Artists and Scientists in Dialog: Reflections on the Way of Water

May 8, 2024

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12:00 PM

How can artists and scientists work together to engage deeply with residents and improve community resilience? What do they learn from each other in the process and what is needed to further develop and support these collaborations?

In this special edition of Planet Texas 2050’s Resilience Roundtable Series, Environmental and Water Resource Engineering Professors Paola Passalacqua and Matt Bartos will reflect on their experience witnessing the Way of Water: Onion Creek with Artistic Director Allison Orr and Producer Lisa Byrd of Forklift Danceworks. The Way of Water is a global arts-based project bringing people together around water challenges. In Austin, Forklift is partnering with the Watershed Protection Department and residents of the Onion Creek watershed to present The Way of Water: Onion Creek.

To learn more at the project website.

RECORDING

PANELISTS

Frances Acuña

Climate Resilience Lead Organizer,

Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin

Frances Acuña has lived in southeast Austin for 25 years. She began advocating for the Dove Springs community in 2010 by working with Police Officers in crime and safety. In 2012, she became a Community Healthworker and started getting involved as a community leader and working as a Community Health Healthworker to advocate for healthcare and physical activity in childhood obesity. She also worked with fellow community members serving as first responders during the October 2013 and 2015 floods in Dove Springs. In 2017, Frances joined GAVA as a Community Organizer where she worked to increase access to healthy food and physical activity. Later with continued floods and residents being displaced due to flooding and Infrastructure issues, her priority became Climate Resiliency focusing on efforts to build community power to advocate for flood mitigation and the right to stay in the neighborhoods where residents are most impacted by natural disasters and social disparities. Now as the Climate Resilience Lead Organizer for GAVA, she is concentrating her efforts bridging the communication gap between residents and stakeholders emphasizing response and responsibility where equity and public safety is a mutual priority. When she is not spending her time in the community organizing or meeting with stakeholders, you can find her in her garden or spending time with her family.

Katie Landry-Guyton

Senior Service Hydrologist,

National Weather Service

Katie Landry-Guyton currently serves as the Senior Service Hydrologist for the National Weather Service (NWS) in Houston, TX. Her primary role is to serve as the liaison between the local weather forecast office, the West Gulf River Forecast Center, local emergency managers and hydrologic stakeholders in southeast Texas. In her tenure, she has worked numerous high-impact flooding events such as Hurricane Harvey and Tropical Storm Imelda where she provided hydrologic decision support services to core partners for resource placement, emergency response, and recovery efforts. Prior to joining the Houston office in 2017, Katie earned a B.S. in Geosciences from Mississippi State University in 2012, and worked as a Hydrometeorologist for the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center in Slidell, LA, from 2012 to 2017.

Paola Passalacqua, Ph.D

Professor,

Cockrell School of Engineering

Paola Passalacqua is a Professor of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering in the Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Genoa, Italy, with a BS (2002) in Environmental Engineering, and received a MS (2005) and a PhD (2009) in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on transport processes along river and delta networks, with particular focus on flooding, river-floodplain connectivity, and coastal resilience. Dr. Passalacqua is the lead PI of SETx-UIFL, a DOE funded Urban Integrated Field Laboratory that focuses on the compounding effects of flooding and air pollution on Southeast Texas communities. Additionally, she is the Chair of Planet Texas 2050, a Bridging Barrier mission at the University of Texas to advance interdisciplinary research on resilience and to co-design adaptative strategies with stakeholders and frontline communities in Texas. Dr. Passalacqua has been honored with several awards including the Bagnold Medal of the European Geosciences Union (2022), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2014) and the University of Texas Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award (2017).

Gabriele Villarini, Ph.D

Professor,

Princeton University

Professor Villarini's research interests focus broadly on flood hydrology, extreme events, hydroclimatology, and climate predictions and projections. He has received a number of national and international awards, including the Hydrological Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist Award by the European Geosciences Union (2013), and the James B. Macelwane Medal by the American Geophysical Union (2016). He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2016). He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers, including articles in Nature, Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the Editor-in-Chief for Advances in Water Resources.

PANELISTS

Lisa Byrd

Organizational Strategist,

Forklift Danceworks

Lisa Byrd’s interest lies in exploring the intersection of the arts, civic engagement, community activism and cultural preservation. Lisa has a 30+ year career in the arts with roles ranging from audio engineering and production management to providing organizational leadership as production director for dance companies and executive leadership for community based arts organizations. Lisa has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Penn State University and a Masters Degree in Theater History and Criticism from Texas State University. She continued her studies in leadership and organizing with Marshall Ganz’s Leadership, Organizing and Action, an Executive Education program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Public Policy.

Utilizing her leadership skills as well as her skills as a community organizer Lisa developed what is now Texas’ only African American cultural district, Six Square: Austin’s Black Cultural Heritage District. Lisa continues her work using a collaborative learning model in partnership with artists and arts organizations and those interested in public policy and civic action. Her current collaborative partnerships include Civic Arts and Forklift Danceworks on projects that center the arts as an organizing pathway to addressing civic life.

Over the years Lisa’s work has been recognized for its positive impact on communities she has engaged. In 2015 she received the Dewey Award from SXSW Conference. The award is given as an acknowledgement to the honoree’s dedication to creating positive and lasting change in their communities. In 2016 she received an award for her leadership as a community partner from the University of Texas at Austin’s Division on Diversity and Community Engagement. And, in 2017 she received the Ada DeBlanc Simond Trailblazer Award from the Austin Black Democrats. Lisa is also very proud to have been elected in 2019 to the Community Education Council representing District 3 for the New York City Department of Education.

Allison Orr

Founder & Artistic Director,

Forklift Danceworks

From sanitation workers to firefighters, power linemen to maintenance teams, Allison Orr creates award-winning choreography with the people whose work sustains our everyday lives. Inspired by the beauty and virtuosity in the movement of labor and building on her background in anthropology and social work, Allison has honed a methodology of ethnographic choreography that engages community members as co-authors and performers in the creation of large-scale civic spectacles. Challenging audiences to expand notions of dance and performer, her dances have been performed for audiences of 60 to 6,000+. A guest artist for numerous dance programs, Allison has been a Mellon Foundation Creative Campus Scholar at the Center for the Arts of Wesleyan University. Her work has been funded by the City of Austin, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Doris Duke Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the City of Venice, Italy, and numerous others. She has recently published a book, DanceWorks: Stories of Creative Collaboration, published by Wesleyan University Press. She holds an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Mills College and a BA in Anthropology from Wake Forest University. Allison is a fourth generation Texan and lives in Austin with her husband and two children.

Paola Passalacqua, Ph.D.

Professor,

Cockrell School of Engineering

Paola Passalacqua is a Professor of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering in the Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Genoa, Italy, with a BS (2002) in Environmental Engineering, and received a MS (2005) and a PhD (2009) in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on transport processes along river and delta networks, with particular focus on flooding, river-floodplain connectivity, and coastal resilience. Dr. Passalacqua is the lead PI of SETx-UIFL, a DOE funded Urban Integrated Field Laboratory that focuses on the compounding effects of flooding and air pollution on Southeast Texas communities. Additionally, she is the Chair of Planet Texas 2050, a Bridging Barrier mission at the University of Texas to advance interdisciplinary research on resilience and to co-design adaptative strategies with stakeholders and frontline communities in Texas. Dr. Passalacqua has been honored with several awards including the Bagnold Medal of the European Geosciences Union (2022), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2014) and the University of Texas Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award (2017).

RSVPs Closed