Arts+STEM Graduate Workshops

Arts+STEM Graduate Workshops

Creativity, Collaboration, and Environmental Problem Framing

Are you a graduate student in an Arts or STEM discipline with an interest in environmental issues and interdisciplinary engagement? This workshop series is just for you!

Workshops will feature creative activities including writing, collage, movement, and group problem-solving. Participants should be full-time graduate students.

All applicants to the Arts+STEM Workshop series are eligible and invited to participate in a National Science Foundation sponsored research study that will evaluate the workshop activities, and how they may contribute to creative inquiry and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Questions? Contact mark.callahan@uga.edu

Facilitators

Dr. Lizzie King is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Odum School of Ecology and Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. She earned a BA from Reed College and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. King conducts research in three main areas of sustainability science. One area focuses on challenges faced by livestock-herding societies in rural Africa, combining ecology and social science to gain a more holistic view of livelihood vulnerability. The second area is restoration ecology in Georgia, including barrier islands of Georgia’s coast and urban forests in Athens. Thirdly, she studies the value and practices of interdisciplinary and academic/non-academic partnerships in sustainability research.

Mark Callahan is the Artistic Director of Ideas for Creative Exploration, an interdisciplinary initiative for advanced research in the arts at UGA, and serves on the faculty of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. He is a graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Rhode Island School of Design, where he was a member of the European Honors Program in Rome, Italy. He currently serves on the editorial board of Ground Works, a new journal for arts research in partnership with the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru). Callahan has assisted many collaborative project teams at UGA and facilitated interdisciplinary workshops for a diversity of students and faculty interested in sustainability and environmental issues.

Both facilitators are CICR Affiliates and co-principal investigators of “Enhancing imaginative and collaborative STEM capacity through creative inquiry,” a three-year project supported by the National Science Foundation.

Background

This workshop series was developed by the UGA Center for Integrative Conservation Research in collaboration with Ideas for Creative Exploration. Based on student feedback and the success of a pilot program sponsored by the Graduate School, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the arts, humanities, and sciences designed activities to train students to think creatively, to collaborate across disciplines, and to work with people with different perspectives, knowledge, and values.

Further support comes from a three-year NSF Innovations in Graduate Education award to study the effectiveness of the workshops and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community. If successful, widespread adoption of these methods will contribute to equipping graduates across the country with communication and collaboration skills and ultimately increase creative and innovative solutions to complex global environmental challenges.

Project team:

Nate Nibbelink (Center for Integrative Conservation Research /Forestry)

Lizzie King (Center for Integrative Conservation Research /Ecology /Forestry)

Mark Callahan (Ideas for Creative Exploration /Art)

Kathryn Roulston (Education)

Brian Haas (Psychology)

Chris Cuomo (Philosophy /Women’s Studies)

Laurie Fowler (Watershed UGA /Ecology)

Rebecca Gose (Dance)

Jenna Jambeck (Engineering)

Michael Marshall (Art)

Meredith Welch-Devine (Graduate School /Anthropology)