Welcoming Co-Director Rhiannon Stephens
The Center for Science and Society is delighted to announce Rhiannon Stephens as the Center's new Co-Director. She will join Founding Director Pamela Smith and oversee the Center's Co-Production of Knowledge Initiative.
Rhiannon will continue to serve as Co-Leader of the Environmental Sciences and Humanities Research Cluster with Jason Smeardon and an Executive Committee Member. She is also a Professor of History focused on historical climate change in East Africa. We spoke with Rhiannon about her new role.
Since Pamela Smith founded the Center for Science and Society ten years ago, it has been an outstanding example of working collaboratively to bridge divides between departments and disciplines at Columbia and elsewhere. As the Center pivots to extend its work to bridge divides between the University and wider communities outside of it through the Co-Production of Knowledge Initiative, this is an exciting time to join the Center’s leadership and be part of its mission.
Co-leading the Environmental Sciences and Humanities Research Cluster with my colleague Jason Smerdon has been a great experience (although we did take a hiatus last year while I was on a fellowship at the Davis Center for Historical Study at Princeton University). We have focused on History and Climate Change during this time, with a series of events showcasing how either individual scholars have worked across historical disciplines and climate science or how scholars from these fields have collaborated. In particular, we have tried to showcase work on parts of the world that have tended not to be the focus of research on historical climate change - notably, Africa, Indigenous North America, Latin America, and South Asia.
The excitement around this kind of work is wonderful to share in, but I think my favorite part of the experience has been hearing about the different approaches people have taken and what made for a successful collaboration. Perhaps unsurprisingly, mutual trust and openness are key; they are also qualities that are equally essential to the co-production of knowledge.
The highlight of my summer was spending three weeks in Zanzibar. I was with a team of archaeologists and we were hoping to excavate at a site in central Pemba which dates to the first millennium CE. In the end, the soil was too shallow for us to be able to get layers that would allow us to more accurately date the finds. Despite that, we did find a lot of locally produced ceramics, bead grinders, and iron slag all of which indicate that there was significant craft production at the site. This was preliminary work for a longer research season when we’ll be excavating at a village in northern Pemba which dates to the early second millennium CE. This was the first time I had been part of an archaeological excavation and it was great to have that opportunity.