In 2021, the Kenan Institute for Ethics was to hold a substantial academic conference concerning the Anthropocene. The project was an interdisciplinary attempt to wrangle with the nature and urgency of environmental, historical, cultural, and political problems posed by climate change — and its culminating event was stymied by the outbreak of COVID-19.

I was hired by the project leads to assist in transitioning the project to an online format, with a view toward preserving both the intellectual rigor of the conversations and their public-facing nature. My primary roles included preparing and designing large-scale webinars to take the place of what would have been conference presentations. From January to April of 2021, I assisted in designing and hosting these lectures and interviews, which occurred monthly. This included front and back-end support for the webinars, including interfacing with speakers, running digital logistics for Zoom webinars, and executing a follow-up campaign of e-mails and surveys.

Prior to the events, I provided design support for promotional materials and for a broader media strategy.  We invited guests based on research expertise and media affiliation, and crafted additional campaigns to develop non-profit and research organization partners to draw participants from outside the academy. Preparation for the events also entailed researching speakers’ work and public output in order to generate briefs and dossiers, as well as public-facing questions for use in live interviews.