The Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity will bring speakers to campus for four public events this semester, including a design thinking workshop with Virginia Rath on Jan. 29 and an April session focused on eco-conscious design.
The April 8 event, “Digital Fabrication/Place-Based & Eco-Conscious Adaptive Design,” will feature speakers Celine Izsak ‘14 and Sam Koren. Izsak '14 is an educator and poet from the Sonoran Desert who has worked as a visiting assistant professor and instructor in the English Department at the University of Iowa. Koren is an architect, artist and the founder of ONE TO ONE, a New York-based studio specializing in computer-aided design and digital manufacturing methods.
Their talk will explore the potential for computational design and fabrication to bring experimental forms into the material world, specifically focused on an off-grid residential project in the Mojave Desert.
Other events include:
- “Design Thinking and Ethnographic Interviewing Skills,” with Virginia Rath, faculty member at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, 4:30-7:30 p.m., Jan. 29, Carol Tatkon Center. Rath is principal of Ariadne Consulting, a firm specializing in ethnographic research and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. During her workshop, participants will use design thinking to explore qualitative approaches (customer observations and ethnographic interviews) to understand end-users and uncover unspoken (or emerging) needs from their stories.
- “Design Thinking Workshop,” with Camille Andrews and Marsha Taichman, Cornell University library staff, 4:30-7:30 p.m., March 18. Andrews is a user engagement librarian at Mann Library, while Taichman is the visual resources and public services librarian at the Fine Arts Library.
- A visit with Peter Asaro, associate professor of media studies at The New School, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m., April 22. Asaro’s work examines artificial intelligence and robotics as a form of digital media, the ethical dimensions of algorithms and data, and the ways in which technology mediates social relations and shapes our experience of the world.
The Milstein Program is for students who have interests in both technology and the humanities. It combines the benefits of a liberal arts education in the College of Arts & Sciences with two summers spent taking courses and completing projects at Cornell Tech in New York City.
