influence of art making on creativity and critical thinking.

mei bowyer, MEd is an Education doctoral student with a certificate in Museum Scholarship and Material Culture at the University of Maryland. mei's research examines how knowledge is made/transmitted/transformed through embodiment, drawing on ancestral ways of knowing to reimagine how expression, matter, and place teach, heal, and hold us.

2025-26. Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium (DEFCon) Community Fellow, Cal State Fullerton.

2024-25. Curriculum and Instruction (EDCI) Fellow, University of Maryland. 

2024-25. Dean’s Fellow, University of Maryland.

2024. Hands-In-Clay Scholarship, Baltimore Clayworks.

Liu, R.Z., Conley, C., Johnson, A.C., bowyer, m., and Ramirez, G. (2026). The stories of our communities and the storytellers who tell them: The case for critical race folklore studies. In Z. You & M. Martínez-Rivera (Eds.), Routledge handbook of anthropology & folklore. Routledge.

Grants:

2025. Mellon Sawyer Seminar Summer Grant. Georgetown University x Mellon Foundation.

2025. Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium Grant. DEFCON x Mellon Foundation.

2024. Arts for All ArtsAMPlification Graduate Student Research Grant. University of Maryland, College Park.

Projects:

2025. "the black arts school." [Talk and Roundtable]. Mellon Sawyer Seminar, Georgetown University.

2025. "sounding: dark matter." [Installation and Workshop]. American Folklore Society, Atlanta, GA.

TLPL 251: Students, Schooling, and Communities

TLPL 481 : Embracing Diversity in the Classroom Community

ENGL 101: Writing and Rhetoric