Artist-Scientist Festival Residency

What it is. A four-year NSF-funded residency program (Award #1612719, $938,000, 2016–2020) pairing artists with scientists for several months of structured collaboration, producing festival-scale public-engagement work at major US music and arts festivals. The PI institution was Pratt Institute, with Mark Rosin as Principal Investigator. The producing partner was Guerilla Science LLC.

The problem behind it. Public-engagement science by 2016 had a reach problem and a depth problem at the same time. Festival programming reaches large audiences but tends to be entertainment-shaped. Lecture-shaped programming has depth but reaches the already-converted. The residency asked whether artist-scientist pairs, given real time and structured technical support, could land at festivals with material that was both substantive and embodied. The NSF grant funded both the program and the evaluation research that came out of it.

What I did. I co-directed the program over the 2017–2018 cycle, working with Mark Rosin and the Guerilla Science team. My slice was running the residency cohort, mentoring fifteen artist-scientist pairs through technical, project-management, and presentation work, and supporting their festival-floor productions. I also held a concurrent Visiting Assistant Professor appointment at Pratt’s Math and Science Department, teaching coursework that integrated biology, design, and interactive technology. Mark led the academic and grant-administration side as PI; Guerilla Science led the festival-production logistics; I was the residency-cohort lead.