Technical Director, AlloSphere Research Facility
PhD student
2209 Elings Hall
dennis (at) mat.ucsb.edu
Dennis Adderton is an Electrical Engineer with 20 years of experience in the design of scientific instruments and is currently employed as Technical Director for the Allosphere Research Facility, in the California NanoSystems Institute at UCSB.
PhD student
aaron_anderson (at) ucsb.edu
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.
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.
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.
PhD student
qiaodong (at) mat.ucsb.edu
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.
PhD student
diarmid (at) umail.ucsb.edu
PhD student
purvagujar (at) ucsb.edu
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.
As an artist, Intae Hwang investigates the design manufacturing process, especially in connection to the interaction between machine-driven skill and the human hand. He tried to convert hand-made process to computerized manufacturing. By doing so, his current works explore the use and development of technology in the creation of art objects.
Also, Intae is mimicking the process of traditional form making with advanced robotics. At the same time, he is creating the robots themselves, which replaced his body as an approach of an artist who stand-in to participate in social activities.
PhD student
xindi (at) umail.ucsb.edu
PhD student
anzu (at) umail.ucsb.edu
PhD student
konhyong (at) mat.ucsb.edu
Guitarist, programmer, and expert pillow fighter.
Research interests include machine learning aided algorithmic composition and visualization.
• 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 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.
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 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.
MSc student
lliu (at) mat.ucsb.edu
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.
PhD student
mathew00 (at) umail.ucsb.edu
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 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.
PhD student
anshulpendse (at) umail.ucsb.edu
PhD student
reardon (at) ucsb.edu
PhD student
grincon (at) mat.ucsb.edu
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.
PhD student
sahar (at) mat.ucsb.edu
Sahar Sajadieh is a post media and performance artivist(artist/activist) and scholar, performer, poet, playwright, theater director and computer scientist originally from Iran. She is an alien resident of the United States and a non-alien non-resident citizen of Canada.
Sahar’s research interest is in finding her research interests and her identity is in the process of development through her search for identity! She is hoping to develop a digital technology through which she can watch you through the picture close to her bio on the website!
Additionally, Sahar is interested in transciplinary post-experimentation in post-performative post-technologist notion of arts. In her research she is seeking to explore the application of post-intelligent augmented systems, multi-level cognitive spaces, Post-humanist virtual machine learning techniques, n-dimensional cyber-sonified visualization methods, and finally multi-dimensional robotic body architectures in the enhancement of scientific arts and artistic technologies. She is very excited for being here.
PhD student
jungah (at) mat.ucsb.edu
MSc Radiation Applied Life Science, Seoul National University. BS Electrical Engineering, Korea University.
PhD student
merttoka (at) mat.ucsb.edu
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.
PhD student
nweitzner (at) mat.ucsb.edu
Research Interests: Human Computer Interaction, Robotics,Machine Learning, Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, Interactive Environments, Physical Computing, Data Visualization.
PhD student
fishuyo (at) mat.ucsb.edu
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.
Jing Yan is an interaction designer and multimedia artist. Her interests include interface design, user experience, interactive media arts, and data visualization.
She received her BA degree in advertising from Tongji University (Shanghai, China) and spent years studying interaction design. She has been an exchange student in Phillips-Marburg Universitat (Hessen, Germany) where she studied literature and explored various art museums in Europe. Currently she is a graduate student at Media Arts and Technology, UC Santa Barbara (United States) focusing on visual and spatial arts.
She worked at Shanghai Himalayas Art Museum, where she participated in the execution of several contemporary art exhibitions and exhibition promotion through social media.
MSc student
junxiangyao (at) mat.ucsb.edu
PhD student
keehong (at) mat.ucsb.edu
BS & MS Mechanical Engineering, Seoul Nat’l Univ.
Yin is a multi-disciplinary designer with a background in electronic engineering and architectural design. Before pursuing her PhD study, she worked in Silicon Valley as an engineer, and in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hawaii as a designer.
Her current research focuses on music transformation into architecture, the methodology of 3D printing with sound, and the interrelationship between sound and space underlying multi-scales and multi-dimensions.
Weidi Zhang is a digital artist and visual designer. By focusing on responsive immersive environments, human-computer interaction and fine art photography, her media arts practices synthesize both the artistic and computational to arrive at a new hybridity that pushes the boundaries of space, interactivity, and abstraction into new areas of visual and sonic complexity. Her current research and practice interest is visualization and abstraction of narrative data that is collected in social landscapes by using responsive immersive environments.
She holds her MFA degree in Art + Technology at CalArts with a concentration in Integrated Media, and a BFA degree in Photo-media from the University of Washington, Seattle. She was selected into the Walt Disney Imagineer (WDI) educational initiative for entertainment design in 2015. Working as a visual designer at award-winning design firms within the entertainment industry, she was responsible for visual development of key-art, Branding, style guide development, concept art and digital illustration.
PhD student
mengjiazhu (at) umail.ucsb.edu
