SCI|ART GUESTS

Samuel A. LoCascio

obtained his PhD in Neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studying mechanisms of brain regeneration in flatworms. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. S. Lawrence Zipursky at UCLA, where he studies genetic programs of neuronal wiring using the fruit fly as a model organism. Sam will talk about CRISPR Cas9 with the Sci|Art students in both research and application.

Glenn Bristol

A computer programmer, photographer and digital artist based in Vienna. He is one of the founding members of United Motion Labs, established in 2005. UML is an experimental lab dedicated to creating immersive audio-visual installations and Glenn is involved in every step of production — from filming, content creation, pre/post production, VJing, DJing, creating software tools, IT administration and handling photo, video and time-lapse documentation.

Martina Fröchl

visiting from Vienna, Austria, where she is a senior researcher and doctoral student at the Science Visualization Lab Angewandte at the Department of Digital Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The depiction of realities and biological phenomena has continuously driven her creations. Martina will be talking with us about her collaboration/piece at SIGGRAPH, and the role that CGI and animation have played in creating very alive and immersive works about the environment.

Maru Garcia

A Mexican transdisciplinary artist, researcher, and activist whose work is inspired to capture, understand and question the relationship and place of humans within Nature. Through her transdisciplinary approach based on art, science, and technology, her work addresses environmental and social issues, particularly the protection of the world’s biodiversity and ecosystems. Maru will be talking to us about phytoremediation and lead contamination in Los Angeles.

Scott Hessels

An American filmmaker, sculptor and media artist based in Hong Kong. His artworks span different media including film, video, online, music, broadcast, print, kinetic sculpture, and performance. His films have shown internationally and his new media installations have been presented in museum exhibitions focusing on technology as well as those presenting fine arts. His recognitions include patents for developed technologies, references in books and periodicals on new media art, and coverage in cultural media like Wired and Discover.

Ariel Levi Simmons

A PhD student at the University of Southern California researching ecology and aquaculture. He has worked in diverse fields of education and has worked on diverse projects with students such as designing insect traps to monitor nuclear fallout from the Fukushima meltdown to building a distributed cosmic-ray detector array using cellphone cameras. He will be giving a lecture and embodied workshop on diverse network ecologies and species interactions.

Aki Yamada

PhD. is an assistant professor in the Tamagawa University in Tokyo, Japan. Aki’s unique research methodology is trained in ethnographic qualitative studies. She is particularly interested in STEAM education and will be giving a lecture to Sci|Art students about how transdisciplinary studies lead to enhanced learning, understanding, and revolutionary breakthroughs.

Monica C. LoCascio

a multimedia artist focusing on questions of resonance, connection, and interference, particularly within and between bodies. Her work is inspired by such topics as biophotonics, particle entanglement, memory, and the thermodynamics and non-linearity of time. She is currently in the Art & Science Masters program at Die Angewandte (University of Applied Arts) in Vienna, Austria.

Shane Houchin

a California-born artist and musician, currently working towards a Geology degree in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at UCLA. His present focus is in geologic mapping, structural geology, igneous and metamorphic petrology, and tectonics. Bringing together his background in the arts with his geologic studies, Shane seeks to communicate science in aesthetic and engaging ways to foster an interest in the natural world and its dynamic systems. He has also recently completed an album of original music under the monicker Tujunga which will be released in late 2019.

Ivana Dama

studies Design Media Arts at UCLA’s School of Arts and Architecture. Born and raised under a post-communist regime in Serbia, Ivana explores the infusion of technology with traditional art practices. While only a young child when the bombings began, images of the destruction still clearly permeate her mind.The memories of living in a small shelter, with the sounds of bombs and vibrations, contributed to her interests in sound and space ranging from microscopic, architectural, and satellite scale. Ivana uses the variety of mediums including audio visual installations, metal engraving as well as a range of open source software for creative coding.

Hellen [Xin] Hunag

A Biology major student at UCLA, with minors in Bioinformatics, Digital Humanities, Film, and Mathematics. Energetic, positive, and enterprising, she has passion in the field of natural and historical science. She enjoys a wide range of interests including traveling, research, swimming, documentary photography, hand-crafts, and furniture design.

Ellen Ferranto

A SciArt alumna and will be sharing her fascination with scientific and technological applications of origami in a group workshop entitled “Paper Planes: Basic Folds, Structures, and Movements.” Her interests include physics, history, and paper sculpture.

Jeff Miller

A director of the California NanoSystems Institute and holds the Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences at University of California, Los Angeles. He studies the molecular mechanisms of bacterial diseases and the evolution of bacterial diversity.

Richard Kaner

A professor of inorganic chemistry and materials science at UCLA. He was recently named the 2018 Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize winner. Kaner’s work focuses on developing new materials for wide-ranging applications, including materials for energy storage and conducting polymers for water purification, as well as creating the world’s hardest metals for use in cutting, polishing and hard-facing (from the Herald Times Reporter).

Xoán-Xil López

A sound artist and researcher whose work focuses on phonography (field recording) and sound experimentation taking the form of installations, immersive listening situations, compositions, performances and texts. He studied musicology and holds a PhD in Fine Arts with the Thesis Signal / Noise. Some uses of the soundscape in the context of art, about the use of environmental sounds in contemporary creation.

Ana MacArthur

As a cross-disciplinary light and environmental artist, Ana MacArthur is interested in functioning as a creative catalyst, by excavating nature’s processes and connected metaphors through the specific lenses of life’s relationship to light, environmental intelligence, and appropriate technology. Ana is currently in a fellowship at MIT with Dr. Markus Buehler investigating the energy efficiency built into varied biological systems. MacArthur has manifested projects and exhibited internationally and throughout the USA, with artworks in many private and public collections, such as the MIT Museum, the Museum of Holography, New York City. The Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM, University of Nottingham, England, The Intercommunications Center, Tokyo, Japan, and The Sharjah Arts Museum, United Arab Emirates.

Adam Stieg

Director Emeritus of Sci|Art, Research Scientist and Associate Director of CNSI responsible for oversight of the Institute’s six Technology Centers – a collection of open-access user facilities that foster innovation across disciplines, facilitate university collaborations with industry, and aid in the rapid commercialization of discoveries by supporting researchers from academia and industry. Dr. Stieg earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Drew University and his Ph.D. in Inorganic/Physical Chemistry from UCLA. As a scientist and educator, Dr. Stieg’s research seeks to bridge the gap between our fundamental understanding of nanomaterials and how these systems tend toward complexity at mesoscopic scales. By applying high-performance measurement systems to the rational design of functional nanosystems and architectures, Dr. Stieg strives to address modern challenges renewable energy, developmental biology, and neuromorphic computing.

Fabricio Lamoncha Martinez

holds an MA in Interactive Media Art from the Interface Culture Lab, University of Art and Industrial Design Linz. In his work he attempts to adapt his artistic and architectural background to his growing interest in the current sociological paradigms. He currently collaborates as a student worker at the Design Research Lab in the production of various projects.

Sarah Popelka

studies cognitive science at UCLA and is interested in video games and films — how they affect the brain, how to make them better, and how to play and watch them more.

Clarissa Ribeiro

Ph.D. in Arts, M.Arch, B.Arch, former Fulbright Scholar in Arts and Science, LASER talks’ chair in Brazil. With an interest in generative strategies in nature and in the algorithmic realm of computers, Clarissa Ribeiro explores form, effectiveness and consciousness as emergent phenomena in the most diverse systems and scales in both media arts and architecture. In her artistic practice and teaching, she navigates the universes of morphogenetic design in dialogue with robotics and digital fabrication, visual/media arts in dialogue with bioart/art and science strategies, exhibiting and working in collaboration with other artists, scientists, research groups and art collectives in her home country and abroad.

Sam Lilak

received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of North Dakota researching lignin, a natural biopolymer, with a focus on developing techniques to harvest its selective degradation products for the green, economical attainment of desired organic precursors and fuel products. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Chemistry at UCLA under the guidance of Dr. James Gimzewski researching the utilization of scanning probe microscopy techniques and their applications towards atomically precise manufacturing. His work in the Sci|Art program hybridizes the visual arts with techniques employed in semiconductor fabrication and manufacturing.

Maru Garcia

A Mexican transdisciplinary artist, researcher, and activist whose work is inspired to capture, understand and question the relationship and place of humans within Nature. Through her transdisciplinary approach based on art, science, and technology, her work addresses environmental and social issues, particularly the protection of the world’s biodiversity and ecosystems. Maru will be talking to us about phytoremediation and lead contamination in Los Angeles.

James Gimzewski

Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles; Director of the Nano & Pico Characterization Core Facility of the California NanoSystems Institute; Scientific Director of the Art|Sci Center and Principal Investigator and Satellites Co-Director of the WPI Center for Materials NanoArchitectonics (MANA) in Japan. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, he was a group leader at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he research in nanoscale science and technology for more than 18 years. Dr. Gimzewski pioneered research on mechanical and electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and was one of the first persons to image molecules with STM. His accomplishments include the first STM-based fabrication of molecular suprastructures at room temperature using mechanical forces to push molecules across surfaces, the discovery of single molecule rotors and the development of new micromechanical sensors based on nanotechnology, which explore ultimate limits of sensitivity and measurement. This approach was recently used to convert biochemical recognition into Nanomechanics. His current interests are in the nanomechanics of cells and bacteria where he collaborates with the UCLA Medical and Dental Schools. He is involved in projects that range from the operation of X-rays, ions and nuclear fusion using pyroelectric crystals, direct deposition of carbon nanotubes and single molecule DNA profiling. Dr. Gimzewski is also involved in numerous art-science collaborative projects that have been exhibited in museums throughout the world.

Eli Joteva

An inter-media artist and researcher working on the intersection of Art and Neurophysics. Joteva received a B.A. in Fine Arts from USC Roski (where she focused on experimental video, photography and installation) and is currently an M.F.A candidate at UCLA Design | Media Arts, where she studies how new imaging tools and biofeedback technologies can provoke embodied reflections of internal experiences and mental health. Her work extrapolates the ephemeral realms of human perception by amplifying the invisible and inaudible processes underneath conscious awareness. Joteva’s work has been exhibited as solo shows in North America, Europe and Australia.

Angaea Cuna

A Filipino immigrant who grew up in California, USA. She graduated with a Bachelor degree in Design | Media Arts from UCLA. She experiments with interactive installations that draw questions and awareness about identity and immigration, often using natural materials that are reminiscent of her cross-culture (Philippines and California). She has been studying the olfactory system and its correlation to memory and emotion. This has inspired her to use scent as a medium to portray the stories of her Filipino culture and decriminalize undocumented families. Many of her artworks are inspired by human interaction, identity, and sensibility. Experimenting with different media allows her to convey her thoughts on social issues in her community. In her work, she emphasizes empathy and strive for emotional anchors to bring out the humanity among social and cultural issues.

Charles Chase

Rebecca Shipe

Kaitlin Bryson

An ecological artist merging bioremediation – the use of biological materials to clean harmful toxins from the environment – with sculpture, performance, fiber arts and video installation. Bryson received an MFA in Art & Ecology from the University of New Mexico and has worked on environmental justice/bioremediation art projects with Tewa Women United in New Mexico, as well as in with the village of Guapamacátaro in Michoacán Mexico and most recently in Siddathanagar, Nepal. Her work was published in LOAM Magazine and featured in Permaculture Magazine. She has received support from the Lannan and Mellon Foundations to support international, art-based, ecological research in Ireland, Mexico and Nepal. Bryson’s work has been exhibited in Los Angeles at the Nook Gallery, in Albuquerque, NM at Sanitary Tortilla Factory, Harwood Art Center, UNM Art Museum, Small Engine Gallery, and at SITE Santa Fe in Santa, Fe New Mexico.

Judy Kim

UCLA undergraduate primarily studying cognitive science and film. She is a lead artist for game development and animated film teams at UCLA, often drawing from a background in 2D art but also currently learning Maya and stop motion techniques. Her interests in anthropology, psychology, philosophy, film theory, and game design revolve around understanding the mind and how both narrative and visual aspects of entertainment can positively influence our perceptions of the world. She joined the Art|Sci Center as an intern in 2015.

Claudia Jacques

Associate Director of Sci|Art, and a Brazilian-American interdisciplinary artist, designer, educator and researcher, Claudia Jacques de Moraes Cardoso holds an MFA in Computer Art (School of Visual Arts, NY) and a PhD in Integrative Art with focus on Interactive Art. Inspired by Roy Ascott and Søren Brier, she researches space-time experiences in the user-information-interface relationship through the lens of Cybersemiotics. Intersecting art, technology and science, she designs interactive hybrid art and information environments that aim to explore perceptions of space-time and the digital-physical in the pursuit of human consciousness and expansion of human knowledge. She collaborates with many artists exhibiting and presenting both nationally and internationally. She has published in Leonardo, TEKs, Art & Engine, etc., and serves as Art+Web Editor for Cybernetics and Human Knowing journal. Jacques was also a participant with three other scholars in a 2014-17 NEH Collaborative Research Project based at Roosevelt University in Chicago. She has been collaborating with UCLA’s ArtSci Center since 2011 as an Information and Instructional Design Consultant and is currently the ArtSci Lab+Studio Associate Director. Jacques teaches studio, digital and communication arts, and her studio is in Ossining, NY.

Rita Blaik

A multidisciplinary scientist and artist based in Los Angeles, California. Her life’s goal is to find new and innovative ways of communicating science to people through interactive discussions, art, and other media. Since 2009 she has been an instructor for the Sci|Art Nanolab and from 2011-2012, was the Art|Sci Center Networking Outreach Coordinator. She had her first solo exhibition at the Art|Sci Center, Altered States, in Fall 2012. Rita received her B.S. in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of California at Irvine, and is currently pursuing a PhD in the same at UCLA. She is a proud fellow of the NSF IGERT Clean Energy for Green Industry fellowship and works with Professor Bruce Dunn on biological fuel cell systems and architectures.

Adam Stieg

is a Research Scientist and Associate Director of CNSI responsible for oversight of the Institute’s six Technology Centers – a collection of open-access user facilities that foster innovation across disciplines, facilitate university collaborations with industry, and aid in the rapid commercialization of discoveries by supporting researchers from academia and industry. Dr. Stieg earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Drew University and his Ph.D. in Inorganic/Physical Chemistry from UCLA. As a scientist and educator, Dr. Stieg’s research seeks to bridge the gap between our fundamental understanding of nanomaterials and how these systems tend toward complexity at mesoscopic scales. By applying high-performance measurement systems to the rational design of functional nanosystems and architectures, Dr. Stieg strives to address modern challenges renewable energy, developmental biology, and neuromorphic computing.

Claudia Jacques

A Brazilian-American interdisciplinary artist, designer, educator and researcher, Claudia Jacques de Moraes Cardoso holds an MFA in Computer Art (School of Visual Arts, NY) and a PhD in Integrative Art with focus on Interactive Art. Inspired by Roy Ascott and Søren Brier, she researches space-time experiences in the user-information-interface relationship through the lens of Cybersemiotics. Intersecting art, technology and science, she designs interactive hybrid art and information environments that aim to explore perceptions of space-time and the digital-physical in the pursuit of human consciousness and expansion of human knowledge. She collaborates with many artists exhibiting and presenting both nationally and internationally. She has published in Leonardo, TEKs, Art & Engine, etc., and serves as Art+Web Editor for Cybernetics and Human Knowing journal. Jacques was also a participant with three other scholars in a 2014-17 NEH Collaborative Research Project based at Roosevelt University in Chicago. She has been collaborating with UCLA’s ArtSci Center since 2011 as an Information and Instructional Design Consultant and is currently the ArtSci Lab+Studio Associate Director. Jacques teaches studio, digital and communication arts, and her studio is in Ossining, NY.

Amisha Gadani

is an artist, educator and illustrator with over six years experience communicating complex ideas into graphics, workshops, and educational programs that are meaningful to both scientists and the general public. While working at institutions like UCLA and the Exploratorium Museum she produced over fifty scientific illustrations for research papers, created graphic identities for science conferences and developed ocean biodiversity focused outreach programs. Stemming from her interests in animal morphology and evolution, her artwork ranges from underwater videos and unsettling beak-less bird paintings to her on-going series of interactive animal-inspired defensive dresses that can, for example, inflate like a blowfish when the wearer is intimidated. Her artwork has shown in Los Angeles (Monte Vista Projects), San Francisco (Exploratorium Museum), Austin (Art.Science.Gallery), Boston (Gingko Bioworks), Seattle (Wing Luke Museum), Pittsburgh (Andy Warhol Museum), New York (Wave Hill) and Tokyo (Transit Festival); has been featured in The New York Times, Fast Company, and Scientific American; and has been published in LIMN magazine, the journal Method Quarterly and the book “Future Fashion: Innovative Materials and Technology” by Barcelona-based maomao publications. Amisha earned a B.F.A in Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in 2007.

Aisen Caro Chacin

Born in Boston, MA, Aisen Caro Chacin is a regenerating composition of cells that produce a woman, an international American, and an animal whose patterns of migration are not based on seasons, but rather chance, chaos, and opportunity. Her curiosity led her to research the intersecting fields of art, science, and technology driven by conceptual forms of inquiry. Soaking with a sculpture background from the University of Houston, she also received an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons in NYC, where she taught Physical and Creative Computing. Her radar is on Human Computer Interaction HCI- designing new perceptual interfaces; and discovering the limits of digital media. She is currently designing assistive devices as Ph.D. candidate at the Empowerment Informatics program in the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Her work has been presented and exhibited at Ars Electronica, Cite du Design, TEI, NIME, NYC Museum of Art and Design, The New York Hall of Science, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, among others. Featured as an inventor in Future Tech by Discovery Channel, Creative Applications, FastCo, Time Techland, Engadget, and was awarded and published by PopSci, she looks forward to finding other suspended disbeliefs in her pocket.

Chris Dunham

is a first-year graduate student in the Gimzewski lab at UCLA. Chris received a B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. As an undergraduate, Chris spent time in biophysical and computational/theoretical research groups; following his move to UCLA, he has now made the transition to biological and materials nanoscience research in the Gimzewski lab. Because he is a first-year graduate student, Chris no longer has free time for hobbies; however, he spends what little free time he accumulates – typically in the wee hours of the night – plotting world domination. The last year has demonstrated that anything can happen.

Sam Lilak

received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of North Dakota researching lignin, a natural biopolymer, with a focus on developing techniques to harvest its selective degradation products for the green, economical attainment of desired organic precursors and fuel products. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Chemistry at UCLA under the guidance of Dr. James Gimzewski researching the utilization of scanning probe microscopy techniques and their applications towards atomically precise manufacturing. His work in the Sci|Art program hybridizes the visual arts with techniques employed in semiconductor fabrication and manufacturing.

Severan Guelpa

James Gimzewski

is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles; Director of the Nano & Pico Characterization Core Facility of the California NanoSystems Institute; Scientific Director of the Art|Sci Center and Principal Investigator and Satellites Co-Director of the WPI Center for Materials NanoArchitectonics (MANA) in Japan. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, he was a group leader at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he research in nanoscale science and technology for more than 18 years. Dr. Gimzewski pioneered research on mechanical and electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and was one of the first persons to image molecules with STM. His accomplishments include the first STM-based fabrication of molecular suprastructures at room temperature using mechanical forces to push molecules across surfaces, the discovery of single molecule rotors and the development of new micromechanical sensors based on nanotechnology, which explore ultimate limits of sensitivity and measurement. This approach was recently used to convert biochemical recognition into Nanomechanics. His current interests are in the nanomechanics of cells and bacteria where he collaborates with the UCLA Medical and Dental Schools. He is involved in projects that range from the operation of X-rays, ions and nuclear fusion using pyroelectric crystals, direct deposition of carbon nanotubes and single molecule DNA profiling. Dr. Gimzewski is also involved in numerous art-science collaborative projects that have been exhibited in museums throughout the world.

Hsinyu Lin

is an artist / researcher / educator who studies the modes by which internet shape and gets shaped by social, cultural, economic, and political dynamics. She co­-founded voidLab, an intersectional feminist collective for women, non-binary, gender nonconforming, trans and queer people to express individual identities through arts and technologies. Lin received her M.F.A. from UCLA Design | Media Arts and is currently a Visiting Professor at Loyola Marymount University. Lin’s work had been exhibited at the Hammer Museum, IndieCade Festival, Machine Project, and Gene Siskel Film Center.

Rita Blaik

A multidisciplinary scientist and artist based in Los Angeles, California. Her life’s goal is to find new and innovative ways of communicating science to people through interactive discussions, art, and other media. Since 2009 she has been an instructor for the Sci|Art Nanolab and from 2011-2012, was the Art|Sci Center Networking Outreach Coordinator. She had her first solo exhibition at the Art|Sci Center, Altered States, in Fall 2012. Rita received her B.S. in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of California at Irvine, and is currently pursuing a PhD in the same at UCLA. She is a proud fellow of the NSF IGERT Clean Energy for Green Industry fellowship and works with Professor Bruce Dunn on biological fuel cell systems and architectures.

Eli Joteva

An inter-media artist and researcher working on the intersection of Art and Neurophysics. Joteva received a B.A. in Fine Arts from USC Roski (where she focused on experimental video, photography and installation) and is currently an M.F.A candidate at UCLA Design | Media Arts, where she studies how new imaging tools and biofeedback technologies can provoke embodied reflections of internal experiences and mental health. Her work extrapolates the ephemeral realms of human perception by amplifying the invisible and inaudible processes underneath conscious awareness. Joteva’s work has been exhibited as solo shows in North America, Europe and Australia.

Sanglim Han

An interdisciplinary artist who focuses on the dialogue in, on, and around bodies. She explores and looks closely at our bodies through creating installations that incorporate with video, 3D animation, virtual reality, and real-time media performance. Her works have been presented internationally in various festivals and galleries including IDFX; Matadero Madrid Contemporary Art Center; Biennial Symposium for Arts and Technology. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently a candidate for the MFA at UCLA DMA and a student researcher at UCLA Art Sci.

Jonathan Fletcher Moore

A multi-dimensional (x, y, z, time) visual artist based out of Los Angeles, California. Professionally, he has spent the past seven years in the VFX / Animation industry as a lighting / compositing artist, technical director, and cg generalist. Personally, his artwork has shifted from animation and photo based works to interactive installations utilizing micro-controllers (tiny computers), the internet, and everyday objects to explore the relationship between technology, society, and the modern human condition.

David Prince

Artist, curator, and community arts advocate, whose work seeks creative solutions to real and impossible situations. David received an MFA in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 and a BA from Colorado College in 2001. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where he is founder and director of Adjunct Positions, an artist run gallery and project space in the residential neighborhood of Highland Park.

Charles Taylor

Mark Cohen

Scott Hessels

An American filmmaker, sculptor and media artist based in Hong Kong. His artworks span different media including film, video, online, music, broadcast, print, kinetic sculpture, and performance. His films have shown internationally and his new media installations have been presented in museum exhibitions focusing on technology as well as those presenting fine arts. His recognitions include patents for developed technologies, references in books and periodicals on new media art, and coverage in cultural media like Wired and Discover.

Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignoneau

are internationally renowned media artists working in the field of interactive computer installation. They are Professors at the University of Art and Design in Linz Austria where they head the Department for Interface Culture at the Institute for Media. Sommerer and Mignonneau previously held positions as Professors at the IAMAS International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences in Gifu, Japan and as Researchers and Artistic Directors at the ATR Media Integration and Communications Research Lab in Kyoto Japan. They also were Visiting Researchers at the MIT CAVS in Cambridge US, the Beckmann Institute in Champaign Urbana, IL, USA and the NTT-InterCommunication Center in Tokyo. Sommerer originally studied biology (botany) at the University of Vienna and modern sculpture and art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (masters degree). Mignonneau studied modern Art and Video Art at the “Ecole des Beaux Arts” in Angouleme, France where he received his masters degree. Sommerer and Mignonneau completed their PhD degrees from CAiiA-STAR, University of Wales College of Art, Newport, UK and the University of Kobe Japan, respectively.

Jeff Miller

Director of the California NanoSystems Institute and holds the Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences at University of California, Los Angeles. He studies the molecular mechanisms of bacterial diseases and the evolution of bacterial diversity.

John Carpenter

An interactive digital artist + designer whose work uses gesture and immersive technology to explore natural systems and complex data + spaces. Based in Los Angeles, he works for the Advanced Technology Group at Oblong Industries as a software engineer and interaction designer, and is a visiting professor at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, MA+P. John earned his MFA from the department of Design Media Arts at UCLA with his thesis: qualitative spaces in interactive art + design (2009) and has exhibited work internationally. Prior to joining Oblong, John worked with Thom Mayne at Morphosis Architects on interactive building (system + conceptual) visualizations from 2005-2011. John studied with davidkremers at the California Institute of Technology from 2001-2005 (based in Scott Fraser’s Biological Imaging Center). He graduated from the University of Arizona in 2001 with a BS in Molecular and Cellular Biology and minors in Studio Art and Psychology.

Jonah Brucker-Cohen

Ph.D., is an award winning artist, researcher, and writer. He received his Ph.D. in the Disruptive Design Team of the Networking and Telecommunications Research Group (NTRG), Trinity College Dublin. He is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Networked Culture in the department of Journalism and Media Studies at Lehman College (City University of New York – CUNY). He was a Designer in Residence at the New York Hall of Science in 2020. He was a dedicated mentor and office hours mentor at NEW INC , a division of the New Museum in NYC, for 2019/2020. He is also Executive Vice President at Lively Event, Inc. He has previously taught as Adjunct Assistant Professor at Parsons MFA in Design & Technology and Parsons School of Art, Design, History, and Theory (ADHT) from 2010 to 2014, Media, Culture, Communication dept of NYU Steinhardt School of Culture Education and Human Development (2009, 2010, 2011), NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) (2007, 2008), and Trinity College’s MsC in Interactive Digital Media (2003, 2004). From 2001-2004 he was a Research Fellow in the Human Connectedness Group at Media Lab Europe and from 2006-2007 he was an R&D OpenLab Fellow at Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in New York City. He received his Masters from ITP in 1999 and was an Interval Research Fellow from 1999-2001. He also served as the Art Gallery chair for the SIGGRAPH 2016 Art Gallery in Anaheim, California.

Katherine Moriwaki

An Assistant Professor of Media Design in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons School of Design in New York City.She teaches core classes in the M.F.A. Design + Technology Program where students engage a broad range of creative methodologies to realize new possibilities in interactive media.Her work has appeared in numerous festivals and conferences including numer.02 at Centre Georges Pompidou, Futuresonic, Break 2.2, SIGGRAPH, eculture fair, Transmediale, ISEA, Ars Electronica, WIRED Nextfest, and Maker Faire. Her publications have appeared in a wide range of venues such as Rhizome.org, Ubicomp, CHI, ISEA, NIME, the European Transport Conference, and the Journal of AI & Society. Her project Umbrella.net, in collaboration with Jonah Brucker-Cohen was featured in “New Media Art” by Mark Tribe and Reena Jana in 2006. Working within a broad range of areas, Katherine’s work spans disciplines and communities of practice. She has taught at a wide variety of institutions and departments, such as Trinity College Dublin, Rhode Island School of Design, and Parsons School of Design, as has lead workshops on interaction design and the creative re-use of electronic objects around the globe. These “Scrapyard Challenge” workshops have been held thirty-seven times in fourteen countries across five continents. Katherine received her Masters degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where people and enabling interaction were emphasized over any specific technology. She was a 2004 recipient of the Araneum Prize from the Spanish Ministry for Science and Technology and Fundacion ARCO.

Ozcan Group

James Gimzewski

Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles; Director of the Nano & Pico Characterization Core Facility of the California NanoSystems Institute; Scientific Director of the Art|Sci Center and Principal Investigator and Satellites Co-Director of the WPI Center for Materials NanoArchitectonics (MANA) in Japan. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, he was a group leader at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he research in nanoscale science and technology for more than 18 years. Dr. Gimzewski pioneered research on mechanical and electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and was one of the first persons to image molecules with STM. His accomplishments include the first STM-based fabrication of molecular suprastructures at room temperature using mechanical forces to push molecules across surfaces, the discovery of single molecule rotors and the development of new micromechanical sensors based on nanotechnology, which explore ultimate limits of sensitivity and measurement. This approach was recently used to convert biochemical recognition into Nanomechanics. His current interests are in the nanomechanics of cells and bacteria where he collaborates with the UCLA Medical and Dental Schools. He is involved in projects that range from the operation of X-rays, ions and nuclear fusion using pyroelectric crystals, direct deposition of carbon nanotubes and single molecule DNA profiling. Dr. Gimzewski is also involved in numerous art-science collaborative projects that have been exhibited in museums throughout the world.

James Gimzewski

Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles; Director of the Nano & Pico Characterization Core Facility of the California NanoSystems Institute; Scientific Director of the Art|Sci Center and Principal Investigator and Satellites Co-Director of the WPI Center for Materials NanoArchitectonics (MANA) in Japan. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, he was a group leader at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he research in nanoscale science and technology for more than 18 years. Dr. Gimzewski pioneered research on mechanical and electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and was one of the first persons to image molecules with STM. His accomplishments include the first STM-based fabrication of molecular suprastructures at room temperature using mechanical forces to push molecules across surfaces, the discovery of single molecule rotors and the development of new micromechanical sensors based on nanotechnology, which explore ultimate limits of sensitivity and measurement. This approach was recently used to convert biochemical recognition into Nanomechanics. His current interests are in the nanomechanics of cells and bacteria where he collaborates with the UCLA Medical and Dental Schools. He is involved in projects that range from the operation of X-rays, ions and nuclear fusion using pyroelectric crystals, direct deposition of carbon nanotubes and single molecule DNA profiling. Dr. Gimzewski is also involved in numerous art-science collaborative projects that have been exhibited in museums throughout the world.

Ozcan Lab

Adam Stieg

A Research Scientist and Associate Director of CNSI responsible for oversight of the Institute’s six Technology Centers – a collection of open-access user facilities that foster innovation across disciplines, facilitate university collaborations with industry, and aid in the rapid commercialization of discoveries by supporting researchers from academia and industry. Dr. Stieg earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Drew University and his Ph.D. in Inorganic/Physical Chemistry from UCLA. As a scientist and educator, Dr. Stieg’s research seeks to bridge the gap between our fundamental understanding of nanomaterials and how these systems tend toward complexity at mesoscopic scales. By applying high-performance measurement systems to the rational design of functional nanosystems and architectures, Dr. Stieg strives to address modern challenges renewable energy, developmental biology, and neuromorphic computing.

Charles Taylor

John Carpenter

Interactive digital artist + designer whose work uses gesture and immersive technology to explore natural systems and complex data + spaces. Based in Los Angeles, he works for the Advanced Technology Group at Oblong Industries as a software engineer and interaction designer, and is a visiting professor at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, MA+P. John earned his MFA from the department of Design Media Arts at UCLA with his thesis: qualitative spaces in interactive art + design (2009) and has exhibited work internationally. Prior to joining Oblong, John worked with Thom Mayne at Morphosis Architects on interactive building (system + conceptual) visualizations from 2005-2011. John studied with davidkremers at the California Institute of Technology from 2001-2005 (based in Scott Fraser’s Biological Imaging Center). He graduated from the University of Arizona in 2001 with a BS in Molecular and Cellular Biology and minors in Studio Art and Psychology.

Olivia Osborne

Originally from London, UK; Dr. Olivia Osborne is an interdisciplinary scientist and artist. Being a hybrid herself (English/Spanish); she has always been able to see multiple facets to her daily life and is able to integrate thoughts in an interestingly mutualistic way. Her passion lies in nature and tries to encompass that in every aspect of her life. She initiated her fervor for art at school where she took inspirational advantage of living in such a vibrant city that is London and was encouraged to exhibit and pursue her love for art. Science however, was the other main zeal in her life, which lead her to read Biological Sciences at the University of Exeter, specialising in ecotoxicology, developmental biology and environmental biology. During this time her environmental stewardship shone through as she undertook terrestrial conservation work in the jungles of Honduras and marine work in the oceans of the Bahamas. She then pursued and received her PhD in the ecotoxicology of nanomaterials from the University of Exeter, UK. Today- she swapped the quintessential picturesque Southwest England for the multifarious city of Los Angeles-where she is a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA working on the hazard assessment of nanoparticles in the environment. Her current research interests lie in environmental toxicology, nanoparticle hazard assessment and high throughput toxicity screening. Aside from being a dedicated research scientist, she keeps up her ardour for art perpetually experimenting with all forms of media, constantly exploring new ways to portray art in different forms.

Mark Cohen

Gerald Buckberg

Glen M. MacDonald

John Muir Memorial Chair of Geography, Director of the White Mountain Research Center and a UCLA Distinguished Professor. He is a former UC Presidential Chair and former Director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Glen is the UCLA Co-PI for the Department of the Interior’s Southwest Climate Science Center. His research focuses on climate change, its causes and its impact on the environment and society. He works on climate variability and environmental change using observational and other records in North America, Eurasia and Africa. He is the author of over 160 scientific and popular press pieces and an award winning book on biogeography. His recent coastal and marine research focuses on estuaries and marshes and their response to climate change, sea level change and human disturbance. He has also worked on seismic displacements of marshes. Glen has worked on marsh and mangrove systems in California, Hawaii and Mexico. He is also interested in scientific communication and has published Op/Eds in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Sacramento Bee. He speaks widely to the public and policy makers and has provided presentations and testimony to a number of California state agencies and the US Senate Appropriations Committee. Glen MacDonald is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Rockefeller Bellagio Resident and a Past President of the American Association of Geographers. He has received the James J. Parsons Distinguished Career Award and the Henry C. Cowles Award for Excellence in Publication from the American Association of Geographers, the University of Helsinki Medal, a Visiting Fellowship and Life Membership at Clare Hall Cambridge, and a Visiting Fellowship at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. He has also won distinguished teaching awards at McMaster University and UCLA.

Erkki Huhtamo

is known as a founding figure of media archaeology. He has published extensively on media culture and media arts, lectured worldwide, given stage performances, curated exhibitions, and directed TV programs. He is a professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Departments of Design Media Arts, and Film, Television, and Digital Media. His most recent book is Illusions in Motion. Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles (The MIT Press, 2013).

David Familian

began working at the Beall Center for Art + Technology in 2005 and was appointed as Associate Director in April 2006. An artist and educator, he received his BFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1979 and his MFA from UCLA in 1986. For the past twenty years he taught studio art and critical theory in art schools and universities including Otis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Santa Clara University, San Francisco Art Institute and U.C. Irvine. Although David began his career as a photographer, since 1990 new media has become integral to his own artistic practice and his work as a web producer and technical advisor for individual artists, museums and universities such as Walker Art Center, University of Minnesota and the Orange County Museum of Art. David has curated and organized the majority of exhibitions at the Beall Center. In 2013 he premiered Echo and Narcissus a new sound video installation with interactive elements at the Art/Sci Gallery at UCLA. David developed the Black Box Projects at the Beall Center and meets regularly with artists as well as technologists and scientists to collaborate on new projects.

Noa Kaplan

Artist, researcher, and educator living in Los Angeles, CA. She analyzes and reconstructs overlooked, disappearing, and forgotten collections. Through virtual simulations, physical artifacts, and environments, she invites viewers to inhabit these collections, often at unfamiliar orders of magnitude. Noa has participated in residencies and fellowships at IDEO, Jaunt, Autodesk, Electric Objects, and Eyeo. She has exhibited recent work at Ars Electronica, ACME., Rosamund Felsen Gallery, and the Hammer Museum. Her work has also been featured in Business Insider, Wired Magazine, and Discovery VR. Noa earned her BA in Sculpture from Yale University and her MFA in Design Media Arts at UCLA where she developed and taught original studio curricula from 2012 to 2016. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Media Arts + Practice in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.

Leonard H. Rome

Cell biologist and biochemist who has served on the UCLA School of Medicine faculty since he joined the Department of Biological Chemistry in 1979. He became a full professor in 1988 and wAs Senior Associate Dean for Research in the School of Medicine from 1997 – 2012. Dr. Rome earned his B.S. in Chemistry and M.S. and Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where he worked on lysosome biogenesis. Dr. Rome has chaired the School of Medicine Faculty Executive Committee and is actively involved in graduate and medical education. He is a recipient of the School of Medicine Award for Excellence in Education. While Senior Associate Dean for Research, he organized a strategic plan for research in the School and spearheaded campus-wide efforts in genomics, proteomics, and computational biology. His laboratory research centers on a novel cellular organelle called a “vault” which was discovered in his laboratory. Dr. Rome is presently organizing a Nanoscience Interdisciplinnary Research Team, a collaboration of disciplines including cell biologists, engineers, chemists, and structural biologists who are engineering vaults so that they can be used in drug delivery.

Siddharth Ramakrishnan

Is interested in the cusp of disciplines and the dialog that arises at that juncture. Art and Science have long been thought to be completely divergent fields, but believes that there is a lot to be discovered by blending the two, and by allowing scientists and artists to engage with one another. At the University of Puget Sound, he has started an Art Science Collaborative. They organize salons, panels and exhibitions. He have taught alongside Prof.Victoria Vesna first at UCLA and then at The New School of Design Parsons. Their Nano_Biotech+Art course drew students from a wide background – media artists, sociologists, philosophers and engineers. They foster ideas and collaborative concepts; and talk about what art means in the Nano-biotech age and what artists convey in this era. His collaborations with artists and architects have led to exhibitions and documentaries that blend the worlds of art and science. With Prof. Vesna, he has worked on the Hox project – where they used interactive media to convey the importance of Hox genes to an audience. Recently this was displayed at the Microwave New Media festival in Hong Kong.

Seijie Lin

Milena Szafir (Ph.D.)

Professor of Arts & Audiovisual at UFCE (Brazil) where she supervises projects on aesthetics of montage. Her research areas are media literacy and AV Rhetoric. In 2011, she received the most important Brazilian Art & Technology Prize. Her artworks include: “YouToRemix” (online interactive video, 2010), “Manifest Yourself” (live streaming mobile WebTV, 2006-2009), “Performances Panopticadas” (surveillance wireless VJing, 2004-2006); and most recently “MindRemix”, “Stream’engrams of a revolution”, “UnDe(r)sign Mirrorring”, “Alice 5×7” (+fulldome work in progress).

Takashi Ikegami

Professor for at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in artificial life and complexity, and has been known to engage on the border between art and science.

Charles Taylor

Chris O’Leary

A native Ohioan, Chris O’Leary was born in Youngstown and studied painting at the Columbus College of Art and Design. He worked briefly in Cincinnati for the Gibson Greeting Card Co. and has been freelancing ever since, creating paintings for clients such as Barnes and Noble, Atlantic Monthly, Vegetarian Times, the L.A. Times, Readers Digest, the Boston Globe, Barron’s Weekly, and Ohio Magazine. He now lives in Columbus with his wife, Tricia, and daughters, Lily and Kate. Before he had kids, he played fingerstyle guitar, was the project director for the restoration of an urban ravine, and took long bicycle trips, but now he pretty much just watches after the kids…and paints.

Joel Ong

PhD student at DXARTS interested in the intersections of art, science and technology. He has a background in ecology and has an MA in Biological Arts from the University of Western Australia. His current research focuses on the parallel histories of artistic and scientific thought and how interdisciplinary explorations have and continue to inspire paradigmatic shifts in modern art – notably in the fields of biotechnology, nanoscience and ecology. His work also explores the cultural and artistic development of mediated listening and sound art. Joel is a sound designer and is a co-founder of the Loft Collective (Singapore).

Robert Gero

Artist and philosopher. In recent years he has focused on an expanding notion of sculpture in theory and practice, pushing its interdisciplinary boundaries into design, temporary architecture, theoretical mathematics, experimental digital 3D, and collaborative works. As an artist he has exhibited nationally and internationally. Selected exhibitions include the Museum of Art and Design, New York; UCLA Art-Sci Gallery; 45th Venice Biennale; Artist Space, New York; Santa Monica Museum of Art. He was awarded an Art Matters grant, NY (2011). He completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the New School For Social Research and received an MFA from the California State University, Los Angeles. His research interest is grounded in the practical and theoretical intersection of art practice, theory and philosophy. Currently Gero is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at State University of New York at Old Westbury where he has been a faculty member since 2012.