MAT Students

Aaron Anderson

Shashank Aswathanarayana

Shashank Aswathanarayana is a music technologist, percussionist and researcher from Bengaluru, India. He is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Media Arts and Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to this, Shashank was a music information retrieval engineer at a San Francisco-based mobile startup, Humtap. He holds a Masters degree in Music Technology from New York University and a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University in India. His research interests include spatial/3D audio, soundscape studies and music information retrieval. In his free time, he enjoys trekking, traveling and playing sports.

Samuelle Bourgault

Mengyu Chen

Mengyu Chen is an artist and designer working in the realms of technology, philosophy, and culture. His projects adopt an anti-anthropocentric approach to design and engineering, conceptualizing machines and objects on the same ontological level as human beings.

As a working artist, he completed his Masters in digital + media at RISD while a member of the Data Visceralization Research Group, and a permanent collaborator of the Mestizo Robotics at RISD and RPI. Areas of investigation include interactivity, ideology, prosthetic social extensions, object-oriented aesthetics, and autonomous machines.

Alexis Crawshaw

Enrica Costello

Enrica was raised in an Italian hamlet by the Mediterranean sea; her deep sea diver dad taught her early on the value of knowing how to build her creative projects. She studied Architecture in Genova (Italy), urban design in Lyon (France) and media arts and technology in Santa Barbara (U.S.A.). In life she embraced creative fields in which it was indispensable to own the technical side of her creations. Architecture, more than any, requires the knowledge of design as well as construction, materials, and sustainable practices, all merging to make a living sculpture.

Qiaodong Cui

Stejara Dinulescu

Juan Manuel Escalante

After seven years of studying architecture and graduating with honours in both college and master programs, Juan Manuel decided finally to dedicate his life to the arts. In his late years he has been using code as a creative medium. However his roles range from: non-formal piano composer, exhibition curator, publisher/author/editor, designer, teacher, writer, bio and sound artist.

Diarmid Flatley

Ariella Gilmore

Purva Gujar

Mark Hirsch

Mark Hirsch describes himself as an InterArtist, communicating in languages of sound, visualization, code, and design to realize his ideas. Through his work, Hirsch seeks to use experimental technology to create new connections between seemingly unrelated elements of daily life. The interactive nature of his projects lends a degree of intimacy to the often cold, impersonal aesthetic of digital technology.

Current research includes: sculptural systems, robotics, soft robotics, shape changing structures, mechatronic art.

Xindy Kang

Xindi Kang is a researcher and artist working with interactive media. She is interested in interfacing between human and technologies through voice and movements. She designs experiences that inspire people to see and hear themselves in a different way. Her research and professional interest lies in human computer interaction and user experience design. She is currently working towards her Master's degree at the Media Arts and Technology program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Anzu Kawazoe

Kenny Kim

Guitarist, programmer, and expert pillow fighter.

Research interests include machine learning aided algorithmic composition and visualization.

You-Jin Kim

• Interactive Media • Data Visualization • VR • AR

You-Jin focuses on visual programming and ways of presenting a large amount of data on a personal level. He believes the most powerful way to convey knowledge is to process the data into an intimate material. Through right presentation, You-Jin strives to introduce revolutionary ways to communicate with one’s memories and experiences.

You-Jin is a multi-disciplinary creator, who sees the technology in context. The virtual reality environment, which he is designing, acts as a supporting medium to embrace human creativity through emerging technologies.

• BFA in Art and Technology Studies (ATS), SAIC.
• MFA in Computational Media (MFAEDA), Duke University.

Sölen Kiratli

Sölen is a researcher and practitioner in media arts and design. She works with digital media, ranging from physical computing devices to digital fabrication techniques. Her research interest is the design of interactive systems with an embodiment approach. She is currently contemplating on the behavioral response of things, whether humans or machines, objects or biological systems.

She holds a BSc degree in Architecture from Istanbul Technical University and a Master’s degree in Architecture from University of Southern California (USC). She has worked on several architectural projects in Los Angeles area. She is the recipient of UCIRA Social Ecologies Grant, VIDA 13.0 Artistic Production Incentives, and IHC (Interdisciplinary Humanities Center) Media Arts Award.

Philip Kobernik

Han-Wei Kung

Han-Wei is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Media Arts and Technology at UCSB. Prior to that he completed his Master of Science in Visualization at Texas A&M University in 2014. He also received a Master of Engineering from Cornell University in 2012 and a B.S. from National Chiao Tung University in 2007, both in Computer Science. In between college and graduate school he was a technical director at Digimax, Inc., where he worked on an IMAX computer-animated feature film.

Myungin Lee

Myungin is seeking the nature of sound. His research interest is music and sound signal processing and the application, including analysis, synthesis, and reproduction. Myungin received his BSc and MSc in Electronics and Computer Engineering from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea.

Rodger (Jieliang) Luo

Jieliang (Rodger) Luo is a researcher and media artist working with reinforcement learning, robotics, and visualization. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate and lecturer in Media Arts & Technology at UC Santa Barbara, where he teaches data visualization, reinforcement learning, and intelligent machine vision. His research focuses on bridging reinforcement learning and creativity by exploring potential simulated and physical platforms for artists, designers, and architects to have easy access to reinforcement learning. His works have been featured at SIGGRAPH Asia, IEEE Vis, CURRENTS NEW MEIDA, etc. He also has worked for Autodesk Robotics Lab as a robotic and machine learning researcher since June, 2018.

Lena Mathew

Fabian Offert

Fabian Offert is a curator and engineer with research interests in abstract machines, quantum computation, digital art conservation, and the interface of media and performance art. Before joining MAT, he worked at ZKM | Karlsruhe, where he curated and managed several large-scale exhibitions. Other collaborations include Goethe Institut New York and IRCAM/Centre Pompidou. Fabian received his Dipl. degree from Justus Liebig University Giessen, where he was a student of composer and director Heiner Goebbels, with a thesis on "Information, Concept, Computability. The Computer as a Medium of Art". As a fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service, he was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a fellow of the Regents of the University of California and an alumnus of the German National Academic Foundation.

Sihwa Park

Sihwa Park is a sound interaction designer, media artist, and developer. He is mainly interested in data-driven audiovisual arts based on the concept of "Quantified-Self" and "Data Art". His interest especially lies in the artistic multi-modal transformation of personal data reflecting personal taste, preference or behavior, such as life-logging data, physical activity data, digital content usage/history and so on. Also, he is seeking to create new musical experiences for audiences or performers by embracing new technologies in making a novel musical interface/interaction. Before pursuing his Ph.D. study at Media Arts and Technology at UCSB, he worked as a UX designer and freelance iOS application developer in Seoul, Korea.

Anshul Pendse

Weihao Qiu

Greg Reardon

Gustavo Rincon

Gustavo Alfonso Rincon (M.Arch., MFA, B.Sc., BA) is educated as an architect, visual artist and currently is a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Program in the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) in the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He holds Masters Degrees in Architecture and Urban Design from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as well as a Masters in Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Currently, he works with the AlloSphere Group as a researcher with JoAnn Kuchera-Morin at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) in UCSB.

Ehsan Sayyad

Ehsan does VR and stuff.

Jungah Son

Mert Toka

Mert received his BS degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Sabanci University, Turkey, and worked as a research assistant in Behavioral Analytics and Visualization Lab (BAVLAB) in the same institution. His primary interests include Computer Graphics, Interaction Design, Data Visualization and Physical Computing.

Nathan Weitzner

Timothy Wood

I am an artist technologist, inspired by the music and dance of nature, in love with life and the air in my lungs. It is my desire to explore the relationships between healing, creativity, and spontaneous expression through interactive and performative audiovisual environments.

CY (Chengyuan) Xu

Yin Yu

Yin Yu is interested in exploring the potential of multimedia interactive environments and the relationship between architecture and music through the emerging technologies in contemporary art/architecture practice. Her goal is to broaden the relationship between human beings and the built space by redesigning the environment inspired by music. Application areas include architecture, fashion, performance, public space, social behavior, and interaction design. She also specialized in interdisciplinary pedagogy and curriculum design at the college level for interdisciplinary education.

Currently, she is a PhD student in Media Arts and Technology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Engineering, and a Master of Science in Information Technology, and a Master of Science in Interior Architecture.

Weidi Zhang

Weidi Zhang is a new media artist and visual designer. Her media arts practices synthesize both the artistic and computational, that push the boundaries of space, interactivity, and abstraction into new areas of visual and sonic complexity. Her research and practice interests are investigating the possibilities of non-linear narrativity and semantic meanings in virtual reality environments through spatial assemblage, experimental visualization and intelligent system design. Her works are featured at different galleries and conferences internationally, such as SIGGRAPH 2019, IEEE Vis art program, 'Xcelerator' at Times Art Museum (Beijing), etc. Currently, she is a Ph.D. student in the Media Arts and Technology Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds her MFA degree in Art + Technology at California Institute of the Arts.

Mengjia Zhu