Blake Marques Carrington, associate professor of digital arts, Laura Pawson, visiting assistant professor of art and design education, and Melody Stein, visiting assistant professor of landscape architecture, have received Fulbright awards for this academic year. The prestigious US Department of State Fulbright program selects highly accomplished faculty members and professionals to serve as teachers, scholars, and expert consultants at academic institutions abroad, where they lead workshops, collaborate on research, and build relationships for future institutional cooperation.
Blake Marques Carrington received a US Scholar Award to travel to Brazil for three months next spring. He will collaborate with the fine arts department at the University of São Paulo on “Transdisciplinary Practice of Art + Technology,” a project exploring “the effects of technology of our shared human environment.” The project is informed by Carrington’s participation in a recent NSF-funded project that explored transdisciplinary STEM teaching and learning at Pratt.
“My activities will consist in working on a collaborative creative work with faculty and students that utilizes mixed reality and other developing technologies,” he said. “I will also take part in the activities of a research group called ‘Realidades,’ with scholars spread throughout Brazil, which focuses on the philosophical perspectives of our hybrid digital/physical realities that we live in.“
Laura Pawson is participating in the Fulbright Leaders for Global Schools Program. She is traveling to Glasgow and London for two weeks in November.
“We will visit schools, observe classrooms, engage with peers in discussions around opportunities and challenges in primary and secondary education, and gain insight and experience in the different perspectives and approaches to education,” Pawson said. “My guiding question that will frame my research is rooted in social justice and equity.”
Melody Stein received a US Scholar Award to investigate, over a six-month period, how green infrastructure and other land-based approaches can be deployed in Taiwan’s Taipei Basin to address flood risks. She is working in collaboration with Dr. Kuei-Hsien Liao, a leading expert on flood resilience and adaptation and a professor at the Graduate Institute of Urban Planning at National Taipei University (NTPU).
Since August, Stein has performed fieldwork, engaged local stakeholders, conducted archival research, and developed case studies “to build a case for landscape-based approaches and shift the conversation from flood resistance to flood resilience.” Stein hopes that the relationship with NTPU will continue beyond the Fulbright, building connections between Pratt landscape architecture students and faculty with colleagues abroad.
“I’m interested in how emerging environmental science research can more effectively make its way into built projects,” Stein said. “The conversation around green infrastructure needs to be place-based and specific, not just in terms of the ecological conditions on the ground but also in terms of the policies and cultural connotations that govern what gets built and how.”
Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has given more than 400,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. Pratt’s Center for Career and Professional Development advises for the Fulbright US Student Program, with the Institute becoming a top Fulbright producer in cultural exchange programs.
Applications for the US Student Fulbright Program open each year in March and close at the time of the national deadline in October. Please contact fulbright@pratt.edu if interested.