Poet and Cognitive Scientist Pireeni Sundaralingam will be starting her three year stint as College Poet Laureate on 31 January this term. During her time at Univ, Pireeni will be running the SPARK program, a series of events exploring how we can break out of stagnant mental models and catalyze new patterns of thinking. The program will include bringing the different methodologies of the arts and sciences  into conversation with each other to create new solutons; it also includes  the “Creative Thinking Salon”, creative writing workshops,  interdisciplinary panel discussions, and a podcast series. Her own creative investigation will, in part, explore Univ’s rich history as an incubator for art-science collisions, from Shelley’s experiments with electricity and poetry to Christopher Wren first neuro-anatomical drawings

As a scientist, Pireeni is particularly interested in the human tendency to filter information through specific frames and metaphors, and how we can shift thinking patterns and behavior change: she is a former advisor to the Irish Government’s Minister of Art, Culture & Heritage, while most recently leading research at Silicon Valley’s Center for Humane Technology, evaluating the harms of algorithm-driven technology on human cognition. A multi-award-winning poet, Pireeni has been published in over 30 literary journals and translated into 5 languages.

Published: 23 January 2023

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