Category Archives: faculty

The School of Arts and Humanities has named ATEC Assistant Professor Todd Fechter the Victor Worsfold Teacher of the Year.

From left: Assistant Professor Todd Fechter, Dean Dennis Kratz and Professor Emeritus Victor Worsfold. Fechter was selected as the Victor Worsfold Teacher of the Year.

Fechter, who has experience working in television and film production, teaches courses in 3D computer animation in the school’s Arts and Technology (ATEC)program. He created the first online ATEC computer animation digital class archive, providing unlimited access to course materials and examples that allow for off-campus learning and review.

“Todd is an inspiring teacher, mentor and more. He has taken a leadership role in developing an animation program of the highest quality. His impact is already and quite literally visible in the superior work that our students are producing,” said Dr. Dennis M. Kratz, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities.

Fechter’s honor was part of the school’s Outstanding Faculty and Teaching Awards, which are presented yearly and are named for Professor Emeritus Victor Worsfold, who taught ethics and philosophy at UT Dallas from 1975 to 2001. Dr. Worsfold was present for the awards ceremony.

The Worsfold Teaching Assistant (TA) of the Year award went to LaToya Watkins, a PhD candidate in aesthetic studies.

Akin Babatunde and David Hanson were named Alumni of the Year. David Hanson received his PhD from UT Dallas in aesthetic studies and interactive arts and engineering. In 2003, he founded Hanson Robotics to pursue character robot research and applications.

Hanson creates androids – humanlike robots with intelligence. Through integrated research in cognitive artificial intelligence, bio-inspired mechanics, material science, sculpture and animation, expressive robotic faces and walking robot bodies, Hanson strives to bring robots to life. The walking, talking robots resulting from Hanson’s efforts have been recognized in various publications, including Wired and PC Magazine.

“David Hanson has helped revolutionize our notion of what a robot is and the possibilities of robotics in education. His robots with human faces are displayed around the world, adding luster to our aspiration of leadership at the intersection of arts and technology,” added Kratz.

As the Arts and Technology program continues to grow, three new faculty will join the program in spring 2013. A variety of new courses will be offered. View the full listing of ATEC and EMAC courses on CourseBook.

New Courses

A variety of new courses will be offered at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Visual Evidence is a multidisciplinary course, where we will look at exemplary visualizations in the broadest sense – from classic artworks, such as Altdorfer’s Battle of Alexander, to the latest scientific plots and info-graphics. Besides analyzing visualizations much like art historians traditionally do with artworks, the course will also include some practical exercise in producing and criticizing visualizations, ideally based on examples from the student’s original focus of study.

Participants will acquire essential skills of critical seeing, enabling them to persuade with better visualizations by applying the principle of creative destruction in a cognitive way.

Integrating visualization and visual studies, the course will include introductory lectures, multidisciplinary guest speakers from ATEC and beyond, as well as collaborative projects and talks by the students.

Students from ATEC, EMAC as well as Arts and Humanities will bring in their specific skills and are encouraged to learn from each other. We will cross-fertilize literature work, critical seeing, as well as data science skills (such as acquisition, cleaning, analysis, and visualization). Programming and math skills are not necessary but very useful.

ATEC 6389 Ecology of Complex Networks
Maximilian Schich

The Ecology of Complex Networks is a fundamental phenomenon that permeates data across multiple disciplines. This course will provide an introduction to this multidisciplinary phenomenon with a (non-exclusive) focus on the arts, humanities and culture. The course will provide an overview of the emerging state of the field and it’s connections to other relevant areas, such as biology, computer science, economics, engineering, math, physics, social science, technology, and others.
Participants will acquire a basic understanding of complex network phenomena in a variety of fields, including what is currently known as data science and digital humanities.

In addition to introductory lectures and multidisciplinary guest speakers from ATEC and beyond, students will form small teams to analyze, visualize and interpret complex network data. Students from ATEC, EMACS as well as Arts & Humanities will bring in their specific skills and are encouraged to collaborate and learn from each other. We will cross-fertilize literature work, critical seeing, as well as data skills (such as acquisition, cleaning, analysis, and visualization). Basic to advanced skills in programming, statistics and math are not a requirement but very useful. Requires permission of instructor.

ATEC 6389 Virtual Analog Computing
Paul Fishwick

How would you represent computer data (big and small), equations, and code if you were told to build rather than to write software? This is the question we will explore in this seminar. Most computing has been analog until fairly recently, and our representations of software artifacts has been limited by cost of deployment.

A Petri net machine encoded in the game of Minecraft

While our computers are digital, we are analog. Recent research in neuroscience and embodied cognition indicates that we “simulate” when we read and think. This suggests a new approach to software design where we evolve new embodied media to design and build software. This media includes 3D games, mixed reality, physical computing, and 3D printing. The idea is to explore new machines in virtual spaces, and to re- envision “software” by making it analog, more accessible, and engaging, for a wide audience.

The course will involve instructor lectures, invited lectures, student talks and projects. Both ATEC and Engineering (especially Computer Science) students are encouraged to take the class. The main prerequisites are a knowledge of at least one programming language, and an interest in arts-based design.

More information about this course

ATEC 6389 Translation of Spaces and Time
Frank Dufour and Rainer Schulte

The conceptual frame of the seminar will be based on the paradigm of translation. Together with the students, the instructors plan to build the vocabulary necessary to perform complex descriptions and analyses of representations of space and time in films, poems, music, novels, plays, and interactive narratives. George Steiner’s statement that all acts of interpretation and communication are acts of translation can serve as an entrance into the study of time and space.

By its very nature, translation establishes dynamic interactions from texts to texts and cultures to cultures. Thus, students will be able to identify and describe specific aspects of representations of space and time as they relate to cultural and artistic contexts. Furthermore, the instructors will make students aware of the existence of digital tools and techniques specially designed for the analysis of textual and multimedia contents. In addition, students will gain experience in the use of such tools to build models for the recording of the representation of time and space in literature, film, music, and theater. The seminar should be of particular interest to students in arts and technology, aesthetic studies, arts and performance, and world literature.

The ultimate goal of the seminar will be the work toward recommendations for digital software that would facilitate the dynamic representations of time and space in multimedia environments.

New Faculty

Three new faculty members will be joining Arts and Technology in spring 2013: Paul Fischwick, Maximilian Schich and Scott Swearingen.

Paul Fishwick
Distinguished Endowed Chair of Arts and Technology and Professor of Computer Science

Paul Fishwick is joining the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) in January 2013. He will be Distinguished Endowed Chair of Arts and Technology (ATEC) and Professor of Computer Science. Paul has six years of industry experience as a systems analyst working at Newport News Shipbuilding and at NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia.

He has been on the faculty at the University of Florida since 1986, and is Director of the Digital Arts and Sciences Programs there. His PhD was in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania. Fishwick is active in modeling and simulation, as well as in the bridge areas spanning art, science, and engineering. He pioneered the area of aesthetic computing, resulting in an MIT Press edited volume in 2006.

He is a Fellow of the Society for Computer Simulation, served as General Chair of the Winter Simulation Conference (WSC), was a WSC Titan Speaker in 2009, and has delivered over fifteen keynote addresses at international conferences. He is Chair of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group in Simulation (SIGSIM). Fishwick has over 200 technical papers and has served on all major archival journal editorial boards related to simulation, including ACM Transactions on Modeling and Simulation (TOMACS) where he was a founding area editor of modeling methodology in 1990.

Maximilian Schich
Associate Professor

Dr. Maximilian Schich is an art historian, joining The University of Texas at Dallas as an Associate Professor for Art and Technology in January 2013. He works to converge hermeneutics, information visualization, computer science, and physics to understand art, history, and culture.

Recently, Maximilian worked on complex networks in the arts and humanities with Dirk Helbing, FuturICT coordinator at ETH Zurich (2012), and Albert-László Barabási, complex network physicist at Northeastern University in Boston (2008-2012). He was a DFG Research Fellow (2009-2012) and received funding from the Special Innovation Fund of the President of Max-Planck-Society (2008).

Previously, Max obtained his PhD in Art History from Humboldt-University in Berlin (2007), and his MA in Art History, Classic Archaeology, and Psychology from Ludwig Maximilians University Munich (2001). Besides, he looks back at over a decade of consulting experience, working with (graph) data in libraries, museums, and large research projects (1996-2008).

Maximilian is the organizing chair of the ongoing NetSci symposia series on Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks, as well as an Editorial Advisor at Leonardo Journal (MIT-Press). He publishes in multiple disciplines and is a prolific speaker, translating his ideas to diverse audiences across academia and industry.

Teaching at UT Dallas, Maximilian Schich aims to raise visual literacy (Visual Evidence) and provide students with a multidisciplinary perspective (Ecology of Complex Networks in Arts, Culture, and Beyond). Both aspects count on Art and Technology as key ingredients to further our understanding of our increasingly complex world.

Scott Swearingen
Associate Professor

Scott Swearingen is an artist, developer, and educator who creates interactive multimedia spaces that blur the boundaries between the virtual and practical. He has been working at the intersection of art and technology for nearly 20 years specializing in the categories of digital imaging, kinetic sculpture, video games, and virtual environments.

His work has been widely published and has garnered recognition from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences as well as the Game Developers Choice Awards. He has collaborated on several award-winning franchises including Medal of Honor, The Simpsons, Dead Space and The Sims.

As a professional designer, Scott is responsible for deploying game systems, prototyping mechanics, and crafting the overall user experience. He has partnered with and been featured by such notable companies as CompuServe, Electronic Arts, and MAXIS.

Scott has also instructed on Game Design and Virtual Environments at The University of Texas at Dallas as an Assistant Professor. Since then, many of his former students have gone to excel in academia and at various industry studios including iD Software, Gearbox Software, and DreamWorks Animation SKG.

His personal interests bridge installation art with short-form game design. While Scott’s early work embodied this in spaces contextually bound to themes of navigation, his art is becoming increasingly haptic-driven in concept.

Arts and Technology faculty Drs. Thomas Linehan and Mihai Nadin will be among 14 faculty honored by the University with an Investiture Ceremony on Monday, Oct. 22.

Dr. Thomas Linehan

A chair or professorship is among the highest academic honors that the University can bestow on a faculty member, and it lasts as long as the University exists.

It is also an enduring tribute to the donor who establishes it. Endowed chairs and professorships are filled by faculty members who are recognized industry leaders, perform groundbreaking research, mentor PhD candidates and junior faculty, and attract talented undergraduates.

Dr. Mihai Nadin

“The endowed professorships and chairs are important to the entire community and crucial to the success of the University,” said UT Dallas President David E. Daniel. “It’s all about discovery, change and innovation. The very best scholars want to be at those institutions where they’re constantly re-inventing the future. The endowed professorships and chairs are crucial to attracting and retaining the best talent.”

Linehan is director of the Institute for Interactive Arts and Engineering as well as Arts and Humanities Distinguished Chair. He has a background in both corporate management and educational administration. He has served as a college president, a corporate vice president, an associate dean, a research laboratory director, a professor and a public school teacher.

“UT Dallas students are the smartest I’ve taught,” Linehan said. “Most of them write very well, so it gives me great hope that the stories of the future will come out of this generation. They’ve got good, fresh ideas. This university is a university for this century.”

Nadin is Professor of Computer Science and Interactive Media and Ashbel Smith Professor. He is credited with introducing various terms and phrases that have found wide usage throughout society, including “semiotic machine,” “the civilization of illiteracy” and “anticipatory computing.”

“I am teaching because it gives me a chance to continue learning, and boy, do I learn at UT Dallas,” said Nadin.

The Investiture Ceremony will be held on Monday, Oct. 22 at 2:30 p.m. in Naveen Jindal SOM Davidson’s Auditorium.

Bonnie Pitman served as a leader of the Dallas Museum of Art for more than a decade. She is now a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University.

Bonnie Pitman, a guiding force in remaking and advancing the reputation of the Dallas Museum of Art, recently joined the faculty of the School of Arts and Humanities.

As Distinguished Scholar in Residence, she is charged with creating new methods of education, focusing much of her expertise in technology and emerging media in helping to build the national reputation of the school.

“The University is fortunate to have such an innovative thinker join our faculty,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Hobson Wildenthal. “Attracting distinguished leaders indicates high-caliber academics and research. The University and the community will surely benefit from Bonnie Pitman’s wealth of experience.”

Pitman arrived at the DMA in 2000 as deputy director and was named Eugene McDermott Director in 2008 before departing in May 2011. Under her leadership, the museum found new ways to engage audiences, dynamically build the collections and present major exhibitions and innovative programs to the community.

“I am honored to be joining the innovative faculty and research staff in the School of Arts and Humanities, and I do so largely because UT Dallas is deeply committed to creating new models for learning and collaboration,” said Pitman. “The leadership and support of Provost Wildenthal and Dean (Dennis) Kratz is vital to the development of interdisciplinary education and research programs in the School.  A primary aspect of my work will be to strengthen the relationships between UT Dallas and other educational, cultural and health-related institutions in our region, nationally and internationally.”

Under Pitman’s leadership, DMA initiatives like the Center for Creative Connections challenged visitors to engage with art. Late Nights at the DMA brought performances, concerts, readings, film screenings and family programs into the galleries. Pitman co-authored a book, Ignite the Power of Art: Advancing Visitor Engagement in Museums, which documented a seven-year research project that examined how people connect with art at the museum. She also served as editor and an author of The Dallas Museum of Art, Guide to the Collection.

“UT Dallas aspires to be at the forefront of higher education, and a transformative leader such as Ms. Pitman is the ideal person to help the University achieve that goal,” said Kratz, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities.

Kratz said Pitman’s use of technology in education also makes her a great asset to the University. He cited the smARTphone Tours at the DMA that introduced interactive content to exhibits as an example of how Pitman’s expertise fits the University’s focus, especially through its Arts and Technology (ATEC) program.

Dr. Richard Brettell, also a former director of the DMA, will work closely with Pitman.

“She has expertise in using technology to transform the educational and aesthetic experience. Working beside our other faculty, she will fashion a new model for integrating the arts throughout the educational experience,” said Kratz.

Pitman joins another former director of the DMA on faculty. She will co-teach a course in the fall with Dr. Richard Brettell, Margaret McDermott Distinguished Chair of Art and Aesthetics at UT Dallas. Pitman will also work closely with Brettell as the co-director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Museums (CISM).

“Bonnie’s vision and deep museum experience will bring a wealth of new connections and ideas to CISM,” Brettell said.

The American Association of Museums recently awarded Pitman the Distinguished Service Award, the profession’s highest recognition.  She has degrees in art history from Sweet Briar College and Tulane University and has worked as a director, educator and curator at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Canada, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives and Bay Area Discovery Museum.

The following are excerpts from “Reinventing the Arts,” the cover article in the just-released edition of UT Dallas Magazine.

The piece was written by Gaile Robinson, an area art critic and arts writer. The full version of this story and other articles are available in the magazine’s online edition.

What do you get when you put an animator, a physicist and a painter together?

Don’t anticipate a punch line; there isn’t one. Not yet.

“The answer will come in the future,” said Dr. Dennis Kratz, dean of theSchool of Arts and Humanities, “in a place designed to create pathways among people, projects and ideas.”

As dean, Kratz has developed an interdisciplinary curriculum that fosters collaboration at the intersection of arts and humanities, science and engineering.

“There is a statistical correlation between Nobel Prize winners and art,” Kratz said. “It enables them to see from a different viewpoint.”

Kratz’s viewpoint, a broadminded administration, and a creative faculty eager to transform the traditions of a typical liberal arts program, have redefined how the arts and humanities are viewed and taught at UT Dallas.

“This isn’t about putting art in a science-based university. It’s about reconstructing the way we educate people to bring science, art and humanities together,” Kratz said.

“We want to suffuse everything.”

Kratz’s manifest destiny—geographically and cognitively—is recognized by way of the Arts and Technology Program, Texas’s first degree that combines computer science and engineering with arts and humanities.

ATEC is a contemporary hybrid, a joint creation of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Arts and Humanities.

New ATEC Building Demonstrates Commitment

“It’s right on the center of campus. This is prominent real estate. This tells you about the University’s own priorities.” said Dr. Richard Brettell, the Margaret M. McDermott Distinguished Chair of Art and Aesthetic Studies.

The 155,000-square-foot, $60 million project is scheduled for its ribbon cutting in 2013. It will provide 2,150 new classroom seats and 50 offices, as well as a lecture hall that will seat 1,200. The building was designed by Studios Architecture, the same firm that designed the Googleplex, Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Student Perspectives Broaden

Dr. Dave Parry, assistant professor of Arts and Technology and emerging media and communication.

“Humanities students often have no understanding why the Internet is fundamentally different from other forms of communication. The computer science students get it. But the humanities students understand the critical issues and why it matters on a cultural level. When you get them together it’s more productive,” said Dr. David Parry, assistant professor of ATEC and emerging media and communication

Parry believes there is an absolute necessity to be digitally literate. “In the future, the people who have power—power in a good way, power over their own lives—will be digitally literate,” he said. “There will be people who understand how to make, use, manipulate, critique and engage with social media in all its forms and there will be people who will just consume.” Parry sees his job as moving the consumers into the group of producers.

Recent Hires Show Emphasis

Dr. Roger Malina is a physicist, astronomer and executive editor of the Leonardo publications at MIT Press. With dual appointments as a distinguished professor of arts and technology in the School of Arts and Humanities and a professor of physics in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, he focuses on connections among the natural sciences and arts, design and the humanities.

“In my career, I’ve had the scientific strand and the art and technology strand. This is an opportunity to combine both,” Malina said. “There are not many places in the U.S. or internationally that are doing what we’re trying to accomplish here—merge arts and humanities with science and engineering at a deep level and with the resources to support it.”

UT Dallas Magazine includes the full version of “Reinventing the Arts.” The magazine is available for viewing online.

The following candidates are slated to present for the week of June 11-15, 2012.

Ms. Post will give a lecture on Tuesday, June 12 from 2 – 3 pm  in JO 4.122 (note room change) entitled Resistance to Flow / Subject to Change.

Linda Post explores how perception and individual position can be examined through experiential video installations, sound works, media sculpture and photography.  Often in site-specific projects, a choreography of the everyday emerges as simple everyday actions are performed and systematized.  Her projects have been presented at various venues including MOMA, the Sculpture Center, PS.1 Contemporary Art Center and the Hirshhorn Museum.

There is an “urgent need to find new ways to connect the arts and design with science and engineering,” Dr. Roger F. Malina’s writes on the official blog of the National Endowment for the Arts in his article Making Science Intimate: Translating and Integrating the Arts and Humanities with Biology and Medicine.

Dr. Roger Malina

“My body doesn’t care which governmental or private organization funded or provided the source of my body’s health and healing,” writes Malina. “It doesn’t care from which sub-discipline or branch of the tree of knowledge the expertise was derived. My body lives in an inter-connected web of personal and social relations, biological, physical, and ecological systems. Yet to function, we fragment knowledge and the civic space into organizations with boundaries.”

Malina is an advocate of the “STEM to STEAM” movement which seeks to integrate the arts, design, and humanities with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.

Dr. Roger F. Malina is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Technology and professor of physics in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

A physicist and astronomer by training, Malina is also president of the Association Leonardo in France, which fosters connections among the arts, sciences and technology. He was principal investigator for NASA’s Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer satellite at UC Berkeley. His work is focused on connections among the natural sciences and arts, design and humanities.

Speaking at his recent investiture about why he came to campus, he said, “We face problems today that leave no choice but for the sciences and the arts and humanities to work together. UT Dallas is taking the lead in creating innovative connections.”

Former Dallas Museum of Art Director Bonnie Pittman responds to the post with her perspective. Pittman is currently working with UT Dallas to initiate new ways of connecting the science, art, and health care institutions in Dallas.

Two nursing education research projects developed by the Institute for Interactive Arts and Engineering (IIAE) at UT Dallas in collaboration with the UT Arlington College of Nursing have received national and state recognition this spring.

One project — “Can Game Play Teach Student Nurses How to Save Lives?” — has been named a 2012 Computerworld Honors Laureate. This game-based simulation uses 3D infant patients in a synthetic environment to give undergraduate nursing students virtual clinical

One project — “Can Game Play Teach Student Nurses How to Save Lives?” — has been named a 2012 Computerworld Honors Laureate.  This game-based simulation uses 3D infant patients in a synthetic environment to give undergraduate nursing students virtual clinical practice opportunities.  The project was funded through a UT System Transforming Undergraduate Education grant. It will be recognized for its applications of information technology to promote positive social, economic and educational change at the Computerworld Laureate Medal Ceremony and Gala Evening on June 4 in Washington, D.C.

A second research project, NursingAP.com, tied for first place as Best Demonstration Project at the “Innovations in Health Science Education” conference sponsored by the University of Texas Academy of Health Science Education. The recognition is voted on by attendees at the conference, which is sponsored by the six health science campuses within the UT System.

A project called “Can Game Play Teach Student Nurses How to Save Lives?" uses 3D infant patients in a synthetic environment.

NursingAP.com is a blended-learning website that incorporates interactive technology and virtual environments to assist graduate students seeking nurse practitioner degrees and certifications. The project started with neonatal nurse practitioner (NNP) curriculum.   The project is funded by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration.

NursingAP.com affords students opportunities to practice the knowledge acquired through lecture material through the use of interactive modules and a 3D virtual Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The components of the NNP curriculum are presented through lecture notes with embedded media, and a variety of other multimedia forms, including videos, interactive games, simulations and virtual equipment demonstrations.  Students can practice clinical skills in the virtual NICU, an immersive environment where 3D patients present medical conditions covered in lecture content.

The project gives undergraduate nursing students virtual clinical practice opportunities.

Both projects are research collaborations between Dr. Marjorie A. Zielke, in Arts and Technology assistant professor and the associate director of IIAE, and Dr. Judy LeFlore, professor at the UT Arlington College of Nursing.  “These continual awards reinforce the deep talent of our student developers,” Dr. Zielke said.  “I also think we need to give a great deal of credit to our strong collaboration with the UT Arlington College of Nursing.”

“I am particularly proud of the scope of the recognition we are receiving from international conferences to internal recognition by the UT System Health Science campuses,” Dr. Zielke continued.

At the Computerworld awards dinner, the UT System project will be presented with a medallion inscribed with the program’s mission statement, “A Search for New Heroes.”

“The Computerworld Honors program was especially competitive this year, as more than 500 IT initiatives were nominated for their innovation and benefit to society,” said Julia King, executive editor of events for Computerworld.

These new honors are just two of the several awards received by IIAE projects over the past two years.  The UT System project also received a first place award for Emerging and Innovative Technology and Methods at the 2011 International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH). The simulation was used in a randomized, controlled study designed to compare the clinical application of undergraduate nursing students using a virtual clinical experience compared to students receiving the same pediatric respiratory content in traditional lecture format. Results of the study were published this spring in Simulation in Healthcare, the journal of the Society of Simulation in Healthcare.  Another project, The First Person Cultural Trainer (FPCT) won first place in the government category of the Serious Games Showcase at the Interservice/Interindustry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando in December 2011.  Earlier in 2011, FPCT earned first-place in the Innovations in DoD Gaming Competition at the 2011 Defense GameTech Users’ Conference also in Orlando.

For years, UT Dallas has sought to fuse its long-held strengths in technology with the creativity of the arts and humanities. That philosophical blend is embodied by a new professor who is a champion for interdisciplinary academics.

Dr. Roger F. Malina

Dr. Roger F. Malina is a physicist, astronomer and executive editor of Leonardo publications at MIT Press. He serves in two of the University’s schools, as a distinguished professor of arts and technology in the School of Arts and Humanities, and as a professor of physics in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

“We face hard problems in society today where we have no choice but for the sciences and the arts and humanities to work together. UT Dallas is taking the lead in creating innovative connections,” Malina said.

In partnership with Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology in San Francisco, Malina and UT Dallas’ Arts and Technology program are starting a project on campus entitled “Leonardo Initiatives.” Leonardo publishes journals, books, websites and projects on evolving digital platforms that aim to document and disseminate information about interdisciplinary work.

Malina is executive editor of Leonardo publications at MIT Press.

The first Leonardo Initiative at UT Dallas is currently under way with the publication of the e-book Arts, Humanities and Complex Networks. This project documents the work of 25 researchers whose work explores the meaning and application of the science of complex networks as it relates to art history, archeology, visual arts, the art market and other areas of cultural importance.

The texts in the publication come from researchers, information designers and artists whose work has been presented at the Leonardo Days at the Network Science conferences, the High Throughput Humanities conference and in the Leonardo Journal.

The e-book is augmented by an ATEC web companion, which hosts papers, presentations, and reader commentary and discussion.

Malina is a former director of the Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence (OAMP) in Marseille, and a member of its observational cosmology group, which performs investigations on the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

He is also a member of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Study (Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées, IMERA), an institute he helped to organize. IMERA seeks to contribute to trans-disciplinarity between the sciences and the arts, placing emphasis on the human dimensions of the sciences.

Malina was also a member of the jury for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2011, which awards a prize to those who create strategies with potential to “solve humanity’s most pressing problems.”

Malina’s specialty is space instrumentation. He was the principal investigator for the NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer satellite at the University of California, Berkeley. The satellite was the first orbiting observatory to map the sky in the extreme ultraviolet band. The team at UC Berkeley had to invent new cameras, telescopes and data analysis techniques to accomplish the task. The team was one of the first university groups to take over operation of a NASA satellite and operate it from a university with teams of students.

For 25 years, Malina has been involved with the Leonardo organizations, which his father founded in 1967. Malina earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972 and his doctorate in astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1979.

An anonymous gift in February 2010 created the Arts and Technology Distinguished Chair he holds at UT Dallas.

The following candidates are slated to present for the week of March 5-9, 2012. All presentations will be held in the ATEC Conference Room (ATEC 1.606).

Mr. Gresham-Lancaster will give a presentation on Monday, March 26 at 3:30 pm in ATEC 1.606 entitled Sonification: Finding the Sound and Music which is Within the Data.

Scot Gresham-Lancaster is a composer, performer, instrument builder and educator with decades of professional experience. His recent work is for IMéRA in Marseille France on 2nd order sonification of data sets. As a member of the HUB, he is one of the early pioneers of “computer network music” and cellphone operas. He has created a series of “co-located” international Internet performances with remote dancers and musicians. An acclaimed pianist and guitarist, he also often performs with instruments of his own design. He has worked with major Silicon Valley firms developing audio for games and interactive and online consumer products.  He is an expert in 21st century educational technology and techniques.

Mr. Gresham-Lancaster was a student of Philip Ianni, Roy Harris, Darius Milhaud, John Chowning, Robert Ashley, Terry Riley, “Blue” Gene Tyrany, David Cope and Jack Jarrett among others. He has been a composer in residence at Mills College. At STEIM in Amsterdam he worked on developing new instruments for live performance of electroacoustic music. He is an alumnus of the Djerassi Artist Residency Program. He has toured and recorded as a member of the HUB and Room, Alvin Curran, ROVA saxophone quartet, The Club Foot Orchestra , and NYX. He has performed the music of Alvin Curran, Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn, and John Cage, under their direction, and worked as a technical assistant to Lou Harrison, Iannis Xenakis and David Tudor among many others.

Mr. Kim will give a lecture on Tuesday, March 27 at 2:00 in ATEC 1.606 entitled Media Conditions of Successful  Ecology, Citizen Journalism and the Emerging Public Spheres.

Nakho Kim is currently a doctoral candidate of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests are in participatory citizen journalism, as an aspect of civic communication empowered with media technologies. Specific interest areas include citizen journalism practices, data journalism and media ecology modeling.

For several years, he has been developing and managing Madison Commons, a civic journalism project which aims to bridge various information needs of the local community. His dissertation in works builds an agent-based model of a simulated community to explore how we could use emerging media to bridge different communication networks and build a better public sphere.