Jorge Guillen | Pixabay
席勒综合科学与社会电子游戏正规平台所——波士顿大学备受期待的跨学科电子游戏正规平台中心——正在塞德纳家族执行董事劳拉·J·琼斯的指导下发展其第一个项目. Steinberg.
Steinberg joined BC from Syracuse University in May to head up the institute, 由当时的bc受托人(现在的受托人助理)Phil Schiller ' 82和他的妻子捐赠的2500万美元创建, Kim Gassett-Schiller. It will be the centerpiece of a new 150,000 square-foot science facility on Middle Campus that will open in late 2021. The Seidner executive directorship was made possible through a gift from BC Trustee Marc Seidner ’88, the managing director and chief investment officer at PIMCO, and his wife, Mary Lou.
Steinberg recently discussed her outreach efforts to faculty, similar work with students, 还有一个即将推出的“种子”资助项目，旨在鼓励教师和学生跨学科合作，激发未来的电子游戏正规平台和奖学金. 她还讨论了她的职业道路以及她在环境种族主义和正义问题上的电子游戏正规平台和教学.
Laura Steinberg
她一直在与新教员会面，并计划继续与新老教员进行虚拟讨论，以促进校园内的整合思维. These talks will determine what faculty need to further their interests in this kind of work, said Steinberg, 他是土木与环境工程的终身教授，也是锡拉丘兹大学工程与计算机科学学院的院长.
“I want to understand how the institute can best support faculty,” said Steinberg. “We are reaching out to faculty from across the campus. We are interested in the scientist, but also in the art historian. 他们的学术电子游戏正规平台如何与科学问题和人类对能源的看法相交叉, health, and the environment? 我们的目标是将科学与我们作为一所大学在众多学科方面的巨大优势结合起来.”
Steinberg expects to draw on her strengths in strategic planning, forged at Syracuse. There, she led her college in taking grassroots faculty, staff, 学生们参与制定了一个五年战略计划，最终确定了五个核心优势领域, better allocated resources, developed new undergraduate and new master’s degree programs, 并概述了一项招聘策略，使三分之一的工程学院职位由女性担任.
Early next semester, 斯坦伯格计划向教师们提出一项资助计划，鼓励跨学科的奖学金来探索环境, energy, and health—the institute’s prime areas of focus. A total of approximately $200,000美元将用于资助来自不同院系和学院成员的团队的提案.
正在开发的第二个拨款计划将要求学生团队提出促进跨部门合作的项目建议, engagement with community partners, or enable participation in conferences and virtual gatherings. Proposals will address the institute’s three core areas, as well as focus on the common good and complex issues facing society.
“我们已经在和学生们讨论，在席勒电子游戏正规平台所支持他们的兴趣方面，什么对他们来说是重要的,” Steinberg said. “We discovered that students want two things. They want to build a sense of community and they want to help drive the institute’s programming. If we do that, 我们得到了参与，学生们从指导这些工作中获得了领导经验. We want them to be part of the process.”
As the institute continues to develop, 斯坦伯格计划创建项目，将学生与企业和非政府机构联系起来，以促进实习, works with existing or new student clubs, brings speakers to campus, and coordinates experiential learning trips.
“我们真的想促进现实世界的项目，这样学生就可以帮助建立一家公司，或者参与现实世界的重要努力，帮助人们和组织解决我们面临的一些紧迫的社会问题,” she said.
斯坦伯格将她的职业道路归因于童年时对帮助人们工作和生活的结构和系统的兴趣.
“Growing up in New York and New Jersey, my family was always on bridges or in tunnels or passing by reservoirs. 我开始着迷于这些东西是如何工作的，并意识到如果没有基础设施，我们的生活将会非常不同,” she said. “我开始对通过以社区为中心的基础设施改善人们的生活体验感兴趣，并对基础设施如何帮助改善世界发展中地区人们的生活条件感到好奇. That’s why I became a civil engineer: as a profession, it spoke most clearly to my deepest interests.”
As a scholar, 斯坦伯格还将注意力集中在环境正义和环境种族主义问题上. Early on in her career, 斯坦伯格曾在私营部门参与一个项目，该项目建造了现在支持尼日利亚首都阿布贾的基础设施, as well as water projects on the Navajo Nation. As a post-doc, 她在国家统计科学电子游戏正规平台所的工作电子游戏正规平台了污染对黑人的不成比例的影响, Latino, and low-income communities. As a faculty member at Tulane University in New Orleans, 她的电子游戏正规平台和教学涉及到一个工业污染严重的地区的同样问题.
“几十年来对环境正义的电子游戏正规平台表明，环境侮辱是系统性种族主义的症状,” said Steinberg. “它们需要在更广泛的背景下看待，而不是从统计上确定它们是否存在, as I did in the 1990s. We want to get beyond a correlation between dirty industry and communities of color. In fact, in conjunction with the Forum on Racial Justice in America, 席勒电子游戏正规平台所正在计划今年晚些时候的一个项目，该项目将探索环境种族主义的许多方面, recognizing its historical roots and the connections it has to sociological concerns, political power, racial segregation, health disparities and patterns of environmental contamination.”
斯坦伯格的一个特别爱好是在科学和工程领域为女性提供指导和支持. 她一直在努力确保年轻女性不会像35年前那样缺少女性榜样和导师.
“I was passionate about my work as an engineer but spent my career without any women role models. That’s 35 years. Zero women role models in my field. None,” she said.
Today, she is proud of the work she has done with ELATES, a national program that supports women in academia seeking leadership roles in the STEM disciplines. 她还在雪城大学启动了一个暑期项目，指导对工程感兴趣的中学女生.
她计划继续为来自不同背景、对科学充满热情的女性提供导师和榜样, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
“One of the objectives of Schiller is to promote the hiring of women faculty members, women post-docs, and faculty of color,” Steinberg said. “我们希望在如何做到这一点以及如何做好这一点上为全国的大学树立榜样. To be interdisciplinary, 我们必须努力工作，以确保我们雇用的人能够成功地成为大学的全面成员. We’ll carry that work through with student groups and organizations. 我们打算吸引不同的学生群体到席勒项目，并与BC的AHANA学生密切合作.”
For more information, visit the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society website.
Ed Hayward | University Communications | October 2020