Jennifer Parker is a Professor and founding Director of the OpenLab Collaborative Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

As a media artist, Parker is recognized for her innovative work investigating issues of biology and technology, combining art, ecology, and design. Through multi-sensory and interdisciplinary collaborations, she engages scientific and creative practices to explore the sensorial world of humans and the more than human world of species living on the planet.  

As an educator, Parker carves sites for collective engagement between disciplines. Facilitating, identifying and determining the boundaries of complex, multi-dimensional space with the aim to develop (a sense of) community to encourage learning, and inform and develop the practice of its members. Her methods of inquiry build on lab and studio visits, literature reviews, and conversations with faculty and students across disciplines triggering a heuristic learning process to pursue creative research for exhibitions and publications.

Born on Tarawa Terrace, North Carolina, in 1968, Jennifer Parker received a BA in art from the University of California Santa Barbara in 1990 and an MFA in sculpture from Rutgers University in 1992. She has been part of the faculty at  University of California Santa Cruz since 1999 in the Art Department, served the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program from 2008-2019, and serves the Environmental Art and Social Practice MFA program.

Among her many honors, Parker has been the recipient of the NEA artworks grant, Art Matters, New Forms Regional Grant administered by the Inter-Arts Program of the NEA, Epsilon/Alliance Environmental Art and Education, American Psychoanalytic Foundation Award, The New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and the Kate Neal Kinely Memorial Fellowship Award, the UCSC Excellence in Teaching Award, and Dean of the Arts Award & Arts Excellence Award.

Contact: parker1(@) ucsc . edu

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