Dr. Katie Fisher is an educator and visual artist who facilitates collaborative, arts-based research projects. As an interdisciplinary artist her work explores environmental justice, slow violence against landscape assemblages, and human/more-than-human entanglements through creative data visualizations, counter-mappings, and site-specific installations.
Her recent counter-mapping project, Lines of Forgetting & Cartographic Watermarks: Surface Water Mapped in Mexico City, 1524–2025, traces the city’s rivers, canals, and lagoons across eight historical maps to reveal the cumulative forgetting of surface water and its return as a haunting presence. She is currently developing a book that counter-maps undead wetlands and artificial sinkholes in New Orleans.
Education
Ph.D. in Philosophy — Visual and Performing Arts
May 2024, University of Texas at Dallas | Dallas, TX
Dissertation Title: “Tracing Landscape Dismemberment Through Time: Mapping Sinkholes as Symptoms of Slow Violence Against Landscape Assemblages in Mexico City and New Orleans”
M.A. in Media Arts and Worship
May 2016, Dallas Theological Seminary | Dallas,
B.F.A. Graphic Design, Minor in Writing
December 2011, Concordia University | Seward, Nebraska
Selected Publications, Presentations, Invited Talks, Teaching Experience, Design Work, and Symposium Organization
Learn More About Research Initiatives and Creative Work
Media Coverage
The Dallas Morning News: Dallas-area birds are building nests with plastic trash
NTX Now, KERA: Connecting Audiences to Nature through Music
Publications
“Hearing the Howl Beneath the Hardscape: Sinkholes, Hell Portals, and Earth-mouths.” Athenaeum Review, special issue “Crisis & Rupture,” Summer 2026. Full article.
“Visualizing Injustice: Counter-mapping Nazi Records of Queer Men Imprisoned Under Paragraph 175,” Rebooting Holocaust Remembrance: Navigating the Intersection of Technology, Memory, and Human Rights. Co-author with Nils Roemer (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2026)
Works In Progress
Dismembered Landscapes: Undead Wetlands and the Possibilities of Resistance, book-length manuscript.
For the Birds: Plastic in the Urban Wild. Data-driven generative art exhibition in collaboration with Texas Parks and Wildlife at the Trinity River Audubon Center integrating found nests and iNaturalist data. Project Director.
“Cartographies of Forgetting and Re-membrance: Counter-mapping Surface Water in Mexico City.” Journal article manuscript, under review at Resistance: A Journal of Radical Environmental Humanities.
“Missing Witnesses: Queer Men at Dachau, Flössenburg, and Netzwiler” Co-author with Nils Roemer. Article manuscript.
Conference Presentations
“Designed Dismemberment: Water, Erasure, and the Cartographic Ledger,” American Society for Environmental History, Presenter, Richmond. Upcoming, March 2027.
“Counter-reading Land Reclamation Maps in New Orleans,” American Society for Environmental History, Presenter, Kansas City. March 2026.
“Exploring New Frontiers: Digital Studies of the Holocaust Methodology,” The Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, Co-presenter, Dallas, TX. March 2025.
“Making Visible Historical Trauma: Counter-cartographies and Chronic Urban Trauma,” International Association of Genocide Scholars, Presenter, Barcelona, Spain. July 2023.
“Digital Studies of the Dachau Concentration Camp,” The Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, Co-presenter, Dallas, Texas, March 2023.
“Ensuring a Traumatic Future: Hurricane Katrina and Historical Trauma in New Orleans,” London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, Presenter, London, UK, February 2023.
“Concrete Sarcophagus: The Sinking of Mexico City and Shriveling of Lake Texcoco,” The International Network of Genocide Scholars, Presenter, México City, Mexico, June 2022.
Invited Talks and Events
“For the Birds: Plastic in the Urban Wild,” Invited Talk, hosted by Herd Here, Trinity River Audubon Center, Dallas, Texas, October 2026.
“Cartographies of Forgetting: Remapping Surface Waters in Mexico City,” ReTooling Lightning Presentations, Retooling: Art, Ecology, and Climate Adaptation, MESH_ARTS and BioBAT Art Space, Climate Week NYC, Brooklyn, NY. September 2026.
“The Last House Before the Sea: One Year on the Ebro Delta,” with Gabi Martínez, Interviewer, The Wild Detectives, 2025.
“Fire Weather and the Texas Wildfires in Conversation with John Vaillant,” at the Hay Festival Dallas Forum, Interviewer, The Wild Detectives, 2024.
“Cartographies & the Environment,” in Environment in America, Guest Lecture, University of Texas at Dallas, September 2024.
“Intro to the Environmental Humanities,” in Proseminar in Visual and Performing Arts, Guest Lecture, University of Texas at Dallas, April 2024.
“Integrating Digital Studies in the Classroom,” at the Summer Teachers’ Institute, Lecture, Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, Dallas, Texas, June 2023.
Teaching Experience
Art 3356 – Interactive Design Concepts, University of Texas at Arlington. Instructor of Record. Fall 2026.
Art 2354-001 & -002: Typography, University of Texas at Arlington. Instructor of Record. Fall 2026.
HUMA 1301-001 & -003: Exploration of the Humanities – “Mapping Environmental Understandings,” Humanities Program Introductory Survey Course, University of Texas at Dallas. Instructor of Record. Spring 2026.
ARTS-1301: Art Appreciation – “Eco-Art & Visual Culture,” Dallas College. Instructor of Record. Spring 2026.
HUMA 1301: Exploration of the Humanities – “Mapping Environmental Understandings,” Humanities Program Introductory Survey Course, University of Texas at Dallas. Instructor of Record. Spring 2025.
Online Teaching Certificate. UT Dallas Educational Technology Services. July 2022.
Curriculum Design. HUMA 6390: Topics in Thought and Society – “History & Legacies of Trauma,” History Program, University of Texas at Dallas. Fall 2021.
Design Experience
Dean’s Office at the Bass School for Arts, Humanities, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas: Data Visualization, PowerBi, 2024–2025.
Lead Designer for The Digital Studies of the Holocaust project at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies: Data Visualization, PowerBi, Website Design 2021–2025.
Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies: Graphic, Print, and Website Design, Podcast Editing (The Ackerman Center Podcast), 2021–2025.
Lead Designer for Art House Dallas: Website Design, Print and Graphic Design, 2018–2020.
Freelance: Website Design, Print and Graphic Design, 2013–2019.
Samaritan’s Purse Cambodia: International Disaster Relief: Map & Survey Designer, Print and Graphic Design, Feb – July 2012.
Workshop, Symposium, & Program Organization
“Faculty Research Symposium,” Symposium Organizer, axh Initiative, University of Texas at Dallas, February 2025.
“Digital Studies Interpretation Workshop: Mapping Queer Persecution Under Paragraph 175,” Workshop Organizer, Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, January 2025.
“Introduction to Digital Studies of the Holocaust,” Workshop Organizer, Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, University of Texas at Dallas, February 2022.
“Artists in Residency,” Residency Coordinator, Art House Dallas in partnership with Dallas Theological Seminary, Funded by Communities Foundation of Texas, Spring 2020.
“Art of Business,” Workshop Organizer, Art House Dallas, March 2019, March 2020.
“Deploy Artist: Trauma-Informed Afterschool Arts Program,” Program Organizer, Art House Dallas, Monthly 2018, 2019, 2020.
“Awaken Creativity: Writing, Visual Art, Music Groups,” Program Organizer, Art House Dallas, Monthly 2018, 2019, 2020.
“Arts & Music Track,” Co-organizer, Dallas Startup Week, Dallas, Texas. 2018.