- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Jacobs will discuss her newly published book, “Jonas Salk: a Life,” which chronicles the life of whom she describes as “one of America's most beloved and decorated scientific heroes.”
The LASER event, to be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in Room 3001 of the Plant and Environmental Sciences Building, will feature four speakers from the arts and sciences, who will present 20-minute talks on several disciplines, including medicine, visual art and astrophysics.
The event is free and open to the public. It is affiliated with the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion, co-founded by entomologist/artist Diane Ullman, professor of entomology at UC Davis, and self-described rock artist Donna Billick.
Jacobs, who currently cares for U.S. military cancer patients at the Palo Alto Veterans Medical Center, is the Ben and A. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine (emeritus) at Stanford University. A native of Kingsport, Tenn., she studied medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. As a professor at Stanford University, she engaged in teaching, cancer research, and patient care. She received numerous awards for excellence in patient care and teaching, as well as the Distinguished Alumni Award from Washington University.
LASER organizer Anna Davidson serves as the moderator. She received her doctorate in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences and is currently a master of fine arts student at UC Davis.
Other speakers, all from the local or Bay Area, are:
8:10-8:35 p.m.: Rachel Clarke, artist and educator teaching new media art at California State University, Sacramento, will speak on “Merging Spaces,” about her latest art work, which combines physical and virtual modes of making
8:35-9 p.m.: Andreas Albrecht, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Physics, will speak on “What Is Time.” He is a leading theoretical physicist who specializes in understanding the origins of the universe will be talking about “time.”
In his origami talk, Lang says he will discuss the techniques used in mathematical origami design, which range from the abstruse to the highly approachable. “I will describe the geometric concepts led to the solution of a broad class of origami folding problems – specifically, the problem of efficiently folding a shape with an arbitrary number and arrangement of flaps.”
Lang holds a doctorate in applied physics from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and during his work at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Spectra Diode Laboratories, and JDS Uniphase, authored or co-authored more than 100 papers and 50 patents in lasers and optoelectronics as well as authoring, co-authoring, or editing 14 books and a CD-ROM on origami.
Clarke's work involves video and animation, installation, augmented reality and experimental 3D, and has been shown in galleries, museums, new media art festivals and film screenings nationally and internationally.
Professor Albrecht says that “Time is a central part of everyday life, yet it can still seem very mysterious.” He will discuss time from a physicist's point of view “in a way that takes us from every day experiences to deep questions about the cosmos.” He is a member of the new Center for Quantum Mathematics and Physics at UC Davis.
Related Links:
For more information on the program, see
https://www.facebook.com/events/1732840033613610/
For directions:
http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/plantsciences/visitors/map.htm
Contact information:
Anna Davidson: adavidson@ucdavis.edu
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The event is free and open to the public, said Anna Davidson, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Plant Sciences who is organizing and chairing the LASER speaker series. This is the first of five LASER events, made possible by Leonardo International Society of the Arts Sciences and Technology and the UC Davis Art Science Fusion Program.
Among the speakers on Oct. 3 will be Diane Ullman and Donna Billick, co-founders and co-directors of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program. Founded 12 years ago, the program includes design and science faculty, museum educators, professional artists and UC Davis students, using a novel experientially based paradigm for learning.
The mission of the LASERs is to provide the general public with a snapshot of the cultural environment of the Davis/Bay area and to foster interdisciplinary networking with an emphasis on art and science through a series of lectures and presentations, according to the Leonardo website. LASER events have already taken place at the University of San Francisco, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, a New York studio “and now we’re coming to UC Davis,” she said.
The schedule for the Oct. 3 program:
6:30-6:50 Socializing/networking
6:50-7:00 Welcome, opening remarks on the Davis inaugural LASER by Anna Davidson
7:00-7:25: Diane Ullman and Donna Billick, co-founders and co-directors of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, speaking on “Fusion and Perception”
7:25-7:50 Bob Ostertag, professor of technocultural studies at UC Davis (title of his talk to be announced)
7:50-8:10 Break. (During the break anyone in the audience currently working within the intersections of art and science will have 30 seconds to share their work (a teaser/commercial)
8:10-8:35 Meredith Tromble, San Francisco Art Institute School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and Jordan Van Aalsburg, research programmer for the UC Davis Complexity Sciences Center, Department of Physics, speaking on “The Vortex Touches Down”
8:35-9 James Crutchfield, UC Davis physics professor and director of the Complexity Sciences Center, speaking on “Hidden Fragility and the Data Deluge”
9-9:30 Discussion/Networking
Billick is an eight-year member of the board of directors of the Tile Heritage Foundation, and is involved in many other regional and national organizations. She founded Todos Artes in Baja Mexico and the Heaven On Earth educational series. As the co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, Billick partners with Ullman in teaching the undergraduate course: “Entomology 1: The Art, Science and the World of Insects,” as well as a series of freshmen seminars covering widespread topics.
Of her talk, Billick says: “I would like to map how fusion or the unity of knowledge, includes cross-discipline, cross culture, cross generational exploration and discovery. An experiential, hands-on approach to education, as with Art/Science Fusion, is to access perception and grow new associations and build life force or fusion energy.”
Bob Ostertag, a professor of technocultural studies at UC Davis, is a musician, author and movie producer. He has published 25 music CDS, two movies, two DVDs, four books and dozens of articles and essays. His writings on the Central American revolutions of the 1980s have been published on every continent and in many languages. Ostertag has performed at music, film and multi-media festivals around the globe, and many of his instruments he designed himself. His diverse collaborators include the Kronos Quartet, avant garder John Zorn, heavy metal star Mike Patton, jazz great Anthony Braxton, transgender chanteuse Justin Bond, Quebecois film maker Pierre Hébert, and the media guerrilla group, The Yes Men.
Meredith Tromble is an artist, faculty member of the San Francisco Art Institute School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and serial collaborator. Under the auspices of James Crutchfield, she and colleagues Dawn Sumner and Jordan Van Aalsburg are creating an immersive, interactive 3D vortex of dream elements called Take Me to Your Dream (Dream Vortex).
Jordan Van Aalsburg, who describes himself as “a recovering physicist,” is a research programmer for the UC Davis Complexity Sciences Center. He co-founded the Davis Makerspace, builder tools and resources for the local community.
James Crutchfield, a UC Davis professor of physics, teaches nonlinear physics, directs its Complexity Sciences Center, and promotes science interventions in nonscientific settings. He says he is mostly concerned with what patterns are, how they are created, and how intelligent beings discover them (see http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~chaos/).
Anna Davidson is studying the ecophysiology of fruit trees for her doctorate. She also makes bioart using fungus and other living materials as a medium. As a teacher for the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, she leads the found object and sculpture studio section of the class, “Entomology 1, Art, Science, and the World of Insects.”
“I am very interested curriculum development and teaching at the intersection of biology and the arts,” Davidson said.
Upcoming LASER events at UC Davis:
Dec. 2, 2013
Amy Franceschini, artist and designer, Bay Area
Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology, UC Davis
Mary Anne Kluth, artist, Bay Area
Justin Schuetz, biologist and artist, San Francisco Art Institute
Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014
Phillip Benn, artist and digital artist, Oakland
Terry Nathan, UC Davis Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the Art/Science Fusion Program
Genevieve Quick, artist, Bay Area
Maciej Zwieniecki, UC Davis professor of plant sciences
Monday, April 7, 2014
Christina Cogdell, UC Davis professor of design and art history
Jesse Drew, UC Davis professor of technoculutural studies
Michael Neff, UC Davis professor of computer science and program of cinema and technocultural studies
Wendy Silk, professor in the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and the Art/Science Fusion Program
June 2, 2014
Joe Dumit, UC Davis director of Sciences and Technology Studies and professor of anthropology
Evan Clayburg, performance/visual artist, Davis
Danielle Svehla Christianson, ecologist, fiber artist, Bay Area
Leonardo community members interested in presenting work at an upcoming LASER should contact LASER chair Piero Scaruffi p@scaruffi.com com for details. To RSVP to attend an upcoming LASER event, email p@scaruffi.com or adavidson@ucdavis.edu for the Davis LASERS.