Dr. Rebecca Kamen – Dyslexia Talent and Creativity Showcase

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Thank you, Dr. Rebecca Kamen, for participating in IDA-GA’s 2025 Dyslexia Talent & Creativity Showcase, held at the 2025 Dyslexia Dash on October 18 and at An Evening at The Carter Center on October 23, 2025. Dr. Kamen generously donated two signed 12″ × 12″ prints that interpret the dynamics of solar eclipses.

Rebecca Kamen is a sculptor, educator, and researcher who works at the crossroads of art and science, translating complex scientific ideas into forms that invite wonder, curiosity, and connection. Over a lifetime of creative inquiry, she has explored how we see the world—and how seeing differently can change everything.

The Grey Matter Group produced Reimagining Science Through Art, a video in which Dr. Kamen discusses how art can help us understand, interpret, and reimagine complex scientific ideas.

Rebecca Kamen: A Curious Life, a film by Shawn Kornhauser, explores the central role of curiosity and collaboration in shaping her career as an artist.

Dyslexia plays a central role in Kamen’s story. She does not describe it as a limitation, but as a way of thinking that favors visual learning, pattern recognition, and big-picture connections. Notably, she did not discover she was dyslexic until she was already a college professor. A conversation with a colleague helped her recognize that the very traits she relied on as an artist and educator were rooted in dyslexia.

Kamen earned her MFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and has worked for more than 35 years as a sculptor, professor, and lecturer. Her research and collaborations span institutions such as Harvard University’s Center for Astrophysics, MIT’s Kavli Institute, the National Institutes of Health, and the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is Professor Emerita of Art at Northern Virginia Community College and currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies curiosity, cognition, and creativity in art and science.

Her artwork is driven by a deep fascination with the natural world, from the microscopic workings of the brain to the vast scale of the cosmos. Series such as Fluid explore energy and matter through flowing forms, while Butterflies of the Soul, inspired by neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, brings the origins of modern neuroscience into luminous, sculptural space. Following a personal health crisis, her exhibition Reveal transformed experiences of perception and visual hallucination into works of striking beauty. In 2023, she joined the Dyslexic Dictionary exhibition, where dyslexic artists reimagined language and celebrated neurodiversity as a creative force.

As an educator and advocate, Kamen has long championed the strengths of neurodivergent learners. Her teaching emphasizes visual thinking and curiosity, empowering students to embrace how they learn best. Through lectures, writing, and exhibitions, she continues to advocate for reframing dyslexia as a valuable and creative way of knowing.

Dr. Rebecca Kamen’s work reminds us that different minds bring different gifts—and that innovation often begins by seeing the world through a new lens.

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