MINNovation

Dr. Tracy E. Ore is a professor of Sociology at St. Cloud State University. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, is an active member of the American Sociological Association and the Southern Sociological Society and is Past-President of the Sociologists for Women in Society. Dr. Ore does research in the areas of poverty, food insecurity, food apartheid, and food justice. Her most recent text is The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality (Eighth edition), published by Oxford University Press in 2022. In addition to this work, Dr. Ore is a long-time activist and community organizer, from ACT-UP in the ‘80s to her current work around food justice. The connections between her scholarly work and activism are made real in the SCSU Community Garden, which she established in 2005.

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Bill Gorcica is a professor of Art at St. Cloud State University  where he teaches in the Integrated Media and Graphic Design areas. He  has a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Virginia Tech and a Master of  Fine Arts degree in visual art from Rutgers University. Over the course  of his career Bill received a number of honors including a Fulbright  scholarship to work in printmaking in Poland, and a Bush Foundation  artist fellowship in 3D art. He created an interactive work  collaboratively with other faculty and students from St. Cloud State  University for the Twin Cities Northern Spark festival in June 2015. For  Northern Spark 2016, Bill worked with colleagues in science and  engineering to create simRVR, a VR movie that was juried and showcased  at the Sundance Film Festival New Frontiers program and at the Walker  Art Center. The artist also creates underwater simulations for  educational 3D software projects SimRiver and MushiRiver with Dr.  Shigeki Mayama in Tokyo, Japan that addresses water quality issues by  studying populations of microbes and aquatic invertebrates. In 2019 Bill  received an Innovation Funding Grant entitled “Making the Digital  Physical” from MN State to set up a small Maker Space in the Art  Department at SCSU .Throughout his career, he has worked across  disciplines and has often made art about how we as humans engage with  the natural world. Currently he is exploring the possibilities of mixing  the ancient techniques of encaustic wax painting on wood reliefs  designed on an iPad and carved with a CNC router machine.

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On this episode, Dr. Sheila Moriarty and interns Carson Uselman and Diana Kuhl, share with us the efforts being made on campus to support student and community sustainability.

Dr. Sheila Moriarty is an Associate Professor in the Social Work department. She has been at St. Cloud State University since 2008. Her interests include work on poverty issues, anti-racism work, and projects on campus and in the community that impact poverty and homelessness. She created a project called Bridge to Community Resources 5 years ago to create basic needs solutions for students

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Theresa Estrem is a professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at St. Cloud State University where she teaches, provides clinical education to graduate students, and does research, with an emphasis on autism, early childhood, and culturally/linguistically diverse clients. In 2021, she and her colleague, Dr. Rebecca Crowell, were awarded a MinnState Innovation grant, the SCSU Autistic Student Success Initiative (SASSI), which encompasses faculty/staff education and autistic student support programs to make the SCSU an autism-friendly campus. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Estrem about the SCSU Autistic Student Success Initiative and the work happening across campus to increase awareness and support students.  

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Visualization Engineer Mark Gill, has three decades of experience in visualization and development of experiential learning environments. He has worked in government, private and academic arenas, finally landing in a position where he can help the next generation grow up comfortable with ideas it has taken his entire life to develop.  As the current director of the St Cloud State University Visualization Lab he is able to explore, pioneer, and even evangelize for the newest visualization technology and concepts. Part of the Lab’s mission is to expose students to a wide range of subjects; visualizing the Earth’s magnetosphere, or developing a game to help caregivers deal with Alzheimer’s sufferers for example.  He teaches classes, and leads student research teams in the areas of Virtual/Augmented Reality, video game development, and scientific/engineering visualization concepts.

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