Engaged Scholars Initiative | Celebrate integrated teaching, research, and practice.

Jason Sello
Jason Sello is searching for microorganisms that can function as antibiotics or contribute to bioenergy production. His research involves collecting soil samples and analyzing them to detect the presence of benevolent microorganisms.

Christopher Bull
Chris Bull explores what can happen when you erase boundaries between the classroom and the community. He evaluates the effects on both groups, the outcomes, the approach and the costs.

Karen Haberstroh
Karen Haberstroh works to improve science education in Providence Public Schools. She and a team of Brown faculty received a $3 million NSF grant to incorporate hands-on and research-based learning in Providence classrooms.

Kathryn De Master
Kathy De Master’s engaged scholarship emphasizes community-based agriculture and food justice; it is situated in the disciplinary intersection of environmental science, sociology, and agro-food studies.

Kurt Teichert
Kurt Teichert makes community based learning a priority of his sustainable design classes. Teichert serves as a connection between his students and local stakeholders, matching community needs with student skills.

Heather Leslie
Dr. Heather Leslie is the founding director of the Voss Environmental Fellows Program. This program provides Brown undergraduates with the unique opportunity to conduct policy- and community-relevant research in a supportive, collaborative setting.

Annie Valk
Annie Valk uses oral histories to understand and build connections within the Providence Community. Since 2007, Valk and her students have interviewed about 80 members of the Fox Point neighborhood...

Erik Ehn
Erik Ehn believes that art has tremendous potential to create community and address trauma. Ehn founded the Tenderloin Opera Company in the hopes of building community among the homeless and their advocates.

Patrick McGuigan
Patrick McGuigan believes that information is the key to successful organization, advocacy, and action. McGuigan is the executive director of The Providence Plan, a private non-profit that provides data analysis services to government agencies and other non-profits...

Ann Dill
In her coursework, Ann Dill looks at the broad rubric of social welfare, including all the ways formal social organizations and informal grassroots organizations try to respond to the needs of human experience.

Doug Brown
Doug Brown sees the enormous strides writers make when they are able to discuss their work with an informed reader. He seeks to help promote that same conversational learning in disadvantaged communities.

Eli Wolff
Eli Wolff sees sport as a social development tool, not simply a form of entertainment. His work originally focused on disability, as he researched and advocated for the inclusion of disabled athletes...

Melissa Clark
Melissa Clark, PhD is working with colleagues at Hasbro Children’s Hospital to better understand the physical and social environments of patients served by the hospital in a larger attempt to better meet the patients' needs.

Amy Remensnyder
Amy Remensnyder believes that history has much to teach the modern world. She recently co-edited a collection of essays on this subject, Why the Middle Ages Matter, and contributed a chapter on the lessons that the U.S. government can learn.

Rick Benjamin
Rick Benjamin has taught engaged poetry classes in a variety of Brown departments, always with the aim of sharing students’ knowledge with the larger Providence community.