Members

Website Link: https://profiles.utdallas.edu/roger.malina

Robert J. Stern is Professor of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1982. He received his undergraduate training at the University of California at Davis, his PhD at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and post-doctoral studies at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington. His research includes the geologic evolution of the Arabian-Nubian Shield, submarine geology of the Mariana convergent margin system, how subduction zones and convergent margin magmatic systems form and evolve, the geotectonic evolution of Iran, and the evolution of Plate Tectonics. He is Editor-in-Chief of International Geology Review, director of UTD Geoscience Studio https://www.youtube.com/@UTDGeoscienceStudios and co-director of the Permian Basin Research Lab https://labs.utdallas.edu/permianbasinresearch/ and the UTD Geosciences Micro-imaging Lab. You can learn more about his work on his Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Stern and his Google Scholar profile https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LCwF078AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao .

Frederick Turner is a poet, a cultural critic, a playwright, a philosopher of science, an interdisciplinary scholar, an aesthetician, an essayist and a translator. He is the author of 28 books, including Natural Classicism: Essays on Literature and Science; Genesis: an Epic Poem; and Rebirth of Value: Meditations on Beauty, Ecology, Religion and Education. His plays Height and The Prayers of Dallas have been performed in various locations.
His contributions as an interdisciplinary scholar have been recognized, cited, or published in many fields such as literary and critical theory, comparative literature, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, sociobiology, political philosophy, chaos theory, theology, the history and philosophy of science and technology, translation theory and art history. He is or has been a member of several research groups on subjects including the biological foundations of esthetics, artificial intelligence, ecological restoration, law and systems research, time, the sociological study of emotion, chaos theory, and ecopoetics.
He is a winner of the Milan Fust Prize (Hungary’s highest literary honor), the Levinson Poetry Prize (awarded by Poetry), the PEN Dallas Chapter Golden Pen Award, the Missouri Review essay prize, the David Robert Poetry prize, the Gjenima Prize, and several other literary, artistic and academic honors. He has participated in literary and TV projects that have won a Benjamin Franklin Book Award and an Emmy, respectively. He is a fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004 and every year following 2006. He retired in 2020.
Turner earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Oxford University. He is also a second degree black belt in karate.

Tina Qin brings over 20 years of IT experience with Fortune 500 enterprises. She served as a technical consultant for a major telecom company, spearheading the outsourcing of their Internet billing system support. She developed a tailored curriculum for offshore resources and conducted online training sessions to ensure effective knowledge transfer. Following this transition, Tina joined a leading financial company to manage its insourcing efforts. She played an important role in establishing a central database support team and organized corporate-wide training programs with partner teams. Tina also led offshore and onshore teams, successfully completing the data center exit project and facilitating data migration from on-premises to the cloud. Additionally, she created extensive technical documentation, handbooks, and instructional materials to support enterprise data initiatives. Her extensive experience in data engineering and tooling drives her passion for interdisciplinary research, inspiring her current research projects at the ArsciLab. Tina completed her advanced education in China at Beijing Foreign Studies University, China Academy of Sciences and Peking University. In the US, she received an MA in Advertising from UT Austin, an MS in Information Technology and Management, an MBA, and a Ph.D.in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication from UT Dallas. Her research interests include metaphor theories, business data analytics, data visualization, and Emergence Studies.

Dr. Paul Fishwick, who retired from the faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas on Jan. 1, 2023, held dual appointments in the School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology, and in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. He also led the Creative Automata Lab, designed to bring human elements to the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
Fishwick pioneered the area of aesthetic computing, bringing together elements of art, modeling, simulation and engineering, with the goal of exploring new representational approaches.
He built models that showed what abstract concepts and complex equations physically represent. These representations of mathematical formulas and computer software were intended to improve understanding of how abstract artifacts work.
Students in his lab were challenged to create models to illustrate difficult concepts in science and mathematics.
“Models are common to all disciplines within the University,” Fishwick said. “They are designed and constructed to help us understand a breadth of subjects, from extreme weather to business trends. Creating a model is really an artistic process.”
Early in his career, Fishwick worked as a programmer analyst for Newport News Shipbuilding, the sole designer, builder and refueler of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. He also worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia as a systems analyst. Later, he served on the faculty at the University of Florida beginning in 1986 and was director of the digital arts and sciences programs there. He joined the UT Dallas faculty in 2013.
Fishwick earned a PhD in computer and information science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986, a Master of Science in applied science from the College of William & Mary in 1983, and a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University in 1977.

Priyangka has a bachelor’s degree in law and a master’s degree in information technology & management. The multidisciplinary nature of her academic background attracted her to ArtsciLab. Currently, she is the Data Analyst for the Off Center for Emergence Studies (OC4ES) at ArtSciLab. After joining this group, she discovered how emergence plays a fundamental role across different fields, from nature to technology. The discussions opened her eyes to how small interactions can lead to large-scale patterns, something she hadn’t deeply considered before. This realization fueled her curiosity even more, inspiring her to explore real-world applications of emergence, particularly in AI and social dynamics.

Priyangka enjoys uncovering meaningful patterns in data and presenting them in a way that drives understanding and action. She believes her role at ArtSciLab will not only enhance her project management skills but also equip her with the ability to deliver data-driven solutions that drive strategic growth.

Venkatesh Prasad is a Master’s student in Business Analytics at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he’s practicing his skills in data analysis and data storytelling for business. In addition to his studies, he contributes as a web developer at ArtSciLab, blending his technical expertise with creativity to support interdisciplinary projects. He is known for his laid-back and approachable personality

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/venkatesh-prasad-rr-2762b7293/

Anna is passionate about creating accessible and educational content on geosciences. She is pursuing a degree in Geospatial Information Sciences and a Human Research and Design certificate.  She currently works under Dr. Stern and makes videos at UTDGeoscienceStudios. She is also working on the GeoOlympics of LA project, which consists of telling the public about the interesting geology of the Los Angeles area.