PF Speakers 2021
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PLAYfest 2021: Two Days of Wonder 1 Speaker Schedule Session 1: Joy Damian Kulash DJ Kurs Damian Kulash, Jr. is an artist, musician, filmmaker, and the David “DJ” Kurs is a theatrical and video producer who frontman for the polymath rock group OK Go. He’s directed became the second Artistic Director in the thirty-year history the band’s long string of boundary-pushing music videos, of Deaf West Theatre in 2012. Prior to that, he served as an racking up more than 300 million views online. They’ve associate producer and ASL master on Deaf West danced in zero gravity and on treadmills, they’ve built a productions. He has since produced numerous shows for warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine to run in sync with Deaf West Theatre, including "Spring Awakening" which a song, and they’ve choreographed hundreds of explosions enjoyed a highly acclaimed twenty-week run (NY Times filmed in just a few seconds. Damian has received the Critic's Pick) on Broadway and earned three Tony Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for Visual Art, a nominations. Grammy, three MTV VMA’s, twenty-one Cannes Lions, three A recognized leader on the push for inclusion in the arts, he Webby Awards, and has had his work presented at The has spoken at the Berkeley Forum and has served as a Guggenheim, MoCA, LACMA, The Hirschhorn, The Hammer featured panelist and speaker at countless conferences and Museum, and Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture. events around the world. He has been recognized by Damian graduated magna cum laude from Brown University numerous organizations such as the California Association of in 1998. He’s written for The New York Times, The Wall Street the Deaf and served as a lead committee member of NEA's Journal, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, and National Roundtable on Creating Opportunities for Deaf testified before the US Congress in support of Net Neutrality. Theater Artists and the Deaf Theater Action Project in He serenaded Barack Obama at his 50th birthday party, collaboration with Emerson College. appeared on the Simpsons, and Animal from The Muppets once played the drums in his garage. He lives and works in Los Angeles. Helen Leigh Jess Turgeon Helen Leigh is a creative technologist who specializes in Jess Turgeon is the director of experience at Minnesota music technologies, craft-based electronics and education. Children’s Museum. With more than 20 years of museum Leigh designs and makes musical instruments, from experience and an MBA from Carlson School of Management, interactive art installations to mainstream commercial Jess has spent her career focused on serving the visitors and products. Helen also writes things, including the books Music creating excellent visitor experiences. Responsible for the Tech Hacking and The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics, as “fun” part of the museum, Jess oversees the creation and well as a regular column for Make Magazine. She has lectured implementation of exhibits and programs at the museum. in London and Berlin at the graduate and postgraduate level She is passionate about providing delightful, educational on physical computing, electronics, music technology and experiences for children and families. play. John Goodwin Sarah Fornace John Goodwin joined the LEGO Foundation as CEO in April Sarah Fornace (Co-Artistic Director) is a director, puppeteer, 2017 to pursue a career where he could combine his business choreographer, and narrative designer based in Chicago. She skills with his passion for philanthropy and driving positive is a co-Artistic Director of Manual Cinema. Outside of Manual social impact. Cinema, Sarah has worked as a performer or choreographer with Redmoon Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company, The LEGO Foundation is dedicated to influencing parents, Court Theatre, Steppenwolf Garage, and Blair Thomas and Co. teachers and policy makers to adopt learning through play as the most powerful means for children to acquire the broad Recently, Sarah wrote the story mode for the video game suite of skills needed to thrive in today’s world – and to Rivals of Aether. In 2017, she directed and edited the first provide the evidence and advocacy to support it. episode of the web series, The Doula is IN. In 2016, she directed and devised an "animotion" production of Mr Goodwin holds a 1St class degree in Mathematical Shakespeare's Hamlet with Rokoko Studiosfor HamletScen at Engineering from the University of Loughborough and is a Kromborg Castle in Elsinore, Denmark. Fellow of the Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. (www.manualcinema.com) He resides in York, England and is married to Elizabeth Goodwin, a former primary school teacher, with whom he has three grown children. PLAYfest 2021: Two Days of Wonder 2 Speaker Schedule Session 2: Whimsy George Matsumoto Jer Thorp As the senior education and research specialist at the Jer Thorp is an artist, writer and teacher living in New York Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, my role involves City. He is best known for designing the algorithm to place several different projects: seminar coordinator, summer the nearly 3,000 names on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. internship coordinator, distance education, links between the Jer was the New York Times' first Data Artist in Residence, is a research institute and other partners, and other projects that I National Geographic Explorer, and in 2017 and 2018 served as haven’t begun yet. Please see our educational resources page the Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress. Jer is for links. one of the world's foremost data artists, and is a leading voice for the ethical use of big data. Jer’s book 'Living in Data’ will I am interested in the open ocean and deep sea communities be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the spring of with particular emphasis on invertebrates. Specific areas of 2021. interest include: Ecology and biogeography of open ocean and deep sea organisms; Functional morphology, natural You can find Jer online at jerthorp.com. history, and behavior of pelagic and benthic organisms; Systematics and evolution of ctenophores and cnidarians (molecular phylogeny). I am also very committed towards education. Katie Mack Kristen Lomasney Dr. Katie Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist exploring a range Kristen Lomasney is very much a "well, sure, why not" sort of of questions in cosmology, the study of the universe from person, which is how she has a master's degree in beginning to end. She is currently an assistant professor of international relations and economics but works in media, physics at North Carolina State University, where she is also a specifically as general manager of Adam Savage's Tested. member of the Leadership in Public Science Cluster. She is Kristen started her career in 1994 as a program assistant at the author of the book "The End of Everything the Council on Foreign Relations (a New York think tank), (Astrophysically Speaking)" and has written for a number of moved to research fellow at The Century Foundation (another popular publications, such as Scientific American, Slate, Sky & think tank), then pivoted to ... part-time copyeditor at Telescope, Time, and Cosmos Magazine, where she is a Discovery.com. Once at Discovery Channel, she moved columnist. She can be found on Twitter as @AstroKatie. quickly from copyeditor to executive producer on the digital side, producing the online extensions for such shows as MythBusters, Dirty Jobs, Man vs. Wild, Monster Garage, American Chopper and Deadliest Catch. After more than 15 years at Discovery, she quit and moved from Washington, DC, to San Francisco, CA, where Adam Savage, former co-host of MythBusters, hired her to manage his own digital media presence, which turned into her current position as general manager of his YouTube channel, Tested You can find her on Instagram at @krystynlo. Nadya Peek Shawna Young Nadya Peek develops unconventional digital fabrication tools, Shawna Young is a passionate educator who joined Scratch, small scale automation, networked controls, and advanced the world’s largest and most diverse coding community for manufacturing systems. Spanning electronics, firmware, kids, as executive director in 2020 after serving as the software, and mechanics, her research focuses on harnessing executive director of the Duke University Talent Identification the precision of machines for the creativity of individuals. Program (Duke TIP). At Duke TIP, she directed one of the Nadya directs the Machine Agency at the University of largest academic talent searches, with over 450,000 K-12 Washington where she is an assistant professor in Human- students and over 3 million alumni. During COVID-19, Young Centered Design and Engineering. She is on the board of the transitioned the $35M+ non-profit organization, anchored in Open Source Hardware Association, half of the design studio providing academically rigorous summer residential James and the Giant Peek, plays drum machines and synths programs, to primarily serving its students and families online in the band Construction, and got her PhD at MIT in the and developing new outreach methods to increase the Center for Bits and Atoms. diversity of students in its talent search. Prior to Duke TIP, Young spearheaded the expansion the Office of Engineering Outreach Programs (OEOP) at MIT, serving as the executive director for eight years. PLAYfest 2021: Two Days of Wonder 3 Speaker Schedule Session 3: Surprise Arthur Benjamin Eva Galperin Dr. Arthur Benjamin is the Smallwood Family Professor of Eva Galperin is EFF's Director of Cybersecurity. Prior to 2007, Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College. He has been when she came to work for EFF, Eva worked in security and IT repeatedly honored by the Mathematical Association of in Silicon Valley and earned degrees in Political Science and America for his teaching and writing, and was recently International Relations from SFSU.