NYU’s Dana Karwas named director of Center for Collaborative Arts and Media

Karwas took up her post at the interdisciplinary research center on Jan. 14. She will also hold an appointment at the Yale School of Architecture.
Dana Karwas
Dana Karwas

Dana Karwas, formerly of New York University (NYU), is the new director of the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM). She took up her post on Jan. 14, and will also hold an appointment at the Yale School of Architecture during the 2019-2020 academic year.

CCAM is an interdisciplinary research center at 149 York St. where traditional arts blend with computer science and technology. 

Before coming to Yale, Karwas was on the NYU faculty as an Industry Assistant Professor of Integrated Digital Media (IDM). There, she helped build the IDM program, for both graduates and undergraduates, focusing on creative practice, design research, and multidisciplinary experimentation with emerging technologies. She developed courses that spanned art and design practice; led collaborations for her students with NASA/JPL, MoMA PS1, Microsoft, and others; and served as an adviser for RLab, a Brooklyn-based research and entrepreneurship center for VR, motion capture and other emerging media technologies. She has also taught at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, NYU’s Courant Institute, and Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center.

In practice and in the classroom, Karwas says, she sees technology, particularly experimental technology, as a flexible, perpetually transforming tool for bringing interdisciplinary arts into collaboration. She says she is committed to increasing opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations and expanding the possibilities of mediums.

In her own work, she says, she has a specific interest in the boundaries of sensory perception and rendering the invisible visible. Her work is also influenced by her time as the media director of Maya Lin’s fifth memorial — “What is Missing?” — where she provided project direction and execution for the worldwide, multimedia exhibition about climate change and endangered species. She still serves as an adviser to the project. Galleries, museums, and festivals have also shown her work, among them the Federation of Canadian Artists’ Federation Gallery; The Helix Center NYC; the Caracas Contemporary Art Museum; the London Festival of Architecture; the Museum of the Moving Image; the Boston Museum of Science; the Chelsea Art Museum; Exit Art; and the DUMBO Arts Festival.

Karwas holds a Master of Professional Studies degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Kansas’ School of Architecture, Design, and Planning.

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