Posted 11 Apr 2016 / 0
The Pratt Institute Chemistry, Machinery, and Engineering buildings in 1950 (image courtesy of Pratt@125) A colleague of mine (Daniel Wright) sent around this image from Pratt Institute’s 125th Anniversary photo time line collection. It’s a pretty amazing testament to how quickly things can change in a culturally-evolving environment. These buildings still stand at Pratt: in Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Architecture, Climate Change, Cultural Evolution, Pratt Institute, Science in Art & Design, Sustainability, Sustainable Pratt, Sustainable Urban Design
Posted 21 Mar 2016 / 1
Historical photo of the Pratt Steam Power Plant courtesy of Wikimedia Commons This morning the Pratt community received a heartening message from our Board of Trustees: Dear Members of the Pratt Community, At its meeting on March 9, Pratt’s Board of Trustees took another major step in the Institute’s overall commitment to environmental sustainability by Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Climate Change, Economics, Envirolutions, Higher Education, Pratt Institute, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy
Posted 18 Feb 2016 / 0
Last week I had the privilege of being a guest of Pratt’s Poetics Lab course, whose focus this semester is on play behavior. The course involves a number of different faculty and hosts a bevy of guests but is the brainchild of course coordinator Ira Livingston. My job was to introduce the biological and evolutionary approach to understanding Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Evolution, Evolution Education, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Play, Pratt Institute, Uncategorized
Posted 01 Feb 2016 / 1
Image of what happens to architecture when civilization disappears courtesy of Michael Zawadski via Wikimedia Commons I always end up hearing the question at some point in the semester: why do architects have to take a course that provides in-depth understanding of ecology and environmental science? Implied undercurrents to this basic question include a slew of other Read More
A Minor Post, Architecture, Department of Mathematics & Science, Ecology, Ecology Education, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Pratt Institute, Sustainability, Teaching
Posted 15 Oct 2015 / 0
W.W. Norton Company, the publisher of Carl Bergstrom and Lee Alan Dugatkin’s Evolution textbook, have released a demo version of a new learning tool called InQuizitive. This activity leads students through a series of questions designed to test their understanding of phylogenies as well as the rather bizarre and counter-intuitive jargon of phylogenetics. I played Read More
A Minor Post, Educational Software and Apps, Educational Technology, Evolution Education, Teaching Tools
Posted 10 Sep 2015 / 0
Pratt Brooklyn Evenings Timothy Gelling Talk I am always pitching to my students that their work needs to be “empathetic”, to be designed by anticipating the desires and needs of one’s user. This seems like a great talk on the topic!
A Minor Post, Art & Design, Empathy, Pratt Institute
Posted 09 Sep 2015 / 1
Until Darwin “Syllabus: Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud (Pratt Institute, Fall 2015)” Ric has been teaching this course for years and at some point I need to sit in. It presents a fascinating look at four very important thinkers that greatly influenced the trajectory of the twentieth century. I think that it is particularly interesting to Read More
A Minor Post, Critical and Visual Studies program, Ethics, History, Political Science, Pratt Institute
Posted 08 Jun 2015 / 0
On Sunday, June 7th, I was able to drag the family out to the Figment Art Festival on Governor’s Island, where we got a chance to check out the Guerrilla Science space. Mark Rosin, my newest full-time colleague in the Department of Mathematics and Science, is one of Guerrilla Science‘s directors and organized this event. Read More
A Minor Post, Art & Design, Department of Mathematics & Science
Posted 04 Jun 2015 / 0
It is early June and I am just beginning to settle in to what will be my longest period of unstructured work time since I left graduate school. In the Spring of 2014 I received tenure and in the Fall of 2014 I applied for my first sabbatical. In the coming semester — Fall 2015 Read More
A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Higher Education, Pratt Institute, Teaching, The WmD Project
Posted 15 May 2015 / 0
Being on the school Calendar Committee is not the most glamorous academic service assignment. Our task — create the academic calendar for coming school years — seems so simple that it might beg the question “what’s the need for a committee?”. Well, once you find a ‘calendar system’ that works for a given institution, the Read More
A Major Post, Architecture, Art & Design, Assessment Methods, Mentoring, Pratt Institute, Teaching
