A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
SAIC faculty member Sarah Zhou Rosengard.

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Sarah Zhou Rosengard

Assistant Professor

Contact

Professional Site

Bio

Education: PhD (2017), Chemical Oceanography, MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA; BSc (2011), Environmental Science, Brown University, Providence, RI. Publications: Biogeosciences, Limnology and Oceanography Methods, Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin, Group on Earth Observations blog, Oceanus Magazine, EOS, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, Fisheries Oceanography. Exhibitions: Science World in Vancouver, BC. Awards: The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship; ASLO Global Outreach Initiative Award; UBC Ocean Leaders Postdoctoral Fellowship; MEOPAR Postdoctoral Fellowship; Mitacs Postdoctoral Elevate Award.

I am an ocean scientist and assistant professor of environmental chemistry at the SAIC department of Liberal Arts. My coursework explores human impacts on the environment, the powerful tools that chemistry provides in detecting human impact, the inequities of human-driven environmental change, and the complex role of scientists as advocates for sustainability.

Originally from Queens NY, I have had the privilege to learn and grow from researchers and community leaders spanning New England to Vancouver, and the Amazon River Basin to the Canadian Arctic. After completing my PhD at MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where I studied the carbon cycle in the Southern Ocean and the Amazon River Basin, I accepted a postdoctoral position at the University of British Columbia to pursue deeper interests in community engagement through research. While exploring the links between satellite imagery and Pacific salmon productivity, I connected with the Arctic Eider Society, an Inuit charity, on the Indigenous knowledge social network SIKU (pronounced “see-koo”) to support ways for northern communities to access data sets like satellite-derived ocean color.

Here in Chicago, I research the local geochemistry of the Chicago River, and collaborate with a variety of organizations like Friends of the Chicago River, Urban Rivers and Teens Take on Climate to support citizen science around our urbanized waterways. My coursework and collaborations often explore avenues for the arts to expand the scope of citizen science as a means for opening science to the broader community. 

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

Astrobiology is an interdisciplinary field of science that focuses on the existence of life beyond Earth. It leans heavily on understanding the habitability of life on Earth as a basis for understanding the probability and physiology of extraterrestrial life in the universe. Unsurprisingly, astrobiology has inspired generations of scientists, artists, and designers to envision not only alien life, but also the future of human life on Earth in the Anthropocene and on other planets. Set in AT/SP¿s Bio Art facility, this course blends concepts and methods of creative studies such as speculative design, futurism, and semiotics with fundamentals in natural science (biology, geochemistry, and astronomy) to imagine what life will look like beyond our current existence.
The artistic concepts will be explored via written material by Paola Antonelli, Anthony Dunn, Fiona Ray, etc.. We will focus on discussions of speculative design, bioart, and various lenses of futurism while mantinaining a harmony with scientific understanding of key concepts about life, ecology, and environmental chemistry.
At the same time, scientific readings and podcasts in this course will focus on the works of past Chicago scientists Enrico Fermi and Frank Drake who postulated the probability of extraterrestrial life, and several researchers doing active research on life in extreme Earth analog environments and other celestial bodies in our solar system (e.g., scientists at the Biosphere 2 facility and SETI Institute).
Students will consider various media ranging from scientific papers to short films and artistic dialogues to show a firm grasp on astrobiology and its philosophical implications. Hands-on experiments in the Bio Art lab will provide opportunities to practice various astrobiology research techniques. The final project will challenge student teams to imagine a potential future or extraterrestrial ecology and use that to design and create a potential gallery piece.

Class Number

1150

Credits

3

Description

Astrobiology is an interdisciplinary field of science that focuses on the existence of life beyond Earth. It leans heavily on understanding the habitability of life on Earth as a basis for understanding the probability and physiology of extraterrestrial life in the universe. Unsurprisingly, astrobiology has inspired generations of scientists, artists, and designers to envision not only alien life, but also the future of human life on Earth in the Anthropocene and on other planets. Set in AT/SP¿s Bio Art facility, this course blends concepts and methods of creative studies such as speculative design, futurism, and semiotics with fundamentals in natural science (biology, geochemistry, and astronomy) to imagine what life will look like beyond our current existence.
The artistic concepts will be explored via written material by Paola Antonelli, Anthony Dunn, Fiona Ray, etc.. We will focus on discussions of speculative design, bioart, and various lenses of futurism while mantinaining a harmony with scientific understanding of key concepts about life, ecology, and environmental chemistry.
At the same time, scientific readings and podcasts in this course will focus on the works of past Chicago scientists Enrico Fermi and Frank Drake who postulated the probability of extraterrestrial life, and several researchers doing active research on life in extreme Earth analog environments and other celestial bodies in our solar system (e.g., scientists at the Biosphere 2 facility and SETI Institute).
Students will consider various media ranging from scientific papers to short films and artistic dialogues to show a firm grasp on astrobiology and its philosophical implications. Hands-on experiments in the Bio Art lab will provide opportunities to practice various astrobiology research techniques. The final project will challenge student teams to imagine a potential future or extraterrestrial ecology and use that to design and create a potential gallery piece.

Class Number

1756

Credits

3