Announcing our Spring 2018 Designated Emphasis & Certificate Cohort
We are proud to welcome an amazing set of graduates from across campus to the Berkeley Center for New Media. These students highlight the interdisciplinary nature of new media through the range of disciplines they represent and the exciting collaborative projects in which they are engaged. We are fortunate to count such an exceptional cohort among our community.
Designated Emphasis
Leah Rosenbaum
Rosenbaum is a third year doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education. As an aspiring educational designer, she aims to create artifacts that open new pathways to mathematics engagement, at the same time questioning traditional narratives about what mathematical reasoning looks like. Her current research project, Geometris, exemplifies these traits. A Twister-like game in which players coordinate their bodies to co-construct geometric shapes on a 6x6 foot floor mat, Geometris brings the body into mathematical work. By centering learners’ bodies within such a context, she aims to support learners in linking their felt body-sense to domain concepts, highlighting those physical experiences as a resource for their mathematical reasoning. As this approach requires a different set of resources from traditional classroom pedagogy, it necessitates considerable re-mixing if not redesign of educational media.
Christine Dierk
Dierk is pursuing her Ph.D. in Computer Science within the EECS Department. Her research in Cosmetic Computering seeks to explore new possibilities for on-body wearable devices. A few of her projects — HäirIÖ, AlterWear, AlterNails — are examples of how Dierk aims to develop technologies and techniques that can explore the development of a broader range of novel interfaces and interactions across a wider landscape of body sites. She is currently working with Professor Eric Paulos, BCNM professor, as part of the Hybrid Ecologies Lab.
Certificate
Evan Burch
Burch is pursuing a Master's in Architecture in the College of Environmental Design. He holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Virginia, but his journey to the BCNM includes design ranging in scope from branding and graphics to industrial design to 200,000sf office spaces. He believes that great design should do more than balance form and function — it should delight the user. Whether that delight comes in the form of a revelatory experience of space and light or the instant comprehension of an interface so well-crafted that it needs no explanation, his passion is the pursuit of this delight. He loves to work with his hands and can often be found in the CED's fabrication shops trying to build something for school or home (or ideally, both!). Evan's new media interests include interface aesthetics, user interface and experience design, and virtual / augmented reality, among many topics.
Fang Fang
Fang is a first year graduate student pursuing her Master's in Architecture in the College of Environmental Design. She is interested in combining new technologies such as human-computer interactoin and virtual reality with design. As an architect, her sense of design and logical thinking is shaped by her studies between form and function. Fang's knowledge extends to human psychology and somatology, as well as creating renderings and diagrams to express a product. Fang previously worked at the Advanced Architecture Lab in China and has participated in projects ranging from designing the Mulan Mountain Resort Hotel in Hubei to designing tree houses with the Wuhan Nature Children Association.
Yang Liu
Liu is in his fourth semester as an architecture graduate student. As a designer with a background in architecture and digital technology, he is currently interested in user experience design and VR/AR development. Over the past ten years he has been creating innovative projects in architecture, urban design, interactive art and virtual reality. With the Graduate Certificate in New Media, Yang plans to further explore the interactive design opportunities in virtual reality with a focus in user experience.
Soravis Prakamakul
Prakkamakul is a first-year student in the Master of Information Management and Systems program at the School of Information, with a focus on interaction design and software engineering. His principal interest is the role of new media as a tool for creative expression. In an age where originality is blurred by machine learning and generative design, Prakkamakul questions what we can claim as the fruit of our intellectual labor. He plans on investigating through digital/physical prototyping and ethnographic studies. Prakkamakul is also among the first cohort of Jacobs Institute Innovation Catalysts.