Teaching Density Functional Theory to Students of Art Conservation

As an assistant professor that identifies as LBGTQIA+ and is employed at a minority serving institution, I am well aware of the multitude of issues surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion at the university level. My chosen field in STEM is computational materials chemistry and an issue that plagues this field is diversity in students, specifically their identities and backgrounds. This is why I’ve spent 3 summers as an instructor for the Baltimore SCIART program, teaching computational methods to students interested in art conservation science. While many of the students in the program identify as LGBTQIA+, the majority of students that have learned to compute surface interactions are women. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Baltimore SCIART Consortium offers a 10-week summer research experience for undergraduate students at the interface between science and art and has been developed for students from Baltimore area academic institutions with a diverse background and strong interest in art conservation science and engineering. The development of density functional methods as a nondestructive probe to study works of art is still in its infancy and here, I will discuss aspects of our inclusive teaching pedagogy and our recent successes both computing surface interactions of objects important to cultural heritage and student outcomes.