Peter N. Miller

Peter N. Miller

This is a very special episode of The Emergence Room. On this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Peter N. Miller, President and CEO of the American Academy in Rome, historian, scholar, and longtime advocate for interdisciplinary research and public intellectual life. (aarome.org (https://www.aarome.org/about/staff/peter-n-miller)) For cohost T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, whose current doctoral research focuses on leadership, authenticity, and emergence, this conversation felt especially meaningful. It was a rare opportunity to speak candidly with a leader whose path through academia was far from linear and whose career reflects a deep commitment to curiosity, experimentation, and intellectual generosity. Peter reflected on the years after completing his PhD, when finding stable academic employment proved difficult, in part because his interests moved across disciplines and categories in ways that did not always fit neatly within traditional academic structures. What once may have appeared to be a limitation eventually became one of his greatest strengths: the ability to think expansively, connect ideas across fields, and lead institutions through complexity rather than rigidity. Throughout the conversation, we discussed leadership not as authority or performance, but as a practice of listening, risk-taking, adaptability, and sustained learning. Peter spoke thoughtfully about the importance of research, the pleasure of intellectual discovery, and the reality that meaningful leadership often requires pushing boundaries, questioning systems, and occasionally embracing the role of the rebel inside institutions. There was something especially inspiring about hearing a scholar speak openly about uncertainty, persistence, and the long arc of building a life in the humanities. This episode became a conversation about leadership, interdisciplinarity, curiosity, institutional life, and what it means to remain open to transformation over time. A thoughtful, generous, and deeply energizing conversation from the heart of the American Academy in Rome.

Tameka Baba

On this episode of The Emergence Room, we are joined by Tameka Baba, a landscape architect, artist, curator, and Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Tameka is also a Professional Practice Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture at the Knowlton School at Ohio State University, where her work explores public space, ecology, community, and the transformation of overlooked urban landscapes. In this conversation, we talk about representing the Midwest, teaching, growth, and the ongoing process of becoming. We reflect on how place shapes identity and creative practice, and how Tameka's work has continued to expand across disciplines during her time in Rome. It's been incredible to witness her evolution from landscape architecture into a broader artistic and curatorial practice, embracing weaving, installation, research, and community-centered approaches to public space. Her work moves fluidly between design, art, and cultural storytelling, opening new ways of thinking about landscape as both social and imaginative space. This episode is a conversation about transformation, creative expansion, and what it means to keep growing into new forms of practice and possibility.

Oswald Huỳnh

On this episode of The Emerence Room, we are joined by Oswald Huỳnh, a Vietnamese American composer from Portland, Oregon, and a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Recently named a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow, Oswald's work moves through questions of memory, heritage, language, identity, and the emotional textures carried across generations. In our conversation, we talk about family, diaspora, storytelling, and the mindset of the composer: how sound can hold memory, grief, intimacy, and cultural inheritance all at once. We reflect on the relationship between music and narrative, and the ways Oswald's compositions navigate Vietnamese aesthetics and tradition through layered textures, timbre, and deeply evocative sonic worlds. We also discuss his evolving work in Rome, where he has been experimenting with reclaimed materials, hybrid instruments, and questions of environmental change, ruins, and transformation. His practice feels deeply rooted in listening: to history, to silence, to displacement, and to the echoes that shape who we become. This episode is a conversation about memory, composition, inheritance, and the emotional architecture of sound.

Kendra Stephens

In this episode of The Emergence Room, I'm in conversation with Kendra-Nicole Stephens, a chef, mentor, and community-builder whose work lives at the intersection of craft, care, and purpose. Kendra joined us at the American Academy in Rome as a friend of the Academy, and what unfolded was more than a visit—it was an exchange rooted in generosity, curiosity, and deep presence. A graduate of Howard University and the Julia Child Culinary Program, and the former Executive Pastry Chef at the Kennedy Center, Kendra brings both technical excellence and expansive vision to everything she touches. Her work spans from leading high-level culinary programs to supporting community-based initiatives like the Anacostia Culinary Center Project, serving as a Cohort Advisor with the James Beard Foundation, and now contributing to the mission of Christ House. Our conversation moves between the personal and the collective. We reflect on the shift from striving toward something external to discovering a sense of purpose that feels internally aligned. We talk about food as both craft and care—what it means to make a Southern biscuit with intention, and how farming, sustainability, and access shape the future of how we nourish one another. We also explore what it means to find the right environments and communities for one's work and spirit to thrive. There's warmth in this conversation, but also clarity. Kendra speaks with a grounded sense of knowing—one that comes from experience, reflection, and a deep commitment to people. This episode is an invitation to consider where purpose lives in your own life, and how it might already be calling you into alignment.

Kaaj Tshikalandand

In this episode of The Emergence Room, T.J. Dedeaux-Norris hosts a conversation with Kaaj Tshikalandand – cultural mediator and anthropological researcher. Recorded at the closing of T.J.'s exhibition Black Body: Ancient City at Murate Arts District in Florence, Italy. This marks the podcast's first-ever live episode, held in the museum with a live audience, and the first time T.J. is hosting the show on her own within the space of her own exhibition. As the exhibition comes to a close, the conversation unfolds in a space held by the work, the architecture, and the gathered audience. It reflects a shift in T.J.'s ongoing dissertation, where the work expands through dialogue, through people, and through presence. Together, they move through questions of intuition and becoming—what it means to be an oracle, to conjure, and to trust one's inner knowing. The conversation explores accepting one's gifts and living in alignment with them, while also reflecting on the importance of community—how it is built, sustained, and returned to. They speak to happiness as a practice, to care as a necessity, and to the ongoing work of refilling one's social and energetic capacity. Throughout, themes of authenticity, congruence, and integration emerge as lived processes rather than fixed states. The conversation holds a sense of resonance that lingers—an exchange that feels both grounding and expansive. This episode marks an opening in the work itself, where it continues to unfold not only in the studio, but in relationship, in voice, and in shared space.