Conference 2020 Program

Interdisciplinary Responses to the Pandemic: An International Forum

Click on Session 1 or Session 2 for additional program details or download the full itinerary.

8:00 – 8:30 am  PST

Welcome

Karen Moranski and Jennifer Lillig
Co-Chairs of 2020 AIS Conference 

James Welch IV, outgoing AIS President

8:35 – 9:30 am PST

Plenary Session

Host: Jacob Yarrow

Jacob Yarrow serves as executive director of the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University where he oversees hundreds of annual activities including the presentation of performances by touring artists and hosting concerts by student groups and resident companies. Under his leadership, the Green has prioritized support of artists of all ages and deepened engagement with Sonoma State students and the region's communities. He also serves a campus leadership role as a member of the Sonoma State Cabinet. 

Liz Lerman

Liz Lerman is a choreographer, performer, writer, teacher, and speaker. She has spent the past four decades making her artistic research personal, funny, intellectually vivid, and up to the minute. A key aspect of her artistry is opening her process to everyone from shipbuilders to physicists, construction workers to ballerinas, resulting in both research and experiences that are participatory, relevant, urgent, and usable by others.

Dr. Manuel-Navarrete is a sustainability professor at ASU. He was a consultant for the United Nations, and visiting researcher at King’s College London and the Free University of Berlin. His research includes community-based conservation and ecotourism in Latin America. He is currently promoting sustainability field schools, where indigenous people, students, and researchers co-produce knowledge and solutions for the Amazon rainforest sustainability.

Neda Movahed facilitates creative learning for sustainability. In May 2020, she completed her arts-based Ph.D. at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability. Neda works with embodiment, storytelling, and creative writing to complement her theoretical research questions. Through her dissertation work, “How We Wear Water,” Neda equates the process of learning with embracing change. Properties of water, such as molecular bonding and phase changes, are used as metaphors to understand individual and collective learning. She wonders: if water’s nature becomes a model for societal change, what possibilities exist for human evolution?

Beckett Sterner is an Assistant Professor in the history and philosophy of biology at Arizona State University. His research studies the social epistemology of pluralism, or "What knowledge do we need to get things done together while differing in fundamental ways?" Since arriving at ASU, he has been collaborating with biologists to understand how to close the loop between big data in biodiversity and decision-making.

9:45 – 10:45 am PST

Concurrent Sessions, Session 1

• Creative Problem Solving
• Social Media 
• Online Education 
• Equity, the Pandemic, and Protesting for Justice

11:00 am - 12:00 noon PST

Concurrent Sessions, Session 2

• Creative Problem Solving 
• Social Media 
• Online Education 
• Equity, the Pandemic, and Protesting for Justice

12:15 – 1:00 pm PST

Closing Session 

Announcement of 2020-2022 AIS President and 2020-2021 Board of Directors 

Closing Remarks

AIS Issues Conference Handout (Word doc)