Leonardo Network News

Melinda Klayman and Jim Crutchfield Elected to Leonardo/ISAST Governing Board

The Leonardo/ISAST Governing Board welcomes Melinda Klayman and Jim Crutchfield as two of its newest members. Klayman and Crutchfield were elected to the board at its August and October 2009 meetings, respectively.

Melinda Klayman is program manager for Sony U(x)nited, the User Experience team for Sony and Sony Ericsson, where she combines her background in art and art history with experience in mobile computing to influence the future of consumer technology. After a bit of notoriety for co-creating the sexy online role-playing game Anime Noir, Melinda’s personal endeavors to combine art, science and technology in her own work have been limited to occasionally dancing the robot. Otherwise she just offers her opinion on other people’s efforts, which is why the world invented the discipline of art criticism. In her spare time, Melinda fronts the San Francisco band Madam and the Ants.

Jim Crutchfield received his B.A. summa cum laude in physics and mathematics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1979 and his Ph.D. in physics there in 1983. He is currently a professor of physics at the University of California, Davis, where he is helping to start up its new Center for Computational Science and Engineering. Until recently he was Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI), where he ran the Dynamics of Learning Group, and Adjunct Professor of Physics in the Physics Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. From 1985 until coming to SFI in 1997, he was a research physicist in the physics department at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). He also has been a visiting research professor at the Sloan Center for Theoretical Neurobiology, University of California, San Francisco; a post-doctoral fellow of the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at UCB; a UCB physics department IBM post-doctoral fellow in condensed matter physics; a distinguished visiting research professor of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and a Bernard Osher Fellow at the San Francisco Exploratorium.

University of Minho Joins Affiliate Membership Program

The Master Program in Technology and Digital Art is organized by the University of Minho, recognized as one of the top universities in Portugal, with the participation of faculty from the schools of architecture, communication sciences, engineering, psychology and education. It approaches technology as a tool for artistic expression, exploring new concepts for interactive experiences. This master program bridges engineering, design and artistic processes from conceptualization through prototyping to the implementation stage. It is oriented toward individuals with an artistic or technological background aiming at acquiring a different point of view on their creative process. It provides hands-on experience through the development of projects during the semester, working closely with the teaching staff. Seminars, exhibitions and other opportunities are organized for the students to exhibit their work.

Organizations joining the Leonardo Affiliate Membership program gain access to the full spectrum of opportunities offered exclusively to members, including enhanced networking with peers, new opportunities for collaborations, and invitations to participate in upcoming Leonardo-sponsored exhibitions, panels, workshops and other activities. For more information and to join the program, visit: < www.leonardo.info/isast/orgmembership.html >.

Leonardo Reviews Change of E-mail Address

The main e-mail address for Leonardo Reviews has been changed. It is now: <ldr@leonardo.info>. All e-mail sent to the previous e-mail address <ldr@leonardo.org> is irretrievable.

Leonardo Reviews is the work of an international panel of scholars and professionals invited from a wide range of disciplines to review books, exhibitions, CD-ROMs, web sites and conferences. New reviews are posted every month on the Leonardo Reviews web site.

Leonardo Top-Rated Abstracts for First Half of 2009

Leonardo/the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology is pleased to announce the top-rated abstracts published in the English-language Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) databases during the first half of 2009.

LABS, consisting of the English-language, Spanish-language, Chinese-language and French-language LABS databases, is a comprehensive collection of Ph.D., Masters and MFA thesis abstracts on topics in the emerging...