News/Research

Congratulating our 2019 Undergraduate Certificate Graduates

09 May, 2019

Congratulating our 2019 Undergraduate Certificate Graduates

Congratulations to our 2019 cohort, who are graduating with the New Media Undergraduate Certificate! These students invested in the new media landscape at Cal, and we're excited to see what new endeavours they undertake in their respective fields.

Ian Erickson

Ian Erickson is graduating with a B.A. in Architecture and a minor in the History of the Built Environment, and is the recipient of the Departmental Citation for outstanding undergraduate work in architecture. He was part of the inaugural cohort of the Fung Fellowship, and was awarded the Judith Lee Stronach travel scholarship to study famous sites of skateboarding in London with Professor Iain Borden of the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. He worked with BCNM director Nicholas de Monchaux, as well as BCNM designated emphasis PhD student Cesar Torres to build a cabinet and LED display in the BCNM commons. He has also worked for the design firm Modem, and served on the editorial staff of Room One Thousand. His writing on media and architecture has been published in university architecture journals such as PLAT (Rice), POOL (UCLA), One:Twelve (Ohio State), and Room One Thousand (UC Berkeley), as well as the Paris-based critical fashion journal Vestoj.

Mika Sebastian

From Honolulu, Hawaii, Mika Sebastian is receiving a B.A. in Anthropology with a Certificate in New Media. She plans on pursuing a career in UX/UI research and design. Mika has taken a suite of New Media classes at Berkeley, including User Interfaces for Creativity and Learning, History and Theory of New Media, and Beyond Critical Design Thinking.

Ada Hui

Ada Hui is graduating with a B.A. in Rhetoric and certificates in New Media, Design Innovation, and Human Centered Design. Her coursework includes classes in journalism, computer science, engineering, design, and business. At UC Berkeley, she joined the college newspaper, student government, and design and finance clubs, and received a CITRIS Invention Lab Fellowship and awards for multimedia projects, including a smartwatch fitness app and a food community platform. Ada also worked in startup investment research and for news publications outside of school, and helped organize the first Cal Hacks, UC Berkeley’s flagship technology hackathon recognized by Major League Hacking and which annually garners over 3,000 students, developers, and companies in attendance.

Kirsten Chen

Kirsten Chen has received a B.A. in an Interdisciplinary Studies Field. Her coursework includes classes from New Media, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and Art History – including Critical Practices and our graduate level Questioning New Media. Kirsten has served as the BCNM ATC Undergraduate Liaison and this experience prepared her for organizing other creative projects with artists and brand; this year she curated her own Virtual Reality art show at the Swim gallery in San Francisco. As a freelance writer, Kirsten frequently attends and provides coverage on art shows, conferences, and events located at the intersection of these fields.

Maggie Chen

Maggie Chen is graduating with a B.A. in Economics and Minor in Public Policy. She studied Behavioral Economics and enjoyed connecting behavioral principles and human-centered design through problem solving. At Berkeley, she completed the Undergraduate Certificate in New Media and the Berkeley Certificate in Design Innovation, and has taken courses like Critical Practices, Interface Aesthetics, and Scenic Design for Performance. As an assistant director, she worked with Stan Lai, an award-winning, US-born, Taiwan-based playwright and theater director, and explored the organic relationship between script and performance through the play AGO, which is a play with the unique “theatre in the surround” configuration and elements of AR incorporated.

Derek Topper

Derek Topper has received a B.A in Data Science. While at Berkeley, he launched the Sports Analytics Group, a data science club on campus focusing on sports research and consulting for professional teams like the Golden State Warriors, San Francisco Giants, and Cleveland Cavaliers. Taking NWMEDIA 190: Making Sense of Cultural Data, allowed him to develop insights from sports fans’ Tweets to death row inmates’ last words. Following dream internships with the Phoenix Suns and New York Mets, Derek has landed a full time position with the New York Islanders in business analytics.

Camryn Bell

Camryn Bell is receiving a B.A. in History with a minor in Portuguese. In her senior thesis, she analyzed the role of the Bay Area’s library systems in the social movements of the 1960s, exploring how public and informal libraries served as spaces of knowledge-sharing and as conduits for the exchange of radical ideas. She was awarded a BCNM Undergraduate Research Fellowship to work with Will Payne on the impacts on gentrification of location based applications. Camryn also served as a staff writer and head archivist for the Daily Californian.

Gwen Gettle

Gwen Gettle graduated with a double major in Art and Rhetoric. She explored the vast reaches of new media on campus, from advanced digital animation to data arts, the rhetoric of new media to digital imagine and forensic art for VR, to game design, Digital Humanities, and interface aesthetics. Her work explores the distinction between the physical and digital realms through verbal and visual projects that cover themes pertaining to archives, memory, and interactivity. She is currently working to develop a VR app for a virtual art museum exhibit.

Nicolas Chang

Nicolas Chang received a B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies. A veteran of New Media at Cal, Nicolas has been involved in every conference, exhibit, and lecture that the BCNM has produced over the last four years. Nic has also enrolled in a panoply of new media classes, from history and theory to cultural data.

Meighann A. Helene

Meighann A. Helene is a freelance Media Arts and Digital Marketing Professional, who recently began working at IBM in June part-time while completing her Cognitive Science degree. She is a recipient of several awards including international recognition as a film producer and receiving a plaque of recognition for her video production work in the nonprofit sector. Helene has spoken at several conferences including the recent Alliance for Community Media Regional Conference. A published lyricist, she has enjoyed successes in many of the Arts including her artwork showcased at galleries, theater performances, and leading dance and performance troupes to such events as Burning Man. Helene resides on several Boards and Committees, including serving as an Advisory Board Member for Fishbon Santa Barbara and on the Board of Directors for TV Santa Barbara. Additionally, she serves as a Commissioner on the Richmond Arts & Culture Commission. She holds AAs in Media Arts, Philosophy, Arts & Humanities, and Behavioral Sciences, and is graduating with a BA at CAL in Cognitive Science with an emphasis in Perception this Spring, 2019. In addition to her degree, she has completed 3 certificates at Berkeley, the Berkeley Human-Centered Design Certificate, the Berkeley Center for New Media Certification in New Media, and the Jacob's Institute of Design Certification in Design Innovation. After graduation, she will be spending some time in Europe traveling, followed by a month-long Artist in Residency at the Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology. Come July she will begin her full-time role at IBM as a Communications and Digital Media Manager in IBM's Data and AI organization and will continue to exhibit and perform in the arts.