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Clark University
Integration and Belonging

Devora Neumark

Devora Neumark, PhD, visiting scholar at the Integration and Belonging Hub

Advancing climate justice and community resilience by centering beauty in the built environment.

Devora Neumark, PhD, is an interdisciplinary artist-researcher, community-engaged practitioner, educator, scholar, and policy analyst whose work focuses on beauty in the built environment within displacement contexts. Recently relocated to Ottawa after seven transformative years in Iqaluit, Nunavut in the Eastern Canadian Arctic, Neumark brings over 30 years of experience spanning academia, policy work, and creative engagement, grounded in contemplative practice.

Their PhD research-creation, titled Radical Beauty for Troubled Times: Involuntary Displacement and the (Un)Making of Home, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, explored this intersection further, examining how trauma from forced displacement intersects with aesthetics in the built environment and the intentional beautification of home.

From October through December 2024, Neumark was a Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg, where they explored aesthetic dimensions of refugee housing in Germany. They are also a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Sustainability & Social Justice at Clark University.

Neumark was certified as a Climate Change Adaptation Practitioner by the Yale School of Public Health in 2020. They received a Graduate Diploma in Public Safety/Emergency Management from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2025.

Between 2003 and 2021, Neumark served as a faculty member at the Goddard College MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts program, where they co-founded the Indigenous and Decolonial Art Concentration in Port Townsend, WA. Since 2018, as a Canadian federal employee, Neumark has worked as an Economic Development Officer and Senior Strategic Policy Analyst with the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and as a Senior Analyst/Researcher with the Department of Justice Canada’s Indigenous Rights and Relations Portfolio (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act Implementation Secretariat).

In collaboration with Stephanie Acker, MPA, Neumark has published a related series of working papers and policy briefs:

–  Reimagining Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: the role of aesthetics in shelter and settlements response (Policy brief), 2024

– Rethinking Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: the role of aesthetics in refugee shelter (Working paper), 2024

– Beauty in the built environment and refugee self-reliance (Policy brief), 2023

At present, Neumark continues to collaborate with Stephanie Acker under the umbrella of Home Ground Lab. Their artwork has been exhibited most recently in South Korea and Switzerland. Throughout their work, Neumark is guided by an unwavering belief that beauty in the built environment is not a luxury, but rather vital infrastructure for resilience and justice.

Relevant Works: