JoAnn Kuchera-Morin

Bio

Director and Chief Scientist of the AlloSphere Research Facility and Professor of Media Arts and Technology and Music (Composition), in the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Also is the Founding Director of the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology at UCSB.

Kuchera-Morin's research focuses on composition,creative computational systems, content, and facilities design. Her 35 years of experience in digital media research led to the creation of a multi-million dollar sponsored research program for the University of California—the Digital Media Innovation Program. She was Chief Scientist of the Program from 1998 to 2003. The culmination of her creativity and research is the AlloSphere, a 30-foot diameter, 3-story high metal cylinder inside an echo-free cube, designed for immersive/interactive scientific/artistic investigation of multi-dimensional data sets.

A composer of mixed media works, she received her Ph.D. in 1984 from the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. Her current music research is focusing on a general purpose interface for control of digital information through natural performance gesture. A composer of primarily electro-acoustic works, her music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.