STEAM Research

A global network for STEAM research, sponsored by Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts (MICA).

Our mission is to help coordinate research worldwide on integrating aesthetics/arts/activity into the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) educational initiative. Researchers actively engaged in STEAM research projects are encouraged to join us. Included on our site will be links, pages describing research, and a forum for discussion. We are looking for team members who would be willing to choose a specific area of the world; discover who is doing STEAM research; invite them to join the network and post their work; and possibly coordinate research within their own communities. A good project, perhaps, to engage students in helping. If you would like to be a collaborator, please contact info@myrifield.org with name, affiliation, location, and details of project.

Notes on Activities

Margaret Freeman gave a seminar on the STEAM project at Smolny College, St. Petersburg, Russia, on October 19, 2017. In surprising attendance were the scientists, since all the arts and humanities folks were attending a lecture on film at the same time. So the discussion was provocative and helpful. See paper under Research Articles for the content of her talk.

Isabel Jaén Portillo has initiated a STEAM discussion at Portland State University, and will give a talk there for science and engineering faculty in January 2018:

  • STEAM: How literature and the arts help STEM students become socially skilled and innovative.

  • Within the interface of cognitive cultural studies (which includes disciplines both in the sciences and the humanities, such as cognitive psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, linguistics, and other), researchers have been pointing at the advantages of fiction and the arts as tools for social training and creativity development, skills that are increasingly considered essential for the preparation of the innovative minds of the future. This talk will review some of the most important and latest ideas, studies, and findings about how a literature and arts education develops the mind, stressing the importance of including these tools in our university curriculum.

  • May 11, 2018 STEAM conference at Medgar Evans College, Brooklyn, Ny. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-world-runs-on-steam-2018-cuny-cue-conference-tickets-42477286708?aff=es2.

  • October 22-26, 2018 STEM week, Greenfield Community College, Greenfield, Massachusetts.

  • Peter M. Rojcewicz has an article on noetic learning. See Rojcewicz, P.M. (2021). Existential Intimacy of Learning: A Noetic Turn from STEM. Academia Letters, Article 2873. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2873.