United States-born Dr Rock, who lived in Dunedin from 1993 to 2000, says that bringing arts and science closer together will bring significant benefits, including by improving public understanding of global climate change.
Many groups in the UK, including the Royal Academy of Arts, have begun integrating humanities and science to provide a fuller view of climate change.
"All these promote art as communicator, reflector and interpreter of key climate change issues," she says.
These days a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wales Bangor, Dr Rock was back at Otago University yesterday to give a lecture on minding and mending the gap between science and the humanities, in association with the university Centre for Science Communication.
"I find activities in the sciences and humanities co-exist and cross-fertilise quite easily in my head."
Recently she has been exploring the humanities as an important component of "multidisciplinary science communication".
She has also recently been involved in many discussions with professional scientists and artists in Europe and the UK and she is "shocked at the worryingly active divide" between the groups.
Science and humanities were described as "two cultures" by English physicist and novelist C. P. Snow in the late 1950s, a term which stood for "the breakdown of communication", she said in her talk.
