Sign Up for the Speaker Series: “Non-traditional Career Opportunities for Students in Humanities and Social Sciences”

The University of Rhode Island (URI) Libraries are offering the “Non-traditional Career Opportunities for Students in Humanities and Social Sciences” speaker series in the Spring semester of 2018. This speaker series has been developed by Bohyun Kim, Associate Professor at the URI Libraries in order to help students in humanities and social sciences explore non-traditional career opportunities in a variety of fields such as design industry, museums, tech companies, and non-profit organizations.

Speakers will share their unique experience of working in different industries, how their academic background worked for their career, how they were able to leverage their academic skills and knowledge in their non-academic and non-traditional career path for the maximum benefit, and how their career evolved over time and took them to the path that they did not initially anticipate. Each talk will be followed by an informal discussion with students, which will further provide valuable perspectives for soon-to-be young professionals.

Come explore what type of non-traditional career options exist for students of humanities and social sciences, how the academic knowledge and skills gained in the university setting can be transferred and leveraged for career success, and what kind of skills and traits employers are looking for in their recruitment!

For questions or inquiries, please contact Bohyun Kim at bohyunkim@uri.edu.

Sign-Up INFO

  • Register: http://goo.gl/uZXs28 [FREE & Open to ALL]
  • Dates and Time: Noon – 1 PM, Thursday 2/22, 3/8, 3/29, and 4/19
  • Location: Galanti Lounge at  the URI Carothers Library Building 3rd floor

Speaker Series

Thurs. Feb. 22 – Noon

Advanced Academic Skills for Non-Academic Careers
by Karl Aspelund, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, College of Business Administration.
Dept. of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design, University of Rhode Island

Thurs. Mar. 8 – Noon

Career in Education and Technology
by Andrea Russo M.Ed., M.S.

Regional Program Manager, Microsoft Philanthropies – TEALSK12
(Technology Education and Literacy in Schools K12)

Thurs. Mar. 29 – Noon

The Nonprofit Venture
by Lisa Carnevale

Executive Director, DESIGNxRI 

Thurs. Apr. 19 – Noon

Digital Skills & Entrepreneurship for Young Professionals
by Nic Schumann

Co-Founder & COO, Work-Shop Design Studio

Speaker Bios

Karl Aspelund, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor at the Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design at the University of Rhode Island, and visiting assistant professor at the Department of Folkloristics/Ethnology and Museum Studies at the University of Iceland. Since 2013 he has been conducting design and cultural research into the needs and constraints of apparel and textiles for long-term space exploration and space-based communities. His other interests lie in examining the role textiles and design play in the creation of identity, the impact of the textile life-cycle on the Earth’s environment, and how the design community can contribute to the goal of environmental sustainability.

Karl worked as an artist and designer in theater, film, exhibits, and public art for 20 years after graduating from the Wimbledon School of Art in London with a degree in 3D design. He has taught design since the early 1990’s. Before coming to URI in 1996, he was head of the Department of Industrial Design at the Reykjavik Technical College in Iceland. Karl completed a Ph.D. in 2011 in Anthropology and Material Culture from Boston University’s University Professors Program, where his dissertation was awarded the University Professors Edmonds Prize as the best dissertation of the academic year 2010-2011. Karl is the author of three textbooks, “The Design Process” (3rd ed. 2014/2006), “Fashioning Society” (2009), and “Designing: An Introduction” (2014). His most recent book, which he co-edited and contributed to with Dr. Terry Gunnell, was published in Iceland in November of 2017 and is nominated for the Icelandic Publishers’ Association’s Literary Prize in the field of Academic Works.

Andrea Russo, M.Ed., M.S. is an experienced educator whose passion has led her to advocate, teach, and promote STEAM education. She currently works with Microsoft Philanthropies’ TEALS (Technology Education and Literacy in Schools) program and CS4RI (Computer Science for All in RI). Through partnerships with those organizations she has co-organized the CS4RI Summit. She has had the pleasure to work with the Boston Museum of Science’s National Council of Technological Literacy, New York Academy of Science, American Museum of Natural History, and the NY Hall of Science. She taught grades 6-12 in NYC schools and worked at the New York Botanical Garden in continuing education department. Andrea holds a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction in STEM and an M.S. in Science Education. She is currently on the Board of Directors for the RI Museum of Science and Art and the Advisory Board for Technovation.

Lisa Carnevale is a founder and the executive director of DESIGNxRI, an organization that creates an environment for design businesses and the RI design sector to thrive. Since 1997, Lisa has worked as a strategic communications consultant, started new nonprofit organizations in emerging economic sectors, and led innovative initiatives in both Seattle and Providence. She uniquely melds her years of experience as a communicator, advocate and entrepreneur to provide forward-looking strategy and execution for start-up organizations, innovative companies, nonprofits and civic agencies. Her leadership includes co-founding Partnership for Creative Industrial Space, a nonprofit real estate development organization focused on the creative reuse of industrial and manufacturing mills in Providence; growing RI Citizens for the Arts where she rebranded and rebuilt this statewide arts advocacy organization from a couple dozen members to hundreds in two years; and founding DESIGNxRI as an economic development nonprofit for the design sector in RI. Lisa is also principal at MYRANDA, a communications consultancy in Providence, RI. Her clients have ranged from early stage high tech and international business-to-business companies to nonprofit organizations, advocacy networks, place making initiatives and small businesses.

Nic Schumann is a designer, programmer, and thinker who loves working deeply and systematically on problems across scales and technical realms. Nic is Co-founder of Work-Shop Design Studio, a brand, interior, digital and experience design consultancy in Providence. He studied Computer Science at Brown University, and remains a community member, consultant, and collaborator at Brown and RISD, and has taught engineering and visual arts at Brown. Work-Shop’s clients Include the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard, MIT, and Brown as well as a wide variety of Rhode Island-based small businesses and non-profits. Recently, they won the Design Innovation Grant from RISCA and the Creative Mile Award from the 195 Commission.