PARTICIPANTS BIOS

Keynote Speakers:

Leonard Kleinrock
Leonard Kleinrock is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UCLA. He developed the mathematical theory of packet networks, the technology underpinning the Internet, while a graduate student at MIT from 1960-1962. The birth of the Internet occurred in his UCLA laboratory when his Host computer became the first node of the Internet in September 1969, and it was from there that he directed the transmission of the first message to pass over the Internet on October 29, 1969. Dr. Kleinrock received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1963. He has served as a Professor of Computer Science at UCLA since then. He was the first President and Co-founder of Linkabit Corporation, the co-founder of Nomadix, Inc., and Founder and Chairman of TTI/Vanguard, an advanced technology forum organization. He has published over 250 papers and authored six books on a wide array of subjects, including local area networks, broadband networks, nomadic computing, intelligent software agents, performance evaluation, and peer-to-peer networks. He was recipient of the 2007 National Medal of Science and a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among other distinguished honors.

Karamjit Gill
"Beauty of Turing"
Karamjit S. Gill is Professor Emeritus, University of Brighton (UK), Founding Editor of AI&Society journal (Springer), Visiting professor at universities of Wales (UK), Urbino (Italy), Waterford Institute of Technology (Ireland), Beijing Institute of Soft Technology. Over the years he has directed cross- cultural research networks, including EU-India cross-cultural innovation network (EU); Europe-Japan network on human-centred systems, European postgraduate and doctoral research network in human centred systems (EU). He is also actively involved in the Community-University Partnership Programme (CUPP) of University of Brighton, steering community projects on social mentoring; Art, music and craft therapeutic environment and co-production. Karamjit's research interests include Symbiotics, Social mentoring, Human-centred systems, Social innovation, Knowledge networking, Cultural encounters, Cross-cultural innovation, Arts, science and society.

Speakers:

Jon Beaupre
"Some Speculations on the Effects of Machine Language on News Delivery Credibility"
Jon Beaupré is Assoc. Prof. of TV, Film & Media Studies at Cal State LA. His reporting on radio and TV have earned him ten Golden Mikes from the Radio TV News Assoc. of Southern CA, six awards from the LA Press Club, the Ruben Salazar Award from the CA Chicano News Media Assoc., and other citations for his work. He has worked widely, both for private clients and as a consultant to radio and TV stations coaching their on-air reporting staff to improve their voice and performance skills. His undergrad degree is from the Univ. of Nevada, Reno and his MFA is from NYU where he was a student of Nora Dunfee and Kristin Linklater, among others. http://broadcastvoice.blogspot.com/

Zach Blas
Zach Blas is an artist-theorist working at the intersections of networked media, queerness, and the political. He is a PhD candidate in Literature, Information Science + Information Studies, Visual Studies at Duke University and the founding member of Queer Technologies. Zach has exhibited and lectured around the world, including The Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Banff Centre, Medialab Prado, South by Southwest Interactive, transmediale festival, Arse Elektronika Festival, Upgrade! Tijuana, the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, where he co-curated the 2011 group exhibition Speculative. His up-coming exhibitions include the 2012 Liverpool Biennial and Trans Technology at Rutgers University. Zach has recently published writings inThe Feminist and Queer Information Studies Reader and has also edited Micha Cárdenas' newly published book The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities. In Fall 2012, Zach will be an artist/researcher-in-residence at the b.a.n.g.lab, UCSD, directed by Ricardo Dominguez.

Dean Buonomano
"What the Turing test reveals about the brain's bugs and features"
Dean Buonomano is a professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology, and member of the Integrative Center for Learning and Memory at UCLA. His research focuses on neural computing—how networks of neurons perform the computations that allow us to make sense of the world. A second focus of his research is on how the brain tells time and parses the temporal structure of complex stimuli, such as speech and music. Buonomano is the author of Brain Bugs: how the brain's flaws shape our lives (Norton). His research and book has been covered in the popular press including, Newsweek, Discover Magazine, Scientific American, The New Yorker, and National Public Radio. http://www.neurobio.ucla.edu/~dbuono/

Micha Cárdenas
Micha Cárdenas is an artist/theorist who works in performance, wearable electronics, hacktivism and critical gender studies. She is a PhD student in Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) at University of Southern California and a member of Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0. Her book The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities was published by Atropos Press in 2012. Micha holds an MFA from University of California, San Diego, an MA in Communication from the European Graduate School and a BS in Computer Science from Florida International University. She has exhibited and performed in biennials, museums and galleries in places around the world including Los Angeles, San Diego, Tijuana, New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Colombia, Egypt, Ecuador, Spain, Switzerland and Ireland. Her work has been written about in publications including Art21, the Associated Press, the LA Times, CNN, BBC World, Wired and Rolling Stone Italy. She blogs at transreal.org and tweets at @michacardenas.

Mark Cohen
Mark Cohen holds appointments in the UCLA Departments of
Psychiatry, Neurology, Radiology, Biomedical Engineering, Psychology
and Biomedical Physics and is a member of the California NanoSystems
Institute. His contributions include his critical role in the development of
practical echo-planar scanning, ultra-fast MRI applications, contrast-
based and BOLD functional MRI, applications of linear systems analysis
to increase fMRI sensitivity and resolution, and concurrent recordings of
EEG and fMRI to better understand brain dynamics and distributed
processing. He and his lab have contributed to an understanding of the
power of pattern recognition and machine learning to both
interpet/classify neural data and as a source of discovery of the processes that result in cognition, perception, emotion and pathology. As the creator and director of the UCLA/Semel NeuroImaging Training Program he has pushed his students to an integrative understanding of the role of imaging in neuroscience.

James Gimzewski
"How We Became the Turing B machine"
James Gimzewski is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UCLA, Director of the Nano & Pico Characterization Core Facility of the California NanoSystems Institute, Scientific Director of the Art|Sci Center, and Principal Investigator and Satellites Co-Director of the WPI Center for Materials NanoArchitectonics (MANA) in Japan. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, he was a group leader at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, where he focused on nanoscale science and technology for more than 18 years. Dr. Gimzewski pioneered research on mechanical and electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). His current interests are in the nanomechanics of cells and bacteria where he collaborates with the UCLA Medical and Dental Schools. Dr. Gimzewski is also involved in numerous art-science collaborative projects that have been exhibited in museums throughout the world.

Gabriel Greenberg
"A New Kind of Machine"
Gabriel Greenberg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at UCLA. He is interested in the semantics of symbols, images, and everything in between. http://gjgreenberg.bol.ucla.edu/

Erkki Huhtamo
"Alien Intelligence"
Erkki Huhtamo is Professor of Media History and Theory at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Department of Design Media Arts. Professor Huhtamo holds a PhD in Cultural History. He has published extensively on media archaeology and the media arts. Media archaeology is an emerging approach he has pioneered since the early 1990s. It excavates forgotten, neglected and suppressed media-cultural phenomena, helping us to penetrate beyond canonized accounts about media culture. Professor Huhtamo has applied this approach to phenomena like peep media, stereoscopy, the notion of the screen, electronic games and mobile media. Professor Huhtamo's most recent books are a monograph titled Illusions in Motion: a Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles (The MIT Press, forthcoming in 2012), and Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications and Implications (edited with Dr. Jussi Parikka, University California Press, 2011).

Takashi Ikegami
"Shape-shape computation"
Takashi Ikegami received his doctorate in physics from the University of Tokyo in 1989. Currently, he is a professor at the Department of General System Studies, at the University of Tokyo. His research is centered on complex systems and artificial life, a field which aims to build a possible form of life using computer simulations, chemical experiments and robots. Some of these results have been published in "Life Emerges in Motion" from Seido Book Publishers in 2007. Takashi Ikegami most frequently attends the International Conference on Artificial Life, and gave the keynote address at the 20th Anniversary of Artificial Life conference in Winchester, UK. He is also a member and the editorial boards of Artificial Life, Adaptive Behaviors, BioSystems and Interaction Studies.

Willem Henri Lucas
Willem Henri Lucas studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Arnhem in the Netherlands under guidance of karel Martens and worked as an intern and apprentice for Max Kisman. He works for clients mostly based in the field of Culture and Art. From 1990 to 2002 he served as a professor and chair of the Utrecht School of the Arts' Graphic Design department. In 1998 he designed holiday postage stamps for the PTT (Dutch Post and telecom company). In 2003 and 2004 he won a 'Best Book' award and a nomination from the Art Director's Club in the Netherlands. He has conceptualized and designed numerous posters for the UCLA Art | Sci center since its inception. Currently he is Chair of the department of Design | Media Arts.

Yuval Marton
"Gaylons and Gay Grammar: A few linguistic and futuristic musings in honor of Alan Turing"
Yuval Marton is a postdoctoral researcher at IBM, NY, following his postdoctoral research scientist position at Columbia University. His research interests focus on computational linguistics, especially combining linguistic knowledge with statistical and corpus-based machine-learning techniques. He is currently involved in research on syntactic dependency parsing for morphologically rich languages such as Arabic, and effective ways of using morphological and syntactic knowledge in SMT. He is also involved in research on distributional and hybrid semantic distance measures, and paraphrase generation. Yuval co-organizes the ACL 2012 Joint Workshop on Statistical Parsing and Semantic Processing of Morphologically Rich languages (SP-Sem-MRL 2012), and is the publication chair for the 2012 NAACL-collocated *SEM conference. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from University of Maryland, Fall 2009, concentrating on computational linguistics, with a Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) Program Certificate. He received his Masters in Computer Science from NYU/Poly, in 2004. He still hopes to have more time for art and art|sci collaboration.

Siddharth Ramakrishnan
"Morphogenesis, Morphology and Men – Pattern Formation from Embryo to Mind"
Siddharth Ramakrishnan, PhD., is a Neuroscientist currently working in the field of Bioelectronics at Columbia University in New York. He works on designing microchips to record from brain cells and using proteins to create bio-batteries and biosensors. As a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA (2006-2009) he studied the development and physiology of reproductive neurons in the zebrafish brain. His PhD dissertation (UIC, 2005) addressed pattern generating networks in snails and how they were modulated to elicit various behaviors. With Victoria Vesna he has co-taught hybrid Art and Science courses at the New School of Design (2009-2012). A Fellow of the UCLA Art|Sci center, His collaborations with artists have led to exhibitions and documentaries that blend the worlds of art and science highlighting topics like Hox genes, animal umwelts and biomimicry. In 2013 he joins the University of Puget Sound as the Jennie M. Caruthers Chair in Neuroscience. More information can be found at www.siddharthramakrishnan.com

Edward Stabler
Edward Stabler is a Professor of Linguistics at UCLA, specializing in computational models of language and learning, mathematical properties of grammars, and universal properties of languages. He is co-author with linguist Edward Keenan of "Bare Grammar: Lectures on Linguistic Invariants" (Stanford, CSLI) and co-author with biologist Charles Taylor and others of several studies of animal communication, artificial life, language and evolution.

Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He studies artificial life including issues of self-organization and emergent behaviors, which underlie our understanding of adaptation, mind, and even life itself. His current research, with Ed Stabler in the Linguistics Department at UCLA and their students is directed at evolving and teaching sensor arrays and networks of autonomous vehicles to recognize concepts and to discourse intelligently about them.

Georgina Voss
Dr Georgina Voss is a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Arts, Brighton University where her work focuses on the social side of technology practices. Her research interests include legitimacy and reputation; user-led design and innovation; business and technological ethics; and sexuality and gender. She also teaches innovation and technology ethics at Sussex University, and is an Honorary Research Associate at the Science and Technology Studies department, University College London. Prior to this, she was the Research Manager at Tinker London, where she oversaw the 'Homesense' project on domestic user-led design. Georgina's work has been published in journals including 'Sexualities', 'Journal of Urban Technology' and 'Science and Engineering Ethics', and in WIRED magazine.

ART | SCI Gallery:

SOCnet is a collaboration between John Carpenter and Adam Stieg. The work explores emergent, self-organized criticality in complex networks. As viewers interact with the work, their movement charges the environment forming connections and nodes within the virtual system. These connections strengthen and dissipate over time based on the patterns of stimulation.

John Carpenter
John Carpenter is an interactive digital artist and designer whose work explores natural systems, complex data, and qualitative spaces. Based in Santa Monica, he consults with several creative technology companies including Morphosis Architects and Synthesis Technology Integration, and is a visiting professor in the Multimedia Arts Department at Loyola Marymount University. John earned his MFA from the department of Design | Media Arts at UCLA (2009) and recently exhibited work at the 84th Annual Academy Awards, ACME. and Young Projects.

Adam Stieg
Adam Stieg is a scientist and educator at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) whose work focuses on developing integrated approaches to study material systems at the interface of traditional boundaries. Through the implementation of original experimental techniques, his research seeks to bridge the gap between our current understanding of nanomaterials and their fundamental properties with how these systems tend toward complexity at increased scales of space and time. These research activities are augmented by active collaboration with artists and designers on various projects, installations, and public exhibitions that directly inform the scientific process and provide motivation to develop new educational content that conveys the need for creativity in innovation.

Organized and moderated by Victoria Vesna
Victoria Vesna, Ph.D., is a media artist and Professor at the UCLA Department of Design | Media Arts and Director of the Art|Sci center at the School of the Arts and California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI). She is currently a Visiting Professor at Parsons Art, Media + Technology, the New School for Design in New York, a senior researcher at IMéRA – Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées in Marseille, France. Her work can be defined as experimental creative research that resides between disciplines and technologies. With her installations she explores how communication technologies affect collective behavior and how perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation. She is the North American editor of AI & Society.