People

Arts, Science + Culture Initiative Staff

Desiree Foerster (she, her)
Director
dfoerster@uchicago.edu

Desiree Foerster studies new media arts and design from a process-relational and critical phenomenology perspective. She is a Senior Research Associate in the Cinema and Media Studies department at the University of Chicago and the director of the Art, Science and Culture Initiative. Previously, Desiree was an Assistant Professor for Digital Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. She did her PhD at the Institute for Arts and Media at the University of Potsdam with her thesis “Aesthetic Experience of Metabolic Processes” and she holds additional degrees in Media Culture Analysis from Duesseldorf (MA) and Comparative Literature and Philosophy (BA) from Bochum. She regularly collaborates with colleagues from the arts and science on projects of research-creation. 

Naomi Blumberg
Associate Director
nblumberg@uchicago.edu 

Naomi Blumberg is Associate Director of the Arts, Science + Culture Initiative. Before coming to UChicago, Naomi was an editor of arts and culture at Encyclopaedia Britannica, following many years working as a curator and exhibition coordinator at art and history museums including the Chicago History Museum, the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, and the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College. She holds a BA from Barnard College in art history, a Master's from Tufts University in art history and museum studies, and a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Naomi is also the Managing Editor of Portable Gray magazine, published by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry.

Julie Marie Lemon
Founder, Former Senior Director and Curator

Julie Marie Lemon was the Founder and Senior Director & Curator of the University-wide Arts, Science + Culture Initiative from 2010 to 2023, developing the strategic and intellectual direction of programming in collaboration with the Arts, Science + Culture Faculty Advisory Committee.