JOERILEY.WORK





joriley@ucsd.edu
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Photo: Natalie Conn

 Joe Riley is an artist, historian, and Ph.D. candidate at UC San Diego Visual Arts in a joint environmental research program with Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. 

  Joe’s research has recently been supported by the Getty Scholars Program, a UCSD Rita L. Atkinson Fellowship, and the UC Humanities Research Institute. His dissertation, Fixing the Sea: Case Studies Toward A Critical Environmental History of Ocean Art and Science since 1970, foregrounds and critically examines histories and practices of interaction between artists, oceanographers, and marine life situated within California’s university-military-research complex.

  From 2020–2025 Joe has been a participating artist and co-curator for the Pacific Standard Time exhibition Embodied Pacific, featuring projects by thirty artists working with researchers in laboratories, field sites, and archives in Southern California and the Pacific Islands. 

  Previously, he was an Ocean Fellow with TBA21-Academy and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Joe holds a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art and has taught at UC San Diego, Cal State San Marcos, Stevens Institute of Technology, and The Cooper Union.
FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS
2025Getty Residential Scholar Fellowship, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA

Rita L. Atkinson Graduate Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Studies, UC San Diego

Friends of the International Center Endowed Fellowship, Ruth Newmark Award, UC San Diego

Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts Fellowship, UC San Diego

Russell Grant, Visual Arts Department, UC San Diego

La Verne Noyes Foundation Scholarship, UC San Diego 

2024Interdisciplinary Research Award, Graduate Student Association, UC San Diego

Climate Action Training & Dissertation Fellowship, UC Humanities Research Institute

Summer Institute in Environmental Humanities Fellowship, Colby College, Maine

Freida Daum Urey Fellowship, UC San Diego

La Verne Noyes Foundation Scholarship, UC San Diego 
2023Kenneth & Dorothy Hill Research Fellowship, UC San Diego

Visual Arts Department Tuition & Fees Scholarship, UC San Diego

Getty Research Library Grant Recipient, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA

La Verne Noyes Foundation Scholarship, UC San Diego 

2022International Institute Graduate Research and Travel Grant, UC San Diego

Graduate Student Fellow, “Institutional Failure as Global Leadership,” UC Humanities Research Institute 

Co-recipient for “Humanistic Approaches to Coastal Crises: a Multicampus Graduate Student Working Group,” UC Humanities Research Institute

2021Institute for Practical Ethics Graduate Student Fellowship, UC San Diego
2020Ocean Fellow, TBA21-Academy Ocean Space, Venice, Italy

Foundation for Contemporary Art Emergency Grant, Los Angeles, CA

International Institute Graduate Research & Travel Grant, UC San Diego

2019Competitive EDGE Fellowship, UC San Diego

2019Competitive EDGE Fellowship, UC San Diego

2018Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship, Queens, NY

Interdisciplinary Art & Theory Program Fellow, New York, NY

2017Art & Law Program Fellow, New York, NY

2013Service to the School Award, Cooper Union School of Art