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Cy Keener is an interdisciplinary artist who uses environmental sensing and kinetic sculpture to record and represent environmental phenomena. He is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture and Emerging Technology at the University of Maryland’s Department of Art. Recent work includes installations that visualize rain, wind and ocean waves. He received a Master of Fine Arts from Stanford University, and a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley.

Cy has completed commissioned installations at Stanford University, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas. Over the past year, he has presented his work at ISEA in Durban South Africa, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C., as well as The Nature Conservancy and The National Arts Club in New York.

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Susan Reiser works at the intersection of computer science and art, developing software and creating tangible forms. One large and exciting project she worked on is an animatronic sculpture fabricated at UNC Asheville’s STEAM Studio and installed at Times Square. The figurehead design was the student project in a Mechatronics capstone class co-taught with Professor Emeritus Rebecca Bruce. The students were also mentored by Sara Sanders, Linnea Linton, and Brent Skidmore. The entire sculpture was designed and constructed by students, faculty, and staff, under the art direction of Mel Chin. Susan teaches STEAM (STEM + Art) courses at UNC Asheville in the Departments of Computer Science, New Media, and Mechatronics; collaborates and teaches workshops and an introductory computer science course at Cherokee High School using culturally-relevant projects, and creates data materializations with Texas A&M’s Courtney Starrett.

Susan’s interests and publications are in 3D computer graphics, tangible computing, and computing in the arts. She thoroughly enjoys the creativity inherent in human-centered design and fabrication, and tries to convey that to her students. Before teaching at UNC Asheville, she worked in industry as a software developer and principal engineer. In addition to corporate work, she developed visualization applications for Duke’s Electrophysiology Lab.

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Brian Smith is the Honorable David S. Nelson Professional Chair and Associate Dean for Research at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College, and a Professor of Information Science and Education. His research interests include the design of computer-based learning environments, human-computer interaction, design sciences, out-of-school learning, creativity and innovation, and computer science education. Earlier, he served as senior associate dean of academic affairs at Drexel University’s College of Computing & Informatics, and as program director in the Division of Research on Learning at the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Brian co-directs Boston College’s M.A. in Learning Engineering, a new program on applying the principles and methods that guide student learning to design engaging and effective learning experiences.  A 1991 graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles in computer science and engineering, Smith earned a Ph.D. in learning sciences from Northwestern University. He began his academic career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, followed by appointments at Pennsylvania State University as associate professor of information sciences and technology, and the Rhode Island School of Design as dean of continuing education, where he oversaw the development of art and design programs for youth and adults, and was a co-investigator in RISD’s “STEM to STEAM” initiative.

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Courtney Starrett is associate professor at Texas A&M University in the Department of Visualization and holds the Harold L. Adams ‘61 Interdisciplinary endowed Professorship in Visualization. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, is included in permanent collections at the Mint Museum Uptown in Charlotte, NC, and Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR, and has been published in print in periodicals and books such as Metalsmith Magazine, How Design Magazine, Taiwan Craft Magazine, Art Jewelry Magazine, Cast: Art and Objects, 500 Necklaces, and 500 Plastic Jewelry Objects.

Courtney’s innovative design workflow utilizing data as a raw material as a base for the design of 3-dimensional objects, data materialization, has been published in a leading journal on the application of science and technology to arts and music: Leonardo (MIT Press) and cited in forthcoming the Handbook on Human Computer Interaction (Springer; 1st ed.2023) chapter on Data Physicalization (Dragicevic, Jansen, and Vande Moere, 2019). She has served as an ACM SIGGRAPH volunteer on conference planning committees and subcommittees for more than a decade in roles such as the 2014 Studio chair, the 2019 Emerging Technologies chair, and the 2022 Community Engagement chair.