Dr. Kaustavi Sarkar, assistant professor of dance, has won the 2019 J. Murrey Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award. Each fall, the Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award is presented to a UNC Charlotte faculty member who has engaged in innovative or exceptional work with library collections, programs, and services. The award, along with a $2000 allocation for professional development, enables the library to recognize outstanding faculty contributions to the library’s mission, vision, and strategic initiatives.
For several semesters, Sarkar has worked with library staff to develop her research agenda in Virtual Reality (VR) Interactive experiences in dance. Among her activities, she brought her Dance 2402 Performance Practicum class to the library's Visualization Lab to investigate the usefulness of VR technologies, such as VR games, in dance training and performance.
The Atkins Library was also the digital host for registration, selection, and programmatic information for the conference "Sensate Technicities: A Conversation Across Dance Cultures and Techniques," which Sarkar organized in May 2019. More than one hundred practitioners and scholars of Odissi dance from across the globe applied and participated in the conference at UNC Charlotte.
Sarkar will be honored during a Library Social and Faculty Award Ceremony on October 2, 2019, in the Library’s Halton Reading Room; the event begins at 4:00 PM.