Examines the question of value through the lens of cultural institutions big and small. Explores examples from real world case studies, focuses on areas of value, ways to measure impact on both qualitative and quantitative levels, and how to demonstrate that impact to a variety of audiences from our daily visitors to our federal government. Value in the cultural sector is a critical question that institutions and individuals working in this area must answer on a regular basis for themselves, their constituents, and their supporters.

Explores tools, technologies, and processes to create prototypes of artifacts, environments, and interactive systems for experience design projects. Offers students the opportunity to learn, use, experiment with, and test prototypes using a wide range of state-of-the-art prototyping technologies to further their understanding of multiple strategies and techniques of prototyping for experience design. Tools and techniques change over time but typically include laser cutting, 3D printing, CNC machining, electronics prototyping, augmented reality, machine tools and 2D forming, fast prototyping, and hand tools.

Aims to study and increase your level of proficiency in group interaction. Instructs in small group decision-making processes, problem solving, and the interpersonal dynamics of groups. Students develop skills in working with and in a variety of small groups. Topics include communication dynamics, systems thinking, dialogue, conflict management, leadership, power, teams, and learning organizations.

Explores the multiple and complicated ways in which our lives and ways of thinking are impacted by what things we decide to keep and how we organize access to them, i.e., storage. Using readings, podcasts, short films, and TV shows, the course uses the idea of storage to explore the Cloud and other contemporary media “containers” and what the future of storage holds as we try to find space and time to store and retrieve our data, memories, clothes, food, and more. Exploring these containers raises important questions and concerns about the social consequences of buying things (accumulation and consumption) and a general cultural anxiety about information overload, as well as issues related to gender, class, the economy, the environment, organization, and knowledge.

Surveys the relationship between music and technology from the Paleolithic Age to the present. Examines the origins and impact of diverse musical instruments, with attention to connections between musical and technological developments; the reasons instruments are accepted, modified, or abandoned; and debates about the effects of new technologies on music. Considers such forces as standardization, institutionalization, and commodification—as well as experimentation, hacker, and DIY cultures—and asks whether music technologies are just tools or rather carry with them ethical values and ramifications. By studying the sociocultural history of such instruments as the violin, piano, electric guitar, and synthesizer, offers students an opportunity to gain an understanding of the interplay between technological change and the enduring human need for music.

Explores significant dramatic texts that have shaped and expressed the changing nature of LGBTQ identity. Readings, viewings, lectures, and discussion focus on noteworthy queer plays as literature, history, cultural documents, and performance as seen through the lens of contemporary queer theories and knowledge. Analyzing these texts for their relevance to society and our lives, students evaluate and explore a range of topics including sexual identity, gender identity, religious and political views on queerness, the evolution of LGBTQ culture and communities, drag performance, homophobia, assimilation, appropriation, and coming out. Students who do not meet course restrictions may seek permission of instructor. THTR 3200 and WMNS 3200 are cross-listed.

Sara Jensen Carr, PhD in Environmental Planning & Master of Landscape Architecture University of California, Berkeley. Her work explores the intersections of public health and the urban realm, with an approach that encompasses ecology, economy, technology, and social systems from macro to micro scales.

Jana Cephas, PhD in History of Architecture and Urban Planning, Harvard University. History and theory of urbanism with focus on urban design, preservation planning, technology, and social and spatial justice. Currently completing a book manuscript,  Fordism and the City: How an Industrial Aesthetic Shaped Detroit

Assistant Teaching Professor, Architecture

Mary Hale has a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from Brown University and a Master of Architecture from MIT. She has previously worked for Enterprise Community Partners, a non- profit organization focused on affordable housing production, where she was a program coordinator for the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship and the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute. She subsequently worked for prominent Boston architectural firms, including Shepley Bulfinch Architects and Goody Clancy Associates. She has taught three design studio courses in the School of Architecture at Northeastern, she has taught at the Boston Architectural College, and she has served as a co-instructor and teaching assistant at MIT. She currently runs her own practice that is focused on architectural installations and material exploration. She has received numerous design awards and residencies over the past 10 years.

Jason Donati holds an MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology and has previously held faculty and administrative positions at Mount Ida College. An award-winning animator and cinematographer, Dean Jason Donati’s personal animated films have been showcased internationally at some of the most prestigious Festivals and conferences in the industry, including SIGGRAPH 1999 (Los Angeles, USA), SIGGRAPH 2000 (New Orleans, USA), Ani Mundi 1999 (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil), Seoul Film Festival 1999 (Seoul, Korea) and ASIFA East 1999 & 2000 (NYC, USA). Donati is also a long-time member of the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM/SIGGRAPH) as well as the Association Internationale du Film d’ Animation (ASIFA East).

Michael Arnold Mages, PhD Carnegie Mellon University, scholar of design whose research focuses on how things (images, spaces, objects, and interfaces) help facilitate high-stakes and difficult conversations. Partner in a startup, The Art of Democracy, which designs facilitated conversation events with government and not-for-profit organizations for strategic planning, community decision-making or community co-design of projects or policy.

Kate Terrado received her MFA in Information Design and Visualization from Northeastern University and has taught courses as a part-time lecturer in the department since 2012. From 2011 to 2016, she also served as Senior Designer at Small Design Firm, under the Creative Director David Small. Her professional work finds form in the intersections of design, technology, and built environments. Using interactive data visualization, dynamic typography, physical installations, and immersive media as tools for communication, Terrado has developed a portfolio of work with a sensitivity to client goals, audience engagement, public spaces, and appropriate use of technology.

Dan Zedek’s work as a designer sits at the intersection of design, graphics, data visualization, journalism, and data storytelling—the cutting edge of journalism and the emerging fields of visual communication and literacy. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in this area as a Professor of the Practice, Professor Zedek will also develop and lead an interdisciplinary Visual Communication major. In his professional life Professor Zedek was design director of the Boston Globe from 1997 to 2016 where he led its visual transformation in print and on the web incorporating design, graphics and data in new (and award-winning) ways.

Francesca Inglese, PhD Brown University, dissertation  Colouring Cape Town: Music, Race, and Place in South Africa’s Minstrel Carnival . Recipient of the Joukowsky Family Foundation Outstanding Dissertation Award & dissertation fellowship from the American Association of University Women. Since 2016, she has been a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Dartmouth College.

Psyche Loui, PhD Psychology University of California, Berkeley. World-leading expert in the areas of creativity and improvisation. Employs behavioral, neuro-imaging, and computational modeling to trace the learning trajectory of jazz improvisation; develops mapping systems that interface with standard electroencephalography systems to create music out of electrical signals.

Dr. Bielmeier holds an Ed.D in Instructional Leadership from Argosy University and an MM in Music Composition from Bowling Green State University. He has most recently held the position of Assistant Professor in the Department of Music Technology at Indiana University, Purdue and he has also held teaching positions at Middle Tennessee State University and The Arts Institute of Washington. Dr. Bielmeier has fifteen years of experience in the role of studio manager, live sound engineer, and staff engineer, and his research focuses on the relationship between audio education and the industry, DIY circuit building, and high-resolution/multichannel recording via the internet. One of his compositions has been featured in a new collaborative album recently released on Ravello Records, entitled Mind & Machine.

Dr. Chan completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and she comes to Northeastern from the University of Wisconsin-Superior where she was the Visiting Director of Choral Activities. At Northeastern, Dr. Chan will lead the Choral Society and develop new choral opportunities for students throughout campus. Dr. Chan’s work as a professional conductor has allowed her to connect with choral communities nationally and internationally in clinics and festivals throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Her scholarly work in conducting has been published in the Australian Choral Journal and SingOut, and she has served as a national committee member of the Austrialian Natinal Choral Association.