ISAM '19: Yale Hosts the Academic Makerspace Community

For three days next month, 350 members of the higher education makerspace community will gather at Yale to trade notes, listen to pioneers of the field, and discuss the future of making at the 4th International Symposium on Academic Makerspaces (ISAM).  

The annual event is the result of the partnership between Yale and six other universities - Case Western Reserve University, Georgia Tech, MIT, Olin College, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley. This partnership, known as the Higher Education Makerspaces Initiatives (HEMI), is also the organizing body for the soon-to-be published International Journal for Academic Makerspaces and Making.

This year’s ISAM, co-hosted by Olin College, takes place October 16th – 18th. Deputy Dean Vincent Wilczynski, the James S. Tyler Director of the Yale Center for Engineering Innovation & Design (CEID), said ISAM was designed to give makerspace faculty, staff and students a way to disseminate best practices of higher education makerspaces through papers, posters, speakers, videos and vendors. Each of the previous ISAM events have proven to be a valuable source of information. For instance, the new waterjet in the SEAS Machine Shop - which cuts glass, steel and other materials with water - debuted at an ISAM.  

“And our ideas get shared with others,” Wilczynskisaid. “It’s really satisfying when you see an architect talking about best practices in academic makerspaces and one of his slides is the CEID. Not only are we getting ideas from the conference, but the things we’re doing are being exported to others.” 

In addition to panel discussions, posters, and videos, the symposium will also feature a tour of the various makerspaces on campus and the workshops “Design, Build, and Manage a Makerspace” and “Making and Innovating at Yale.”

The event will kick off with opening remarks from Dr. Woodie Flowers, the Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Distinguished Partner at Olin College. 

Throughout his career, Flowers has promoted the critical relationships between creating, learning and understanding and he has been a leading advocate for the value of hands-on engineering design.

“He was making before making was popular in higher education,” Wilczynski said.

Closing the symposium will be speaker Roya Mahboob, an entrepreneur from Afghanistan. For the last few years, she has led a team of young women competing in a variety of international robotics contests. She plans to discuss how the team’s journey demonstrates the life-changing potential that comes with having access to making and using one’s creative talents.  

“So we begin the symposium with the founder of academic making, and we end it with one of the most captivating stories on the empowerment that being able to make can have for young men and women on a global scale,” Wilczynski said. 

For more information about ISAM, and to register, go to the event’s website.