We also considered opportunities to connect research to funding, collaborators, partnerships, new methods of dissemination or venues for critical feedback. This Spring the Research Committee and Office of Research invite you to participate in our new faculty research lunch series, Synergy Lunches.

Past Presenters

Faculty Research Lunch
November 11, 2015

Jennifer Wallace
Humanistic Studies

Jennifer Wallace read selections from her forthcoming book, THE WANT FIRE, and discussed research as it relates to writing poems.

Feedback for this presenter?
Jennifer can be emailed at jwallace@mica.edu

John Peacock
Rinehart School of Sculpture

John Peacock shared a videotaped mini-lecture from a hybrid (part-online, part face-to-face) Native American Studies course co-taught by himself and an elder at the tribal college of North Dakota's Spirit Lake Dakota Nation. The pre-recorded lecture presented evidence from student online discussion forums that MICA students are learning from their tribal college peers, who are digital natives like themselves, to question the still prevalent stereotype that American Indians still live entirely traditional lives and are therefore inevitably going the way of the buffalo.

​Feedback for this presenter?
John can be emailed at jpeacock@mica.edu

Michael Sizer
Humanistic Studies

Michael Sizer presented his research on the history of words for social conflict (revolt, revolution, etc.) and the problems that our terminologies create for the study of episodes of social conflict in the pre-modern period and today.

Feedback for this presenter?
Michael can be emailed at msizer@mica.edu

Ryan Hoover
Interdisciplinary Sculpture

Ryan Hoover presented on his bioprinting research and development. He outlined the software, hardware, and material development related to this project and discussed the multidisciplinary teamwork needed to move this project forward. In addition, he highlighted instances of symbiotic overlap with his teaching, which he feels is helpful in building an understanding of how research works with other aspects of our institution.

Learn more about this presenter: ryanhoover.org

Feedback for this presenter?
Ryan can be emailed at rhoover@mica.edu

Faculty Research Lunch
September 23, 2015

Monica Lopez-Gonzalez
Information Visualization

Monica Lopez-Gonzalez discussed how she uses photography, film, and theatre as co-founder and artistic director of La Petite Noiseuse Productions to understand the cognitive neuroscience of creativity.

Learn more about this presenter: lpnproductions.com

Feedback for this presenter?
Monica can be emailed at mlopezgomez@mica.edu.

Mary Mark Munday 
Art Education & Young People's Studio 

Mary Mark Munday has been researching the history and culture of Bronze and Iron Age Horse nomads, as well as present-day nomad groups in Central Asia since 1993. Munday worked with Dr. Leonid T. Yablonsky in Russia on archaeological excavations in the Southern Urals. In addition, Munday was part of a two-person archaeo-ethnographic survey of Bayan Olgiy province in the Mongolian Altai in 1996, and has visited Iran four times since 2002 to explore Turkmen Sahra on horseback. In Iran Munday found an "Art Institute" in the Turkmen enclave of Gonbad e Kavus, with which she would like to establish closer affiliation in the ultimate goal of hosting a "Summer in Iran" program. Munday's presentation focused on the potential of this collaboration. Munday is applying for a Fulbright to Iran, pressing for the State Department to re-open those ties in light of recent developments with Iran. During this next year, with a grant, Munday hopes to attend the art institute and solidify connections there.

Feedback for this presenter?
Mary Mark can be emailed at mmunday@mica.edu

Ruth Toulson
Humanistic Studies

Ruth Toulson's presentation was entitled Dead Bodies and the Body-Politic. In Singapore, the state has ordered the destruction of every cemetery but one. In any context, to destroy the grave of a loved one would likely horrify, but here the act is all the more terrifying: many Singaporean Chinese families believe that all good things-health, wealth, fertility-stem from the fact that the dead are appropriately buried. In this presentation, Toulson asks why a state would do this and she examines the scope and limitations of state power. Can a state, for example, really make a person forget a dead loved one? Can it put an end to what they have always believed? Toulson also interrogates the nature of rapid ideological transformation more broadly: what prompts people to change the ways they mark death? How malleable are intense emotions: grieving, longing, forgetting, love?

Feedback for this presenter?
Ruth can be emailed at rtoulson@mica.edu

Diana Reichenbach
Animation

As a specialist in architectural media, Diana Reichenbach has produced digital artwork for buildings and architectural spaces worldwide, with her most recent commission for Virgin Atlantic Airways' Clubhouse at LAX. Her presentation highlighted a few specific projects, including a recent collaboration with Shands Children's Hospital at the University of Florida. Reichenbach is interested in collaboration across disciplines at MICA as well as within the community of Baltimore.

Learn more about this presenter: dianareichenbach.com

Feedback for this presenter? 
Diana can be emailed at dreichenbach@mica.edu