the Boston Museum of Science.
Organizers
Callie Chappell
Callie is a scientist, community bio-artist and policy researcher based in the Bay Area of California (USA). Their work centers identity and culture in the practice of art and science. Callie completed a B.Sc. in Biology and M.Sc. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University Michigan, followed by a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Stanford University. During their PhD, Callie developed art/science experiences with youth that inspires artistic expression with biology by co-leading BioJam Camp, leading the Stanford Science Policy Group (SSPG), Science Teaching through Art (STAR), and co-founding the Stanford Biology DEI group. Callie was a fellow with the Stanford Center for Computational, Evolutionary, and Human Genomics (CEHG) (2023), Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021), Stanford Graduate Fellow (2017-2022), BioFutures Fellow through Stanford’s Department of Bioengineering (2021), Ecological Society of America Katherine S. McCarter Policy Fellow (2020), McCoy Center for Ethics Graduate Fellow (2019), and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow (2017-2020). Now, Callie works at the intersection of art, ecology, and activism as a Biosecurity Innovation Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security & Cooperation and is a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology.
Corinne Takara
Corinne Okada Takara is a community art activist and STEAM educator who has for twenty years created programs that elevate and empower community voices in conversations centered on identity, place, science, and technology. Her passion for accessible STEAM learning anchored in cultural and community science knowledge drives her to collaboratively develop programs with museums, libraries, and community organizations. She is a co-founder of BioJam Camp, a teen program anchored in both Salinas and the Stanford Department of Bioengineering, served as the Program Director of the community biolab Xinampa in Salinas, California, and is co-founder of the youth Art & Design Thinking Camp in East San José, California. Takara’s sculptural fine art pieces have been showcased internationally, and are part of permanent museum collections and public transit art programs. Her frugal science tool and biomaterial design research is conducted in her Nest Makerspace.
Takara has received State, National, and International recognition for her work straddling art and biology including fellowships and residencies such as the Ginkgo Bioworks Creative Residency, a Lucas Artist Residency at Montalvo Arts Center, 2020 Global Community Biosummit Fellowship, and a 2020 National Public Interest Technology Innovation Fellowship. She has led four high school teams in the International Biodesign Challenge for which she was honored with the 2019 Outstanding Instructor Award.
She resides in Honolulu and holds a BA in Design from Stanford University and is an alumni of the Purple Mai’a Ka Maka I’nana program in Hawai’i.
Participants
Suzanne Barbour
In September 2022, Dr. Suzanne Barbour became the Dean of the Duke University Graduate School. Prior to that, she served the same role at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (2019-2022) and the University of Georgia (2015-2019). She has served as program director in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation and as a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the School of Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University. Previously at VCU, she led the graduate program in biochemistry and molecular biology, directed research training at the Center on Health Disparities and held affiliate appointments in the departments of African American studies, biology, and microbiology and immunology. Suzanne is committed to trainee success at the highest levels, including serving as an individual and group coach for postdoctoral scholars in the NIH Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) program and on advisory boards for the Council of Graduate Schools and Graduate Education Advisory Council of the Educational Testing Service. Throughout her career, she has mentored dozens of students and received numerous awards for professional achievement and teaching excellence. Suzanne graduated from Rutgers University with a baccalaureate degree in chemistry and a doctorate in molecular biology and genetics from The Johns Hopkins University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Diego. Her research interests are focused on phospholipases A2 and lipid signaling in metabolic diseases.
Ahna Skop
Ahna Skop is a geneticist, artist, author, and a winner of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Her lab seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie asymmetric cell division, with a focus on the midbody. The last step in cell division, abscission, relies on a transient electron-dense structure called the midbody, which resides inside the intercellular bridge between newly forming daughter cells. Long conceptualized as a structural remnant subject to degradation following cell division, emerging data suggest that midbodies play instructive post-mitotic roles in establishing cell fate, proliferation state, tissue polarity, cilia formation, neuron function, and oncogenesis. Midbody dysregulation leads to birth defects, cancer, and age-related neurodegenerative diseases. In 2004, Ahna pioneered proteomic and genomic approaches to identify novel cell division proteins by utilizing biochemically purified midbodies, which was published in Science. More recently, the lab has discovered that the midbody is a translationally active RNA containing organelle. The Skop lab’s focus now is to determine how this signaling organelle behaves as novel form of intercellular communication in mammalian cancer and stem cells.
Understanding how cells divide is highly dependent on in vivo microscopy and large amounts of visual data, which dovetails perfectly with one of her other passions, art. The combination of scientist and artist inspires her to think differently and maintain an open mind. Some of her work can be seen in the main entrance of the Genetics/Biotechnology Center building on the UW-Madison campus with a 40ft-scientific art piece called “Genetic Reflections”. Her accompanying book, “Genetic Reflections: A Coloring Book”, showcases the beauty of genetics, model organism biology, and DNA found in the art piece. She has also curated and contributed to a traveling exhibition of scientific art called “TINY: Art from microscopes” from the UW-Madison campus, and she has organized the bi-annual Worm Art Show for the International C. elegans Meeting for over 25 years. Ahna is also passionate about increasing the numbers of underrepresented students in STE(A)M fields. In 2016, she was awarded the very first of two, Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award for her outreach and inclusive teaching efforts. She has served as a board member for SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) and on the ASCB (American Association for Cell Biologists) Minority Affairs Committee, where she has broadened her impact on underrepresented students in science nationally.
Ahna is the child of artists. Her father, Michael Skop, was a bit of a Renaissance man and was a classically trained fine artist who studied with Mestrovic (a pupil of Rodin) and also taught college-level anatomy. Her father operated an art school at their home studio for over 30 years and attracted artists, musicians, and philosophers from all over the world. Her mother was a high school art educator, ceramicist, and has dabbled in fiber art, sculpture and painting. Her two sisters and brother are also graphic and industrial designers. She has embraced her parents’ love of creativity in everything she does. She majored in biology and minored in ceramics at Syracuse University (1990-1994), where her father had played football and studied with Mestrovic. She received her Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1994-2000) and conducted her post-doctoral work at UC-Berkeley (2000-2003).
Ahna is a Professor in the Department of Genetics and an affiliate faculty member in Life Sciences Communication and the Division of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She mentors both scientists and art students in her lab, and also serves on the board of the Wisconsin Science Museum, where many of her art-science collaborations are on display. In 2008, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from the College of St. Benedicts, and was named a Remarkable Women in Science from the AAAS. In 2015, she was honored as a Kavli Fellow from the National Academy of Sciences. In 2018, she was awarded the first ever Inclusive Excellence Award by the ASCB and HHMI. She has served as an advisor to the chief diversity officer at the NIH, and is a diversity consultant to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). In 2019, she was honored as one of 125 Women in STEM with an AAAS IF/THEN Ambassadorship. Her science and art have been featured by Apple, The Scientist, USA Today, Smithsonian, PBS.org, NPR and Science magazine. One of her great hobbies is cooking/baking (including scientific cakes!) and she manages two foodblogs, foodskop.com, and her AAAS IF/THEN funded labculturerecipes.com in her free time.
Nic Bennett
Nic Bennett, M.A. researches power, ideology, and belonging in science communication at The University of Texas as a doctoral candidate of the Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations. They engage arts- and science-based research and practice to critique, disrupt, and reimagine science communication spaces. Alongside scientists, artists, activists, and community members, they hope to expand the circle of human concern in science communication and STEM. Follow them on Instagram: @scicomm_as_healing or on Twitter: @choleness.
Mauro Martino
Mauro Martino is Research Manager and Principal Research Staff Member at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, where he founded the “Visual Artificial Intelligence Lab”.
He graduated in Design from the Politecnico di Milano, where he also obtained his PhD with a thesis in Urban Interaction Design within Carlo Ratti's Senseable City Lab (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology), where he spent a year and a half as a visiting researcher. Mauro holds several patents and has co-authored over 30 scientific publications. He has created data visualization for the BBC, Scientific American, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel, Le Figaro, Corriere della Sera, National Geographic, Popular Science, Wired. His work has been exhibited worldwide at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, GAFTA in San Francisco, Lincoln Center in New York, the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe (Germany), and his work is part of the permanent collection of the Ars Electronica Center in Linz.
Mauro has been a presenter at TEDx Cambridge (2012) and TEDx Latvia (2016), his works have been featured in scientific journals such Nature, Science, PNAS, among all, and textbooks about data visualization: “Data Visualization” by Andy Kirk, “The Truthful Art” by Alberto Cairo, “The Best American Infographics” 2015 and 2016 editions.
Mauro is an award-winning designer whose projects received the Gold Medal at the 2017 Vizzies Visualization Challenge by National Science Foundation, he has won several times the Webby Award, the Innovation by Design Award (by Fast Company), the Information is Beautiful Award.
Victoria Vesna
Victoria Vesna, Ph.D., is an Artist and Professor at the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts and Director of the Art Sci center at the School of the Arts and California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). Although she was trained early on as a painter (Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Belgrade, 1984), her curious mind took her on an exploratory path that resulted in work that can be defined as experimental creative research residing between disciplines and technologies. With her installations, she investigates how communication technologies affect collective behavior and perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation (Ph.D., CAiiA-STAR, University of Wales, 2000). Her work involves long-term collaborations with composers, nano-scientists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists, and she brings this experience to students.
Kendra Oliver
Kendra Oliver completed graduate training in pharmacology in 2016, postdoctoral training in discovery education in 2018, and a master’s degree in design in 2022. She is an experienced scientist passionate about science communication, multi-disciplinary projects, and online learning and engagement approaches. Her work broadly integrates art, science communication, and user experience design. Her scholarship examines through pedagogical, psychological, and design constructs how science is communicated visually. Kendra also examines how to design programs and experiences for practitioners that integrate art, science, technology, and design in the hopes of cross-disciplinary collaborations, inspirations, and development opportunities. Mainly this is accomplished through ArtLab, which has become an epicenter for design, visual science communication, and science outreach using innovative and engaging approaches that showcase top biomedical researchers’ latest findings through art. She creates art, graphics, and digital experiences that draw on my training in pharmacology and physiology but are grounded in the user-centric design of digital products and experiences. Her future creative works share curiosity across visual experiences that allow viewers to search, navigate, represent, and share their curiosity about the world of science.
Louis Muglia
Louis Muglia, MD PhD is President and CEO of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, an independent nonprofit research foundation in Research Triangle Park accelerating discovery in the biomedical sciences. Previously, he served as Vice Chair for Research, Director of the Division of Human Genetics, Co-Director of the Perinatal Institute, and Professor of Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Lou’s research focus has been to understand the molecular pathways determining when birth occurs to prevent preterm birth and better treat human preterm labor and delivery, considering both genetic and environmental factors. Priorities now at Burroughs Wellcome Fund include climate change and human health, promoting diversity and equity in science, and science communication better partnering science and the arts.
Among Lou’s achievements are more than 300 publications and election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and Association of American Physicians. In 2010, he was elected to Fellow in the American Association for the advancement of Science. In 2013, Lou was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine, and in 2020, to the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
Lou earned his Doctor of Medicine (1988) and Doctor of Philosophy (1986) degrees from the University of Chicago. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in biophysics from the University of Michigan in 1981. He and his wife Lisa enjoy cooking, literature, music and visual art.
Arthur Miller
Arthur I. Miller is Emeritus Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at University College London. His critically acclaimed books include the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty that Causes Havoc; Empire of the Stars: Friendship, Obsession and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes; 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession; Insights of Genius: Imagery and Creativity in Science and Art; and Colliding Worlds: How Cutting-Edge Science is Redefining Contemporary Art. A regular broadcaster and lecturer, he has judged art competitions, curated exhibitions on art/science and writes for The Guardian, The New York Times, Scientific American, Wired and Nautilus. His most recent book, The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity, explores AI and creativity in art, literature and music. His recent play, Synchronicity, recreates the explosive encounters between the analyst Carl Jung and the brilliant but deeply troubled young physicist Wolfgang Pauli. It had sell-out readings in NY and will be produced in London.
Suzanne Anker
Suzanne Anker is a visual artist and theorist working at the intersection of art and the biological sciences. Her practice investigates the ways in which nature is being altered in the 21st century. Concerned with genetics, climate change, species extinction and toxic degradation, she calls attention to the beauty of life and the “necessity for enlightened thinking about nature’s ‘tangled bank’.” Anker frequently works with “pre-defined and found materials” botanical specimens, medical museum artifacts, laboratory apparatus, microscopic images and geological specimens. She works in a variety of mediums ranging from digital sculpture and installation to large-scale photography to plants grown by LED lights. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally in museums and galleries including the Beijing Art & Technology Biennial, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Daejeon Biennale, Korea; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; P.S.1 Museum, New York, NY; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité, Berlin, Germany; the Center for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, Germany; the Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey; the Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; and the International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Anker’s exhibitions have been the subject of reviews and articles in the New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, Flash Art, and Nature. Her books include The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age, co-authored with the late sociologist Dorothy Nelkin, published in 2004 by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Visual Culture and Bioscience, co-published by University of Maryland and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. Her writings have appeared in Art and America, Seed Magazine, Nature Reviews Genetics, Art Journal, Tema Celeste and M/E/A/N/I/N/G. Her work has been the subject of reviews and articles in the New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, Flash Art, and Nature. She has hosted twenty episodes of the Bio Blurb show, an Internet radio program originally on WPS1 Art Radio, in collaboration with MoMA in NYC, now archived on Alana Heiss’ Clocktower Productions. She has been a speaker at Harvard University, the Royal Society in London, Cambridge University, Yale University, the London School of Economics, the Max-Planck Institute, Universitiy of Leiden, the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin, the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, Banff Art Center any many others. Chairing SVA’s Fine Arts Department in NYC since 2005, Ms. Anker continues to interweave traditional and experimental media in her department’s Bio Art Lab.
Michael John Gorman
Michael John Gorman is Founding Director of BIOTOPIA (www.biotopia.net), a new museum of life sciences and environment in development in Munich, and University Professor (Chair) in Life Sciences in Society at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. Previously Michael John was Founding Director of Science Gallery at Trinity College in Dublin, dedicated to igniting creativity and discovery where science and art collide. In 2012 he founded Science Gallery International (www.sciencegallery.com) with the goal of bringing Science Gallery experiences to a global audience, with Science Gallery spaces now being established in London, Melbourne, Bangalore, Atlanta, Monterey, Rotterdam and Berlin. Prior to founding Science Gallery, Michael John was Lecturer in Science, Technology and Society at Stanford University and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University, Stanford University and MIT. He has written numerous books on topics ranging from Buckminster Fuller’s architecture to seventeenth century science and articles and reviews in journals including Nature, Science, Nature Medicine, and Leonardo. His recent books include The Scientific Counter-Revolution: The Jesuits and the Invention of Modern Science (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) and Idea Colliders: The Future of Science Museums (MIT Press in 2020). He sits on several Boards including Rachel Carson Center, Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence and the Executive Board of the Munich Science Communication Lab and is an Expert Adviser to the European Commission (JRC) and New European Bauhaus.
Kiki Sanford
Dr. Kiki Sanford is a professional science communicator with over 20 years of experience in media, science journalism, and informal science education. After receiving a PhD in Molecular, Cellular, & Integrative Physiology, and a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife, Fisheries, & Conservation Biology from UC Davis, Dr. Kiki transitioned into a career focused on translating scientific research to various audiences and helping scientists in their communications efforts. In 2015, Dr. Kiki founded Broader Impacts Productions, a boutique production agency dedicated to science storytelling. Additionally, she founded, produces, and hosts the This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast (the longest-running, female-owned science podcast!), a weekly live talk-format show covering a multitude of science topics. She received the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship in 2005, which led her to work at WNBC as a producer for the Health and Medical segment on the five-o'clock news. Subsequently, she hosted and produced science and environment programming for Discovery Digital Networks and the TWiT Network, and appeared in a number of programs on the Science and History channels. She has hosted podcasts for AAAS and StemCell Technologies, among others. Dr. Kiki speaks publicly on a variety of science-related topics, organizes science communication events, and is Executive Vice President and co-founder of the Association of Science Communicators (ASC), a non-profit organization member-organization aiming to elevate science in society and the craft of science communication in its many forms. ASC organizes the annual Science Talk conference, and partners with Sigma Xi on the #SciCommMake initiative. Dr. Kiki really enjoys her work.
Devon Akmon
Devon Akmon is the Director of the Michigan State University Museum and core faculty in Michigan State University’s Arts, Cultural Management & Museum Studies program. Devon joined MSU on April 1, 2020, as the Director of Science Gallery Detroit with the main responsibility of leading the organization's transition from a startup to a more established institution. On July 1, 2021, Science Gallery became a programmatic division of the MSU Museum, focused on experimentation and innovation at the intersection of science and art, and Devon was appointed as the Director of MSU Museum. This pivot occurred following several new developments at Michigan State University, including the establishment of a new strategic plan, MSU 2030, which outlined new priorities for the university. Additionally, the MSU Museum, along with other major cultural institutions at MSU, became part of the University Arts and Collections unit within the Office of the Provost. As a result, the purpose of MSU's Science Gallery changed from its initial concept. Starting in September 2022, MSU's Science Gallery became the MSU Museum CoLab Studio.
Previously, Devon served as a Senior Consultant with the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland. His work included providing organizational guidance and support in artistic and strategic planning, community engagement, institutional and programmatic marketing, fundraising, and board development for a wide range of cultural institutions across the United States.
Prior to that, Devon served as the second director of the Arab American National Museum (AANM). He joined the AANM as the curator of community history shortly before the museum's opening in 2005, was promoted to deputy director in 2009, and became the director in 2013. As director, Devon established new relationships with individuals and organizations that led to the expansion of the museum's mission and programming throughout the nation. Devon also oversaw the physical expansion of the museum, including the creation of the Annex, a new community arts space adjacent to the museum, and an artist-in-residency unit in the neighboring City Hall Artspace Lofts.
Under his leadership, the AANM was named an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, a member of the National Performance Network, and received international recognition as a TAKREEM Laureate for Cultural Excellence. Devon also played a key role in guiding the AANM through the Museum Assessment Program (MAP) and Accreditation process from the American Alliance of Museums. This was a significant achievement, as the museum attained Accreditation, the mark of distinction in the museum field, on its first attempt and within 10 years of opening to the public.
Devon currently serves as a board member of the American Alliance of Museums and Artspace. Previously, he served on the boards or advisory committees of CultureSource, Kresge Arts in Detroit, Smithsonian Affiliations, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Institute of Arts, East Dearborn Downtown Development Authority, and the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission, among others. Additionally, Devon has served on several national grantmaking review panels, including those for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
Devon earned his Master of Science in Historic Preservation at Eastern Michigan University. He is a graduate of the Michigan Nonprofit Association's Emerging Leaders Class IX and Leadership Detroit Class XXXIV. In 2013, he was named one of Crain's Detroit Business magazine's "40 Under 40" business leaders. In 2016, Devon was selected as one of twelve American Express NGen Fellows with the Independent Sector.
Hannah Bialic
Hannah Bialic completed her bachelors in biochemistry in 2017 and her masters in immunology and inflammatory disease in 2018. She is a researcher who is passionate about communicating science to the public and developing engagement methods that involve diverse audiences. Since 2021 she has served as the Public Engagement Manager for the Wellcome centre for Integrative Parasitology at the University of Glasgow. During this role she has focused her time and efforts to co-create engaging science communication and public engagement projects that utilize various artistic mediums, such as physical art and street theatre, to engage communities regarding neglected tropical disease. She is also very passionate about bringing together science and art, and how both fields can better benefit from such collaborations.
Nate Nibbelink
Nate Nibbelink is a Professor of Spatial Ecology and Associate Dean for Research in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. Nate and his students study species-environment interactions and build geospatial models in support of landscape-scale decision-making to improve socio-environmental resilience to climate and land use change. He holds a BA in Biology (Lawrence University), an MS in Oceanography & Limnology (University of Wisconsin), and a PhD in Zoology & Physiology (University of Wyoming).
In 2009, Nate joined colleagues across colleges at UGA to develop the Integrative Conservation PhD program (ICON) and subsequently served as the Director of the Center for Integrative Conservation Research (CICR) from 2014-2021. CICR and ICON strive for transformative interdisciplinary research and training, and rely on disciplinary humility, diverse sources of knowledge, and creative and collaborative problem-solving. Nate and a diverse UGA team from art, dance, ecology, education, engineering, and philosophy were recently awarded an NSF Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) award -- “Creative Inquiry in STEM” -- where they are testing the use of arts pedagogy to enhance creativity and collaborative capacity in graduate training.
Christina Hull
Dr. Christina M. Hull is a Professor of Biomolecular Chemistry and Medical Microbiology & Immunology in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Her research group investigates how environmental fungal pathogens undergo sexual development, produce spores, and cause mammalian infections. They are leveraging their discoveries to develop interventions to prevent and treat fatal fungal diseases in humans. In addition to fundamental research Dr. Hull has a long-standing interest in science education and outreach, particularly for individuals in underserved and marginalized groups. Both inside and outside the lab, she seeks to create accessible tools and spaces to engage all learners (a.k.a. humans) in the joy of scientific discovery.
Philip Ross
Philip Ross is the Co-Founder and CTO of MycoWorks, a company that grows biomaterials out of mycelium. Philip is an artist, inventor and entrepreneur whose work is focused on the technological relationships between human beings and the greater living environment.
Philip’s creative work has been featured at Carnegie Mellon University, the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, and the 2016 Venice Biennial of Architecture. His curatorial projects include a history of bioreactor design for the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Critter Salon.
Ram Dixit
Ram Dixit obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook where he conducted research in Dr. Abraham Krikorian’s lab on somatic embryogenesis from carrot cell suspension cultures. He then moved upstate to Dr. June Nasrallah’s lab at Cornell University, where he studied cell-cell communication during plant reproduction and received a Ph.D. in plant molecular biology. During his Ph.D. work, Ram got interested in the inner workings of cells that produce shape and execute various cellular functions. He did postdoctoral work in Dr. Richard Cyr’s lab at Penn State University where he used fluorescence microscopy and computational modeling to characterize the dynamics and organization of plant cortical microtubules. He then joined Dr. Erika Holzbaur’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania to study molecular motor proteins and microtubule tip-binding proteins using single-molecule imaging and functional reconstitution experiments. Ram joined the Biology Department at Washington University in St. Louis as an Assistant Professor in 2008 and is currently a Full Professor of Biology. He serves as faculty director of the BioSURF program at Washington University, as co-director of the Plant and Microbial Biosciences graduate program, and as associate director of education for the NSF-funded Science and Technology Center for Engineering Biology.
Mark Olson
Mark Olson is Associate Professor of the Practice of Visual & Media Studies at Duke University and a founding member of several arts and humanities initiatives at Duke that borrow from and innovate upon the “lab model” of the sciences: the Digital Art History & Visual Culture Research Lab, the S-1: Speculative Sensation Lab, and, most recently, the et al lab (a nascent art|science lab co-directed with Nina Sherwood and Kristen Tapson). In his research and teaching, Olson is committed to cultivating literacies in “critical making”—drawing on the critical and analytic repertoires of the theoretical and historical humanities while cultivating deep understanding and proficient practice at the intersection of the creative arts, computer science, electrical engineering, medicine, and the life sciences. He is the former Director of New Media & Information Technologies for HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Sciences & Technology Advanced Collaboratory) and currently serves as Faculty Advisor for Technology at the Nasher Museum of Art.
David Roy
David Roy is a multidisciplinary artist and educator known for their sculptures, paintings, and photographs. They received an MFA in sculpture from Yale University, where they were a recipient of the Yale School of Art Social Justice Initiative Grant (2020). They also hold a BFA in photography from Otis College of Art and Design (2013). They are currently a lecturer in sculpture at UCLA and part-time faculty member at Otis College of Art and Design.
Roy’s work is guided by the declaration that art is a practice of freedom inseparable from everyday life. Roy’s sculptures draw on the visual language of rocket science, as they deploy durable materials common to the aerospace industry such as carbon fiber, fiberglass, resin, and Kevlar. The sculptures also circulate through videos, paintings, and drawings, wherein Roy documents physical components of the rockets and their launches.
In 2016, Roy founded BLACKNASA, a space agency aimed to teach rocketry and the ideals of space exploration to underrepresented youth groups. Animated by Roy’s sculptural practice, BLACKNASA views rocketry as a science, a creative practice, and a universal language.
Buck Goldstein
Buck Goldstein is the University Entrepreneur in residence and Professor of the Practice (emeritus) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the co-author, with Holden Thorp, of Engines of Innovation – The Entrepreneurial University in the 21st Century, and Our Higher Calling—Rebuilding the Partnership Between America and its Colleges and Universities. He was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Information Industry Association and Information America, the company he cofounded, appeared numerous times on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies.
Goldstein has been involved in entrepreneurship most of his professional life. After four years at a corporate law firm, he co-founded Information America, an online information company that was the first to make courthouse information available from remote terminals in lawyer’s offices. The business began as a two-person start-up and grew to over $40,000,000 in revenues, eventually going public and trading on the NASDAQ. In 1994, Information America was acquired by West Publishing.
He subsequently founded Net Worth Partners which was designed to invest in online information-based enterprises. As a partner, Goldstein invested in a number of emerging businesses and served on the Board of Directors of over 15 companies.
Goldstein joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2004 and became involved in the start-up community of RTP. He served as Chairman of Medfusion, a Raleigh-based medical information technology company and as a Board member of iContact, an email marketing company and Liquidia, a nano-technology company founded in the UNC chemistry department]
As a faculty member at UNC, Goldstein helped build The Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative, a project created to make innovation and entrepreneurship part of the intellectual culture of the campus. The UNC entrepreneurship curriculum has been named by a variety of national publications as among the nation’s best. As Professor-of-the Practice at the University, he taught thousands of undergraduate and graduate students as well as a MOOC called What’s Your Big Idea which was offered to over ten thousand students worldwide.
Goldstein currently serves on the Boards of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, the Ackland Art Museum, and the Chancellor’s Think Tank, all at UNC and on the Advisory Board of the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival.
Aravinthan Samuel
Dr. Samuel is a Professor of Physics at Harvard University, leading a lab that studies the motile behavior of small organisms. They use biophysics to understand how behavior is organized by underlying computational networks that transform sensory perception into motor decisions. Samuel began studying the chemotactic behavior of Escherichia coli as a graduate student with Howard Berg. In the Samuel lab, they study navigational behaviors in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the Drosophila larva. They build and use tools for quantitative behavioral analysis in defined stimulus environments, for optical neurophysiology of neural circuits, and for the structural reconstruction of neural circuits using electron microscopy. The Samuel lab seeks the structure and function of networks that perform the computations needed for purposeful behavior.
In addition to his lab, Samuel teaches a seminar about the science of optics in the visual arts.
Andrew Yang
Andrew S. Yang works across the visual arts, natural sciences, and expanded research to explore our ecological entanglements. His projects have been exhibited from Oklahoma to Yokohama, including the 14th Istanbul Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Spencer Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, with recent curatorial projects Earthly Observatory at SAIC Galleries and Making Kin - Worlds Becoming for the Center for Humans and Nature. His research and writing appear in Leonardo, Art Journal, Biological Theory, Current Biology and recently in the Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies as well as the new series Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations. Yang holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the Lesley College of Art and Design and a PhD in Biology from Duke University. He has taught courses in the natural sciences, visual art, and art/science interface at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for over 15 years and coordinated its Conversations in Art & Science series and Scientist-in-Residence program. He is currently the Jonathan Lash Chair Professor in Environmental Education & Sustainability at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA.
Amir Siraj
Amir Siraj is a New England Conservatory- and Harvard-trained concert pianist and astrophysicist. He is a US Presidential Scholar in the Arts and a Steinway Young Artist, and has performed for leaders like Moon Jae-in of Korea, Justin Trudeau of Canada, and Queen Rania of Jordan. He has played with orchestras including the Boston Symphony and Pops, and at venues including the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Millennium Park, and Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium. Amir's work in astrophysics was named one of ten “extraordinary cosmic revelations” of 2022 by CNN. He is a Forbes 30- Under-30 honoree, established Music For The Parks, and recently performed with Yo-Yo Ma with on-stage discussions about the science/music connection. In August, Amir organized a panel discussion at the Aspen Center for Physics that put Pulitzer-Prize- and GRAMMY-winning composers in conversation with top theoretical physicists. He is currently pursuing his PhD at Princeton University.
JD Talasek
JD Talasek is a curator, researcher, and writer with an interest in exploring the intersection of art and science through collaborative and integrative work. He is the director of Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (2101 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington DC), a program that is focused on the relationship between science, medicine, technology, and culture (www.cpnas.org). Talasek is the creator and moderator for a monthly salon called DASER (DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous) held at the NAS - a series that he has hosted for over 13 years. Additionally, Talasek is the art advisor for Issues in Science and Technology Magazine co-published by Arizona State University and The National Academies.
He was the creator and organizer of the international on-line symposium on Visual Culture and Bioscience and co-editor of the published transcripts (distributed by D.A.P., March 2009). The second in this series of on-line symposia, Visual Culture and Evolution, was held from April 5 through April 14, 2010.
He was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University in the Museum Studies Master’s Program. Additionally, he has served on the Contemporary Art and Science Committee (CASC) at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and was a member of the board of directors for Leonardo: The International Society of Art, Science and Technology.
Talasek has curated several exhibitions at the National Academy of Sciences including Imagining Deep Time (2014), Visionary Anatomies (toured through the Smithsonian Institution, 2004 - 2006), Absorption + Transmission: work by Mike and Doug Starn, The Tao of Physics: Photographs by Arthur Tress, Cycloids: Paintings by Michael Schultheis. At the University of Delaware, he organized and curated Observations in an Occupied Wilderness: Photographs by Terry Falke and LightBox: the Visual AIDS Archive Project.
Talasek holds an MFA in studio arts from the University of Delaware, an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester, and BS in Photography from East Texas State University. He was born in 1966 in Dallas, Texas and currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Russ Campbell
Russ Campbell is the director of science communications and strategic partnerships for the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a private foundation in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Since June 2005, Mr. Campbell has been responsible for the communication activities of the Fund and now manages a $2 million grant portfolio in science communications. Mr. Campbell received a B.A. in English from Penn State University and a M.L.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the founding president of County House Research and has worked in the news offices of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. As an advocate for effective science communication, he co-founded the Science Communicators of North Carolina. He served on the board of directors for the North Carolina Network of Grantmakers and is a strategic advisor for EducationNC.