Event Details
Date : 19 May 2025 (Mon)
Time : 2:30pm – 4:00pm
Venue : Learning Lab (RRS321, 3/F, Run Run Shaw Building, Main Campus, HKU)
Speakers :
- Dr. Marie McEntee, Senior Lecturer, School of Environment, The University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau
- Prof. Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Honorary Professor, School of Humanities (Comparative Literature), HKU; Founding Co-Director, Wild Studios Consulting and Creative Productions LLC
- Dr. Jack Tsao, Associate Director and Senior Lecturer, Common Core, HKU
Session 1: Transdisciplinary Futures – Our Environmental Futures: Te Taiao Tāngata
The University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau, in New Zealand has emphasised the importance of complementing students’ deep engagement in the discipline with enriched and expanded knowledge and skills to enable transdisciplinary learning. To meet this strategic priority, the University introduced the Transdisciplinary Futures curriculum to develop critical transdisciplinary skills and mindsets. In this talk, Marie will share her experience and insights co-leading the development and implementation of this flagship initiative, as well as teaching and coordinating a team of 12 academics from four faculties on the University’s first foundational transdisciplinary courses, Our Environmental Futures: Te Taiao Tāngata. She will discuss how the course uses relational and cohort-based learning to enable students to engage with complex environmental issues from diverse and novel perspectives.
About the Speaker
Dr. Marie McEntee is a social scientist at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her research focuses on how to work in transdisciplinary partnerships involving multiple stakeholders who hold diverse and often divergent views on how to address socio-environmental issues. In 2024, she received a Research Impact Award for her work co-leading an international transdisciplinary team investigating the human dimensions of forest sustainability. Her research bridges the technical and social dimensions of conservation, aiming for more inclusive solutions. Marie is the coordinator of the Faculty of Science’s Science and Society module, which she has taught for 30 years. Between 2021-2023, Marie co-led the flagship initiative to introduce transdisciplinary learning as part of the undergraduate programme and coordinated one of the first courses for Transdisciplinary Futures. Marie is a recipient of a national teaching excellence award for sustained teaching excellence and a strong advocate for tertiary learning that is transformative, engaging and interactive.
Session 2: Activating Eco-Imaginations: The Arts, Humanities & Speculative Sustain-Abilities
The talk will explore the imaginative movements of speculation, considering how transdisciplinary learning can integrate the Arts and Humanities as dynamic forces of change to foster greater flourishing for both human and non-human worlds. Gray will examine how creative practices—such as short fiction, painting, poetry, and philosophy—can intersect with teaching and learning to generate new ways of thinking and being. Grounding our discussion in the concept of “GeoLyrics,” he will reflect on how these practices attune us to the rhythms of minor inflections, inspiring richer, interconnected approaches to knowledge and action.
About the Speaker
Prof. Gray Kochhar-Lindgren is the co-founding Director of Wild Studios Consulting and Creative Productions LLC, where he is directing projects on Future Readiness, Eco-Imaginations, and ReNewing Learning. He was Director of the Common Core from June 2014 until December 2022 and continues to serve as an Honorary Professor of the Humanities and Affiliate Faculty in Comparative Literature. Prior to HKU, he was the inaugural Associate Vice-Chancellor for Undergraduate Learning and Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington-Bothell. A Fulbright Scholar, a Principal Fellow of Advance HE, and the recipient of the Outstanding Teaching Award (Team) from the UGC and HKU, Gray is currently the lead editor of Transdisciplinary Experiments (UCL, forthcoming) and in the thickets of The Event of Noir, Becoming Elemental, and After Magritte. He lives on a dirt road in the woods on Whidbey Island, WA.
Session 3: Learning Through Place: Community-Led Revitalisation in Hong Kong and Taiwan
The talk will share the experiences from two transdisciplinary student research-based projects conducted in 2025, centred around the theme of place-based community-led revitalisation. The first project focuses on a fieldtrip to the Mui Wo community in Hong Kong, combining futures thinking, collective art, public dialogue, camping, and local food and practices to understand ways to regenerate and build resilience for long-term sustainability. The second project examines a field trip to the indigenous Atayal community in DongAo, Yilan County in Taiwan, learning about ecological practices and visiting an experimental elementary school that interweaves traditional knowledge into modern education. Jack will share how both community partnerships impress upon students an understanding of the interdependence of economic, ecological, and social health and wellbeing, asking them to produce outputs in dialogue with the locals that can be delivered back to the community.
About the Speaker
Dr. Jack Tsao is the Associate Director and Senior Lecturer at the Common Core. He is passionate about promoting transdisciplinarity and preparing students for the future of work and citizenship through social impact, experiential learning, and project-based initiatives. As a Senior Fellow of Advance HE, Jack supports the professional growth of teachers by incorporating innovative teaching methods such as gaming, storytelling, and digital and artificial intelligence technologies. He earned his PhD in Education from the University of Queensland. Jack’s research specialises in educational futures, focusing on curriculum and pedagogies, comparative and international education, digital technologies (especially artificial intelligence), and the sociology of education.
For information, please contact:
Ms. Canice Mok
Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre- 3917 6069
- tsmok@hku.hk