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

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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

Description

At the turn of the 21st century, scientists proposed that we have entered a new geological epoch, defined entirely by the impacts of human activities on the planet. They titled this epoch `the Anthropocene¿, and a specific working group of scholars has recently elected to mark the beginning of this period with the first detonation of the atomic bomb. How do we reconcile the realities of nuclear contamination with the popularity that nuclear energy has been gaining as a low-carbon, `clean¿ energy technology?

In this class, we study the science of radioactivity and the unstable isotopes behind the intertwined technologies of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. We will draw from current events like the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, recent advances in nuclear fusion, and Chicago¿s rich history in the development of the first atomic bomb. Through class readings, discussions, and homework assignments, we will utilize principles in isotope chemistry and radiation science to evaluate the impacts and risks of nuclear technology since the 1950s, and compare these scientific analyses to a plethora of artworks that have engaged in the same conversations. There will also be an opportunity to collaborate with a Chicago Public School and share our in-class findings and projects with a middle school science class in Chinatown.

Class Number

2177

Credits

3

Description

The Great Lakes watershed is home to ~34 million people across the United States and Canada, holding enough volume to submerge the United States under 10 feet of freshwater (Michigan Sea Grant). This course will explore the historical and contemporary Great Lakes utilizing principles in chemistry, oceanography and limnology (the study of lakes). We will identify the key ecosystem services that the Lakes provide to all communities around it and sustainability challenges that these communities face in stewarding such services. Reading material will span scientific journal publications, scholarly essays, regional news articles, book chapters and movies. Weekly topics will include carbon sequestration, algae blooms, pollutants transport, lake ice, and the spread of non-native species.
With tools in geology and chemistry, we will all become citizen scientists of the vast Great Lakes system. We will probe records of lake floor sediments to consider how these processes have changed through time in parallel with human development around the Lakes, conduct laboratory measurements to evaluate knowledge gained through classroom lectures, and create our own citizen science devices to collect and analyze environmental specimens first-hand. In addition, we will explore the role of women, gender minorities, and Indigenous people in knowledge and stewardship of the North American Great Lakes. Students will be evaluated by weekly lab assignments, a collaborative writing project (turned into a zine), and a final citizen science design project. Note that no prior experience in chemistry and math is required to take this course.

Class Number

1686

Credits

3