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.
GRADUATE TEACHING & RESEARCH ASSISTANT RECORD


2024Graduate Teaching Assistant, VIS 20, Introduction to Art in Europe & America, Fall Quarter
2022Graduate Teaching Assistant, VIS 30 Introduction to Speculative Design, UCSD Visual Arts, Fall Quarter

Graduate Student Researcher for Dr. Elizabeth DeLoughrey, UCLA English, Winter Quarter 

2021Graduate Student Researcher for Dr. Lisa Cartwright, Graphic Ocean: Navigating Pacific Science and Design, Spring Quarter

Graduate Student Researcher for Dr. Lisa Cartwright, Graphic Ocean: Navigating Pacific Science and Design, Winter Quarter

Graduate Teaching Assistant, VIS 20, Introduction to Art in Europe & America, Fall Quarter 

2020Graduate Student Researcher, Dr. Jeff Bowman Lab, Scripps Institution of Oceanography 

Graduate Teaching Assistant, VIS 102, Democratizing the City, Spring Quarter

2019Graduate Teaching Assitant, Muir College Writing Program, Fall Quarter