We’re excited to welcome seven Northeastern Ph.D. students to our growing Center for the Arts community!

Based out of CAMD’s Interdisciplinary Design and Media Ph.D. program, these student affiliates will play an informal but essential role in the Center. They are already embedded in creative initiatives and arts-based, interdisciplinary research at the university; thus, this title is largely meant to bring awareness of the creative work they’ve already been doing.

Our Ph.D. students include:

Sutanuka Jashu is an interdisciplinary artist–researcher and technologist whose work examines how artificial intelligence mediates cultural memory, identity, and technological infrastructures. Working at the intersection of Human–AI interaction, speculative design, and media archaeology, her practice combines research-creation, computational systems, and spatial storytelling to critically engage with extractive technological logics and prototype regenerative, culturally responsive futures.

Ximena Lainfiesta researches the intersection of women’s health, communication, and technology. She holds four master’s degrees across three continents, including specializations in NeuroLearning, Cultural and Creative Industries, Digital Communication Leadership, and ICT4D. With over 14 years of experience as an audiovisual journalist and communicator for development, she has led impactful initiatives including Alma, COVID-19 health communication reaching 2 million Guatemalans, and Enciéndete, a STEM education project empowering youth to create community health solutions. Both projects received National Innovation Awards from Guatemala’s SENACYT.

Alayt Issak is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in philosophy, art, and AI at CAMD. Alayt’s research explores “creative expression through new technologies” ⎯ the new technology being AI. Using a human-computer interaction (HCI) lens, they ask what creativity, art, aesthetics, expression and embodiment are with AI weaved into the creative practice.

Jessica Roseman is a choreographer, somatic researcher, curator, and movement educator whose practice-based research explores how embodied attention shapes perception and participation in public space. Drawing on Black embodied feminism, her work examines how movement supports reflection and agency across diverse populations. She recently produced Your Portal, a somatic interactive installation at Cambridge KiOSK/CultureHouse.

Roseman’s projects have been presented by Movement Research, Miami Light Project, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston with Global Arts Live. She has collaborated with deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum and held residencies at Mass MoCA and Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Sydney Purdue’s research interests are primarily in data visualization, specifically in data physicalization and situated visualization. She is particularly interested in how visualization interacts with craft and making, and how we can make more interesting visualizations by working in different mediums. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Boston Cyberarts Gallery (Boston, MA), Moskow Linn Architects (Cambridge, MA) and the Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center (Solomons, MD).

Josephine Ross has studied, taught, and directed at theaters, universities, and non-profit organizations throughout Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Currently, Josephine serves as Research Assistant and Dramaturg for the DTC while working as Theatre Coordinator at Hyde Square Task Force, a creative youth development site for Afro-Latin teens and partner organization with the DTC.

Monica Storss is a poet and researcher whose work on Relationality and Emerging Technology is based out of Northeastern University and MIT. She is a Certified Listener Poet with The Good Listening Project. She is a founding member of The Laboratory for Speculative Repair at Northeastern University, an experimental working group that examines healing our relationship with technology and each other through experiential modalities.