Contact: Jackie Fleming, International Visual Literacy Association
Phone: 812-855-9578
Email: jkflemin@iu.edu
INTERNATIONAL VISUAL LITERACY ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES RESEARCH AWARD WINNER
Virtual Conference 2021 –Joanna Kędra, PhD and Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland awarded the International Visual Literacy Association’s (IVLA) Research Award at the 53rd Annual Virtual Conference hosted by the University of Toledo and the Toledo Museum of Art this November.
The Research Award is given only when merited to members of the Association who are actively involved in on-going out-standing research that furthers the cause of visual literacy, who have achieved a substantial record of scholarly publication, and who have significantly advanced knowledge within the field.
Joanna Kędra was nominated for the Research Award for her heavy involvement in bringing consistency to how the term visual literacy is used within scholarship and her ability to arrive at concrete goals for the field of visual literacy through her own scholarly work. Kędra’s visual literacy scholarship within the last three years has resulted in editing a special issue of the Journal of Visual Literacy and a forthcoming book on visual literacy in education. These are just two examples of Kędra’s accomplishments within the field of visual literacy but there are many more.
Gary McLeod, Kędra’s nominator and Assistant Professor of Photomedia and Visual Design at the University of Tsukua, Japan wrote that Kędra’s work is, “vital for future generations to identify and manage visual bias regardless of whether they are ‘reading’ images, making them, or even thinking in terms of visuals. It is difficult to imagine the current picture of VL studies without her contributions”.
Kędra is one of ten people to be awarded the Research Award since its inception in 1989. Nominations for the 2022 awards will be announced shortly. For any questions in the meantime, contact Dr. Kazuyo Kubo, Awards Committee Chair, at kkubo@lesley.edu.
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Founded in 1968, the International Visual Literacy Association is an interdisciplinary organization of professionals working toward a fuller understanding of the way we derive meaning from what we see and the way we interact with our visual environment. For more information about IVLA, please visit https://ivla.org/.