SfNC Events and Programming
In addition to our annual meeting, each year SfNC hosts a number of virtual events and programming for our members and our community. This page contains information about these events. SfNC members have access to recordings of all past events on our member site.
Many of our virtual events are CrossTalks. CrossTalk: Conversations at the Intersection of Art and Science is a format developed by SfNC to foster communication between scientists, artists, and practitioners. In these events, we host conversations between creativity researchers and artists to promote new perspectives for the study and practice of creativity. These are not research presentations. Rather, these interdisciplinary dialogues are informal and seek to engage a thoughtful discussion.
Past Events
SfNC 2024 Fall Creativity Symposium - November 6th, 2024
SfNC’s 2024 Fall Creativity Symposium took place on November 6th, 2024 and featured three excellent sessions on all-things-creativity! Visit the event page here or watch the recordings on our member website.
Session 1: Measuring the Impact of the Creative Arts on Health and Other Outcomes was presented in collaboration with APA Division 10. A panel of experts discussed the latest research on how creativity influences health, well-being, emotion, and cognition. Featuring Thalia Goldstein (George Mason University), Anjan Chatterjee (University of Pennsylvania), Jennifer Drake (Brooklyn College CUNY), and Jessica Hoffman (Yale University). Co-moderated by Indre Viskontas (SfNC President) and Roni Reiter-Palmon (APA Div. 10 President).
Session 2: Navigating Careers in Creativity Research In this session, a panel of early career researchers with jobs across academia and industry discussed how to navigate the job market as a creativity researcher at different career stages. Featuring Sergio Agnoli (Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Trieste), Stacy Shaw (Assistant Professor of Learning, Worcester Polytechnic Institute), Nadine Maliakkal (Hogan Assessment Systems), and Hannah Merseal (Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Pennsylvania).
Session 3: CrossTalk: Humor and Creativity This very special CrossTalk event featured professional comedian, writer, and podcast host Chris Duffy and neuroscientist Ori Amir, who studies the neural basis of humor, in conversation about the science and practice of creativity.
SfNC 2023 Virtual Fall Event: November 17th, 2023
Session 1: Methods in Creativity Research (Sponsored by CRJ)
How can we best study creativity in the brain and behavior, and how do the methods we use influence what we can discover? In this fascinating panel discussion, SfNC scientists showcased their latest thinking on operationalizing creativity and its neural and behavioral underpinnings.
Featuring: Yuhua Yu, Mark Beeman, Ron Beghetto, Ross Anderson, and Jared Kenworthy. Moderated by Adam Green, Editor-in-Chief, CRJ
Session 2: CrossTalk - Brothers in Art and Science featuring Fiery Cushman & O’Neill Cushman
What do you get when you mix a moral psychologist and an artist? How do the processes of experimentation in science mirror the creative process in art? In this CrossTalk event, brothers Fiery Cushman (a psychology professor at Harvard) and O'Neill Cushman (a visual artist) considered the intersection between creativity and the visual arts and the relationships between their work and identities.
Spring 2023 CrossTalk Event: Friday, April 21, 2023
We welcomed the CrossTalk speakers for this event, Susan Rogers, Professor at Berklee School of Music who was the pioneering female audio engineer on Prince’s legendary album Purple Rain before shifting careers to neuroscience, and Ed Robertson, lead singer and songwriter of the band Barenaked Ladies, for a conversation moderated by Indre Viskontas.
SfNC 2022 Virtual Fall Event - November 4, 2022
Our Fall 2022 SfNC Virtual Event took place on November 4, 2022 and included three fantastic sessions.
Our Methods series takes a deep dive into the tools used by creativity researchers. In this session, we focused on creativity interventions, exploring whether and how creativity can be enhanced, featuring Caroline Di Bernardi Luft (Brunel University, London); Caitlin Mills (University of Minnesota), and Kate Eskine (Wheaton College, Massachusetts).
SfNC Sandbox: This session revolved around unfinished projects. It was especially relevant for students and postdocs. The goal was to provide input and spark collaboration on projects in progress. Because the work was in progress, we won’t be re-broadcasting this session but invite you to come to a future Works in Progress meeting.
CrossTalk: The Science of Stories: Karen Paik (Pixar Animation Studios) and Angus Fletcher (Ohio State University) discussed the science of stories.
SfNC 2021 Virtual Fall Event - October 15, 2021
SfNC Methods: In this session we took a deep dive into divergent thinking tasks. We featured a group of speakers who are experts on all things divergent thinking: Yoed Kenett (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology), Mark Runco (Southern Oregon University), Paul Silvia (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), and Selcuk Acar (University of North Texas) who shared insights on different scoring methods, instructions and other methodological considerations.
SfNC Works in Progress: This session revolved around unfinished projects. It was especially relevant for students and postdocs. The goal was to provide input and spark collaboration on projects in progress. Because the work was in progress, we won’t be re-broadcasting this session but invite you to come to a future Works in Progress meeting.
CrossTalk: Behind the Eye of the Beholder: Anjan Chatterjee is a Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Architecture and the founding Director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics. His research explores the field of neuroaesthetics: how our brain experiences and responds to art. Lucas Kelly is a renowned visual artist, with work featured across several solo and group exhibitions, most notably in the survey of abstract painting “The Painted World” at PS1 Museum of Modern Art. As the inaugural Artist in Residence for the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, Lucas has collaborated with Anjan on a forthcoming exhibition, considering the emotions involved in aesthetic engagement informed by research. This CrossTalk featured a moderated conversation between Anjan and Lucas, discussing topics at the intersection of neuroscience and experience of visual art. This CrossTalk event is archived here.
CrossTalk Event June 25, 2021
Feeling the Beat: The Neuroscience of Movement and Dancing with Parkinson’s Disease,
This hour-long event featured a moderated conversation between Dr. Jessica Grahn, a cognitive neuroscientist and Associate Professor at Western University, in London, Ontario studying beat perception and the brain, and David Leventhal, Program Director of Dance for PD, an organization that offers therapeutic dance classes for people with Parkinson's Disease.
CrossTalk Event February 26, 2021
The first event was held on Friday, February 26 at 4pm ET. This hour-long event featured a moderated conversation between Paul Seli, professor of psychology at Duke University and leading researcher on the topic of mind wandering, and Alexa Miller, renowned expert of observation and founder of Arts Practica: a consultancy firm which offers arts-based workshops to promote diagnostic safety for healthcare professionals.