Who We Are

VICTOR MINCES

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I came to love science and the arts at an early age. By the time I finished high school my love for art continued, but I had been taught that science was a boring set of tedious rules created by a small set of mad geniuses. I enrolled in the School of Fine Arts, where I studied for two years. During that time I gradually became intrigued by the beauty of the physical world and the challenge of understanding it. I playfully signed up to take a couple of courses at the school of Physical Sciences, at the University of Buenos Aires.

Those “couple of courses” turned into a few years of hard and joyful study that took me to a Ph.D. in computational neurobiology at the University of California, San Diego, where I studied how visual and auditory signals are processed in the brain. As a postdoctoral researcher, I was privileged to start putting science and arts together by studying the relationship between music performance and human cognition.

As a scientist I never forgot my school experience and continuously went back to schools, first carrying brains around as a founding member of the neuroscience outreach group, then showing the connections between science and music. Seeing a student’s eyes widen when they see a brain for the first time, or when they first make a connection between a sound and a waveform, has been one of the greatest pleasures of my relationship with science. It is my vision that every child connects with science, at least once in their lives, through the experience of wonder. I think a deep look into music is a great place to start.

Visit my personal website to see my art connecting music and science: www.victorminces.com

My CV

ANGELA BOOKER

Angela Booker is currently studying the ways youth, families, and schools make use of media and technology for participation, learning and community development. She is particularly concerned with addressing barriers that diminish access to public participation among underrepresented and disenfranchised communities. She uses ethnographic, qualitative and design-based research methods to examine typical and emerging practices where youth and adults work together (and at times, in conflict). Collaborations with youth, community partners, educators and scholars form the basis of her work.

SUSAN YONEZAWA

Susan Yonezawa is Associate Director of CREATE at the University of California, San Diego. Yonezawa straddles the worlds of policy, practice, and research, working to embed research and design techniques and mindsets into the lived practices and policies of urban public schooling. She analyzes and engages issues of diversity, opportunity, and inequality in schools and communities, with a focus on the district, school and classroom leverage points that can increase college access for underrepresented, low-income students.

Alec Barron is the Director of the San Diego Science Project at UC San Diego CREATE. Through this role, he supports science educator networks, delivers engaging science programs and resources, and builds bridges between researchers and educators through shared learning. In previous roles as a K12 science teacher and administrator, he led the design of new curricula, professional learning, and instructional coaching to support NGSS implementation. As a leader, he is interested in how we develop systems and supports for science educators to continuously improve and innovate as equity designers.

Previous and present contributors and collaborators

Andrea Chiba (Master for a day, master for life)

Alexander Khalil (University College Cork, Ireland)

Hortense Gerardo (Artistic collaborator, Antropology, Performance, and Technology program at UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering)

Wanli Xing (Mflow team, UF Gainesville)

Maya Israel (Mflow team, UF Gainesville)

Chenglu Lu (Mflow team, U of Utah)

San Diego County Office of Education (curriculum development, John Spiegel and Crystal Howe)

Sweetwater High School School District

Chula Vista Elementary School District (curriculum development, Marlys Williamson)

San Joaquin County Office of Education

Isabel Delgado (U. de Puerto Rico)

Zifeng Liu (Mflow team, UF Gainesville)

Song Youkyeong (Mflow team, UF Gainesville)

Chris Olivas (High Tech High)

Kate Challen (High Tech High)

Matthew Rice (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Anirudh Annabathula (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Jeremy Frank (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Julia Bang (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Sidhesha Kaurav (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Nipun Wahi (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Zachary Weiner (speaker/microphone kit, UCSD)

Mathew Lu (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Fan Zheng  (Mflow team, UF Gainsville)

Saurabh Keanohgar (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

John Kim (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Jonathan Fong (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Kush Parmar (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Frank Ye (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Wenxiao Li (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Ziyan Li (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Chi Wong (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Xin Sheng (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Pablo Canas Castellanos (Web Apps developer, at UCSD)

Renelle Gadon (curriculum developer, at UCSD)

Carmel Farzaneh (video maker, at UCSD)

Brody Hess (Music composer, partner in the ‘collective resonance’ performance)