Coastal Transitions
Coastal Transitions is an art-science collaboration between the environmental arts-humanities-science program In a Time of Change (ITOC) and the Alaska NSF EPSCoR research project, Interface of Change (IoC).
Visual artists will join this program as artists-in-residence for a field-based project in the Gulf of Alaska, where they will work alongside scientists and with communities to investigate coastal dynamics, maritime livelihoods, and social-ecological well-being. More information.
Curation
Mary Beth Leigh – Director • John Smelter – Curator • Kathleen Shannon – Communications Lead • Lissy Goralnik – Research/Evaluator
Acknowledgements
Coastal Transitions is made possible by the National Science Foundation through the Alaska EPSCoR project Interface of Change (award #OIA-2344553) and in-kind support from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
We acknowledge the many Alaska Native Nations upon whose unceded ancestral lands our program resides. Indigenous peoples, including the Tlingit, Dena’ina, Eyak, Tsimshian, Haida, and Alutiiq peoples, have stewarded the coastal environments along the Gulf Alaska for thousands of years, and continue to do so today. Members of ITOC strive to learn about, value, respect, and be mindful of this relationship in our work and our actions, and to strive for collaborative, community decision making.
Mary Beth Leigh
Mary Beth Leigh is the director of the ITOC program, which she co-founded in 2007. As a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), she teaches and conducts research in environmental microbiology and the integration of the arts, humanities, and sciences. Prior to joining UAF in 2006, she earned her B.F.A. in Modern Dance, M.S. in Botany, and Ph.D. in Microbiology — all at the University of Oklahoma – and conducted postdoctoral research at Michigan State University. As a dancer and a cellist, she’s performed in stylistically diverse ensembles over the years, often choreographing or composing pieces with a splash of science.
