University of Kansas

Invested as the first Marilyn Stokstad Director of the Spencer Museum of Art, Saralyn Reece Hardy has led the only comprehensive art museum in Kansas since 2005. Prior to her arrival at the Spencer, Reece Hardy served as director of Museums and Visual Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and as director of the Salina Art Center in Salina, Kansas. Reece Hardy led the Spencer Museum’s Phase I multi-year renovation project, which transformed the Museum’s galleries; introduced a multi-use object study room; and expanded teaching, research, and storage facilities. Her recent projects include the Integrated Arts Research Initiative, an interdisciplinary effort funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Art in the Grove, an initiative to enliven the historic green space on KU’s Lawrence campus with art; leading the University of Kansas Art on Campus Committee on the Lawrence campus; and facilitating ongoing commissions with the University of Kansas campus partners in Kansas City, Lawrence, and Salina. She participates in the development of the International Artist-in-Residence program and is conducting interviews about aging and legacy with artists represented in the Museum’s permanent collection which are 70 years old or older. Reece Hardy has led the Spencer Museum in two integral partnerships: one with the Kansas City–based Charlotte Street Foundation on the Rocket Grants program, funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and one with the KU Biodiversity Institute and the KU Hall Center for the Humanities to form The Commons, a physical and intellectual space for interdisciplinary exploration.

Joey Orr is the Andrew W. Mellon Curator for Research, who directs the Museum’s Integrated Arts Research Initiative (IARI), and is affiliate faculty in Museum Studies and Visual Art. Previously he served as the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where his major project aligned three exhibitions around artistic research. Recent writing has been published in Art Papers, Art Journal Open, BOMB, Hyperallergic, Journal for Artistic Research (Network Reflections), and Sculpture. Juried writing has been published by Antennae: Journal of Art and Nature, Art & the Public Sphere, Images: Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture, Journal of American Studies, QED: Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, Visual Methodologies, and the chapter “Collecting Social Things” in the volume Rhetoric, Social Value, and the Arts (Palgrave Macmillan). He has worked in various capacities as advisor or associate or guest editor for Art Papers, Ground Works (Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities), Journal for Artistic Research, Journal of American Studies (Cambridge University Press), and Visual Methodologies. He is also a founding member of the idea collective John Q. He holds an MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD from Emory University’s Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts.

Tamara Falicov is Associate Dean for Research in the Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and a Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies. She was awarded a Docking Young Faculty Fellowship for mid-career scholars at KU (2013-2016) and served as Chair of Film and Media Studies from 2009-2015. Dr. Falicov has previously served as a visiting Professor at the University of Medellín, Colombia in 2010 and 2016. Professor Falicov’s specialty is the study of Latin American film industries and she is a significant contributor to the KU Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to Argentina, the result of which is the book The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film (London: Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2007) which was selected as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2008. Her book on Latin American film industries (Bloomsbury/British Film Institute) in 2019. Professor Falicov has written multiple essays on film co-productions, the cultural politics of Programa Ibermedia, Cine en construccion (Films in Progress) and the importance and pitfalls of European film funds such as Hubert Bals Fund and World Cinema Fund which support Global South filmmakers. Professor Falicov is the co-editor of the book series Framing Film Festivals for Palgrave Macmillan with Marijke de Valck (University of Utrecht, Netherlands). She was awarded a Fulbright Specialist to Portugal in 2018 and gave workshops at the Icaro film festivals in Honduras (2018) and Guatemala (2019).

Simon Atkinson is the Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Kansas and a professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences. In addition to leading the KU Office of Research, he advocates for research on and off campus, implements research integrity requirements, and, through the KU Center for Research (KUCR), oversees the administration of research grants and contracts primarily for the Lawrence campus. Atkinson also has oversight of activities related to technology commercialization and business and industry outreach.

An internationally respected researcher, he studies acute kidney injury with the goal of developing strategies to prevent or treat kidney injuries that can be caused by heart failure, cardiac surgery, toxins and contrast agents administered for diagnostic tests. Atkinson was a co-founder of INphoton, a life sciences startup company established in 2005, and he is involved with the startup Rene Medical Inc., established in 2014. These experiences will be particularly relevant in his role supporting the continued growth and development of the KU Center for Technology Commercialization (KUCTC).

Atkinson has a doctorate in molecular biology from the University of Cambridge and a bachelor’s degree in cell and molecular biology from King’s College London. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Prior to joining KU, he served as vice chancellor for research at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis and associate vice president for research for Indiana University, with systemwide responsibility for innovation and commercialization. Atkinson was also a chancellor’s professor at IUPUI as well as a professor of biology in the School of Science and an adjunct professor of medicine and of biochemistry and molecular biology. He joined the faculty at Indiana University in 1994, when he became an assistant professor at the School of Medicine, and from 2010 to 2015 served as chair of the Department of Biology in the School of Science at IUPUI. From 2004 to 2010, he was director of the interdisciplinary graduate program in medical biophysics in the IU School of Medicine. He has been a visiting professor at Indiana State University, Eastern Michigan University, Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame.