Rachel Carson College Faculty Fellows
Sikina Jinnah is Rachel Carson College's new faculty chair!
The Chair of the Faculty is an Academic Senate member, other than the Provost, who is elected by the college Faculty to serve a two year term, and will serve as a member of the Executive Committee.
Dr. Jinnah is an Associate Professor in the Politics Department, an affiliated faculty member in the Environmental Studies Department, and a 2017 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. Her research focuses on the shifting locations of power and influence in global environmental governance, and in particular the role of transnational actors in environmental decision-making. Her most recent projects examine how key norms in global climate politics shape power relations, the role of U.S. preferential trade agreements in shaping environmental policy in trading partner nations, and the politics of climate engineering governance.
- Pronouns Use my name
- Title
- Professor
- Founding Director of UCSC OpenLab
- Division Arts Division
- Department
- Art Department
- Affiliations Digital Arts and New Media, Astronomy & Astrophysics Department, IMS-Seymour Marine Discovery Center, Genomics Institute
- Phone 831-459-2751
- Website
- Office Location
- Elena Baskin Building E, E106
- Digital Arts Research Center Faculty Studio
- Mail Stop Art Department
- Faculty Areas of Expertise Art, Digital Arts
Summary of Expertise
Jennifer Parker is a Professor and founding Director of the OpenLab Collaborative Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
As a media artist, Parker is recognized for her innovative work investigating issues of biology and technology, combining art, ecology, and design. Through multi-sensory and interdisciplinary collaborations, she engages scientific and creative practices to explore the sensorial world of humans and the more than human world.
As an educator, Parker carves sites for collective engagement between disciplines. Facilitating, identifying and determining the boundaries of complex, multi-dimensional space with the aim to develop (a sense of) community to encourage learning, and inform and develop the practice of its members. Her methods of inquiry build on lab and studio visits, literature reviews, and conversations with faculty and students across disciplines triggering a heuristic learning process to pursue creative research for exhibitions and publications.
Parker served as department chair from 2012-17 and as principal faculty for the Digital Arts & New Media (DANM) MFA program from 2008-18 where she directed the Mechatronics collaborative research cohort to develop research projects that combine art, design, science, and technology. and currently serves the Environmental Art and Social Practice MFA program.
Biography, Education and Training
Parker received a B.A in art from the University of California Santa Barbara in 1990, attended The Skowhegan School Painting and Sculpture in Maine, and received her M.F.A. in Sculpture from Rutgers University in 1992. Professor Parker has been part of the faculty at the University of California Santa Cruz since 1999 in the Art Department.
Selected Publications
Parker has been exhibited, performed and presented at Cameron Art Museum, UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF Camerawork, The LAB, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, MOXI Wolf Museum of Exploration & Innovation, Bay Area Science Festival, SFMOMA, Southern Exposure, California Academy of Science, ZER01, Biennial, Tech Museum; Montalvo Art Center, Bay Area Maker Fair, Randall Museum, Kala Art Institute, The Cameron Arr Museum.
Internationally, Parker has shown at the de Baile in Amsterdam, Holland; Nord Univeristy Norway, The Planterium Madirid, Spain, The War Memorial Museum in Seoul, Korea; Sussex Univeristy UK; the World Trade Center in Osaka, Japan; the Iskra History Museum in Kazanlak, Bulgaria; Califia Galerie and Školská 28 Galerie in the Czech Republic; RMIT University, Australia, Universidad Complutense, Spain, the Sala de exposiciones Parque García Sanabria Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. She is the recipient of several grants, awards, and fellowships including Artworks NEA, NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates, Art Matters, New Forms Regional Grant administered by the Inter-Arts Program of the NEA, Epsilon/Alliance Environmental Art and Education, American Psychoanalytic Foundation Award, The New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and the Kate Neal Kinely Memorial Fellowship Award.
Select Articles/Book Chapter:
Science and Collectivism in Artistic Creation: Embracing Climate Change through Art
The International Journal of the Arts in Society: Annual Review. Volume 14, Issue 1:12-20, (2020)
Species Loss: Exploring Opportunities with Art–Science
Integrative and Comparative Biology, Volume 58, Issue 1 (July 2018)
Making Sense of Sensors
Digital Culture & Society (DCS),Vol. 3, Issue 1/2017 Published Online: 2017-06-27 (Jun 2017)
Slow FAST Forward: Enacting Digital Art and Civic Opportunities Book Chapter by J. Parker
Book: Artistic Citizenship: Artistry, Social Responsibility, and Ethical Praxis (2016)
Steps to an Ecology of Networked Knowledge and Innovation: Enabling New Forms of Collaboration among Sciences, Engineering, Arts, and Design
LEONARDO, MIT Press Journals (2015)
Teaching Interests
Interactive Art & Design, Art/Science, BioArt & Design, Sound Art
