Music can be both the catalyst and foundation for the advancement of creative engineering and science-based curricula, as well as for designing new methodologies for music, art and entertainment production, and human perception. My teaching and research approach is less focused on technology alone, rather, on limiting materials so that students can learn fundamentals of the creative process and production.  What makes interactive story-telling compelling?  How does one create drama on both the micro and macro levels?  How can we marry sensing technologies into the fabric of an interactive piece, rather than having the technology be a distraction to the participant?  Effective engagement in this form of cultural production requires students equipped with an understanding of not only how to build and use tools for creating new digital media content, but how to think critically and strategically about the productive processes in which they are involved.

Listen to my students' compositions.

Jacob Berman's chamber piece.

DIGIVATIONS is a creative enterprise with community-focused experiences centered on its NASA award winning STEM+ARTS+HUMANITIES+KINESTHETIC innovative pedagogy.    Their expansion from the Pacific Northwest is based on the Camp’s initial mission, belief and promise that the inspirational camp founder, 9 year old Jacob Berman, now a first year student at Cornell University, held, along with his parents Drs. Berman, similar to the values of Rick Riordans’ Famous Camp Half-Blood demigod world.  Associate Director, Jacob said, “youth need a safe and positive environment where they feel they belong and are accepted without the pressures of cliques and discrimination often experienced in school.  Providing an inclusive community where everyone can feel like a family is as vital today as it was ten years ago.”  These beliefs are consistent with the Berman’s Family founded 501(c)(3) educational non-profit’s primary mission of “Inspiring the Next Generation of Innovators, Fostering Future Mentors and Thoughtful Leaders Enabling Positive Social Change.”  With this framework, DIGIVATIONS is expanding to Upstate NY from WA State and BC, Canada in response to requests from its many thousands of global students, alumni, parents and educators over the past decade.

Drs. Berman collaborated in launching DIGIVATIONS inspired by their years of university teaching, including at esteemed universities such as UCLA and UCSB.  Throughout DIGIVATIONS’ history, Steve, Anne and Jacob have followed a trajectory of organically and dynamically transforming to encompass new ideas, passions and needs of youth.  Dr. Steve Berman states, “We empower youth and adults to confidently develop positive growth mindsets, and apply their respective innate reservoir of imaginations and talents to catalyze true change in their communities, as well as regionally, nationally and globally.”  International composer Anne Deane Berman, PhD states, “We ask students to create new art, music, theatrical and creative writing works based on Dr. Steve’s Innovation World Building Challenges.  Over the past ten years, we have witnessed that their immersion in such multidisciplinary domains deepens their appreciation of science and the humanities, expanding their perspectives of critical global issues relating to the SDGs.  Through this rigorous Creative Engagement, youth translate their enhanced feelings of connectedness to the planet into positive action as they grow into adults.”

To this end,  DIGIVATIONS XGENS Model UN and 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals Institute ™ & Accelerator and Incubator, XGENS.org, was established building on the foundations of DIGIVATIONS’ global activities and focus. XGENS delegation traveled throughout the world where delegates have served in leadership roles including for Specialized and Crisis Committees, including at the UN’s Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland; UN headquarters located in New York City; Yale University, New Haven; as well as Harvard and Yale MUN conferences online.  XGENS Accelerator and Incubator enables DIGIVATIONS’ global community of thousands of youth, counselors, educators and professional network of leaders in academia, government and industry to create new artistic works and launch new enterprises and future unicorns that support the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets especially those focused on Enabling Equity and Inclusion; Resolving Food Insecurity Issues; Advancing Healthcare Access and Innovations Enabling a Healthier World; Propelling Positive Climate Solutions and Social Justice; Ensuring a Human Centric Future of Work Framework in an AI World, as well as Rethinking Implementation of Sustainable Environments and Infrastructure; and Democratizing Commercial Space, among other domain topics. 

Dr. Berman’s research in Virtual Reality and Sensor Technologies coordinates sound synthesis and acoustic composition with interactive environments designed to express historical events, scientific visualization, cultural and social phenomena.   She collaborates as a researcher/composer with engineers, artists, and choreographers from University of California, Santa Barbara, UCLA, University of British Columbia and Iowa State University and her non-profit DIGIVATIONS.  Works have been installed/performed in more than 75 venues in over a dozen countries and for radio and TV (SIGGRAPH, IEE Conference: Germany, International Human Computer Interface Conference: Las Vegas, World Internet Conference: Madrid, Goteborg Museum of Art: Sweden, International Super Computing).  Her works are distributed on CD and DVD (Innova, Nuema and MIT Press record labels).  Her compositions are celebrated in various publications, books and journals (i.e. Digital Storytelling: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment, Focal Press). She has produced televised live concerts, including a nationally televised tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by The Philadelphia Orchestra through A&E Television Network. 

Dr. Berman's Undergraduate and Graduate teaching demonstrates breadth and depth of knowledge and integration of scholarship into course work: Introduction to Music, Music Theory Sequence, Composition, Digital Audio, Interdisciplinary Studies in Media Arts and Technology, New Media and Society,  and Survey of 20th Century Music.  Dr. Berman oversees 5-10 faculty each summer who are uniquely talented in working with K-22 students in fields which include the arts (film, music, theatre, visual art), literature (creative, play and script writing) and humanities (anthropology, ethnographics, Greek and Roman mythology, along with the myths and fables emanating from the Middle Ages, linguistics, and Futurism), Innovation (design thinking, science (biology, biomimicry, genetics, sustainability, rocketry), technology (analog and digital games and programming, cognitive analytics (singularity), intelligent infrastructure and transportation and engineering) and theatrical combat and martial arts.  She provides assistance to students in understanding the value and relevance of the subject matter, both within the discipline and in a broader context.