Michigan State University

Arts and Letters College Directory

Marisa Rinkus

  • (She/Her)
  • Associate Director, Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center
  • Philosophy
Biography

Marisa Rinkus is an Associate Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) Center at Michigan State University. Her work involves studying and facilitating dialogue that supports the cultivation of crossdisciplinary collaborative practice. As a lead facilitator and researcher with the TDI (https://tdi.msu.edu) since January of 2017 she has led team science related research and client-based projects for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and multiple universities in the US. Her work with TDI has been published in the 2020 book, The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative: The Power of Cross-Disciplinary Practice, and recent book chapters Communication as Practice for Team Science and Addressing Perspectives with the Toolbox Dialogue Method, as well as in multiple journal articles. Marisa is also part of the NSF funded Working Group on Epistemic Exclusion (We2) (https://we2project.weebly.com/, an interdisciplinary research group across three institutions (MSU, University of Michigan, and University of North Texas) examining how scholarly devaluation may serve as a barrier to the full inclusion and participation of faculty in STEM.

Prior to joining TDI, Marisa served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala working on community-level environmental issues and was the recipient of a Fulbright grant to Brazil for her doctoral research examining the role of gender and agency in community participation in sea turtle conservation. Her research has been published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Human Ecology, Human Dimensions of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oryx, Society & Natural Resources, Water Policy, among others. She holds a PhD and an MS in Human Dimensions of Fisheries and Wildlife with specializations in International Development and Gender, Justice, and Environmental Change from Michigan State University, and a BS in Wildlife Science from Purdue University.

Marisa is currently the lead PI on the NSF awards “Building capacity, community, and knowledge for international network-to-network research collaboration” (#2430616) and “Community building and team science support for the Global Centers Program,” (#2419639).

Works

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Schaffner, U., M.A. Rinkus, M. O’Rourke, T.E. Hall, R. Eschen, and S.D. Eigenbrode. (2025). Addressing communication challenges in transdisciplinary sustainability science: insights from a case study. Ecology and Society 30(3):38. [online] URL: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol30/iss3/art38

Eschen, R., O’Rourke, M., Schaffner, U., Eigenbrode, S., Hall, T., and Rinkus, M.A. (2025). How to promote the integrative ability of transdisciplinary graduate students. Environmental Science & Policy. Volume 170. August 2025. doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104114

Jones, M.K., Grower, P., Settles, I.H., Buchanan, N.T, Dotson, K., O’Rourke, M., Rinkus, M.A., Wiklund, L.O., Miller-Tejada, S., Harrison, E., and Gaskin-Cole, G. (2025). Initial Development and Validation of the Faculty Epistemic Exclusion Scale. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication. doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000612

Imbruce, V., Jaeger, V., Rinkus, M. A., Hua, J., and O’Rourke, M. (2024). Raising undergraduate researcher’s interdisciplinary consciousness through dialogue. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. Open access online. doi.org/10.1007/s13412-024-00942-0

Settles, I.H., Jones, M.K., Buchanan, N.T., Dotson, K., Grower, P., O’Rourke, M., Rinkus, M., Latimer, K. (2024). Epistemic Exclusion: A Theoretical Lens for Understanding Racism in Psychological Research. American Psychologist, 79(4), 539–843. doi.org/10.1037/amp0001313

Kahler, J. and Rinkus, M.A. (2021). Women and wildlife crime: Hidden offenders, protectors, and victims.Oryx, 55(6):835–843. doi.org/10.1017/S0030605321000193

Rinkus, M. A., Donovan, S., Hall, T. E., and O’Rourke, M. (2021). Using a survey to initiate and sustain group dialogue in focus groups. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 23(3): 327–340. doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2020.1786240

Rinkus, M. A., Kelly, J. R., Wright, W., Dobson, T., and Medina, L. (2018). Gendered considerations for conservation fieldwork. Society and Natural Resources, 31(12): 1419–1426. doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2018.1471177

Rinkus, M. A., Dobson, T., and da Cal Seixas, S. (2017). Gendered aspects of participation in community life and sea turtle conservation. Human Ecology, 45(4): 487–498. doi.org/10.1007/s10745-017-9914-5

Rinkus, M. A., Dobson, T., Gore, M. L., and Dreelin, E. A. (2016). Collaboration as process: A case study of multi-jurisdictional stormwater management. Water Policy, 18 (1): 182–196. doi.og/10.2166/wp.2015.202

Rinkus, M.A., Kramer, D., and Dobson, T. (2015). Informing community engagement in sea turtle conservation by examining non-conservation related participation in Northeast Brazil. Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 21(1): 47–64. doi.org/10.1080/10871209.2016.1098752

Book Chapters

O’Rourke, M., Mennes, J., Rinkus, M. A. (2024). Crossdisciplinarity. In F. Darbellay (Ed.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

O’Rourke, M., Donovan, S., Engebretson, J., Gonnerman, C., Goralink Lissy, Imbruce, Valerie, Kjellberg, Paul, Rinkus, Marisa A., Robinson, Brian. (2024). Chapter 9: Addressing Perspectives with the Toolbox Dialogue Method in R. Szostak (ed.) Edward Elgar Handbook of Interdisciplinary Teaching and Administration. CRC Press.

O’Rourke, M., Rinkus, M. A., Cardenas, E., McLeskey, C. (2023). Communication practice for team science. In Gosselin, D. (eds) A practical guide for developing cross-disciplinary collaboration skills. AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37220-9_5

Rinkus, M.A. and O’Rourke, M. (2021). Qualitative analyses of the effectiveness of Toolbox dialogues (Chapter 8). In Hubbs, G., O’Rourke, M. & Orzack, S. The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative: The power of cross-disciplinary practice. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Rinkus, M.A. and Vasko, S.E. (2021). Best practices for planning and running a Toolbox workshop (Chapter 8). In Hubbs, G., O’Rourke, M. & Orzack, S. The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative: The power of cross-disciplinary practice. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Hubbs, G., O’Rourke, M., Eigenbrode, S., Rinkus, M.A., and Malavisi, A. (2021). Toolbox workshop case studies (Chapter 12). In Hubbs, G., O’Rourke, M. & Orzack, S. The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative: The power of cross-disciplinary practice. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

O’Rourke, M., Vasko, S. E., McLeskey, C., and Rinkus, M. A. (2020). Philosophical dialogue as field philosophy (pp. 48-65). In Brister, E. & Frodeman, R. A guide to field philosophy: Case studies and practical strategies. New York: Routledge.

 

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