School of Humanities and Sciences


Showing 1-9 of 9 Results

  • Jeremy Bailenson

    Jeremy Bailenson

    Thomas More Storke Professor, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Education

    BioJeremy Bailenson is founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Thomas More Storke Professor in the Department of Communication, Professor (by courtesy) of Education, Professor (by courtesy) Program in Symbolic Systems, and a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. He has served as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication for over a decade. He earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1994 and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Northwestern University in 1999. He spent four years at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and then an Assistant Research Professor.

    Bailenson studies the psychology of Virtual and Augmented Reality, in particular how virtual experiences lead to changes in perceptions of self and others. His lab builds and studies systems that allow people to meet in virtual space, and explores the changes in the nature of social interaction. His most recent research focuses on how virtual experiences can transform education, environmental conservation, empathy, and health. He is the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford. In 2020, IEEE recognized his work with “The Virtual/Augmented Reality Technical Achievement Award”.

    He has published more than 200 academic papers, spanning the fields of communication, computer science, education, environmental science, law, linguistics, marketing, medicine, political science, and psychology. His work has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation for over 25 years.

    His first book Infinite Reality, co-authored with Jim Blascovich, emerged as an Amazon Best-seller eight years after its initial publication, and was quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court. His new book, Experience on Demand, was reviewed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Nature, and The Times of London, and was an Amazon Best-seller.

    He has written opinion pieces for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, CNN, PBS NewsHour, Wired, National Geographic, Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle, TechCrunch, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and has produced or directed six Virtual Reality documentary experiences which were official selections at the Tribeca Film Festival. His lab has exhibited VR in hundreds of venues ranging from The Smithsonian to The Superbowl.

  • Jonathan Berger

    Jonathan Berger

    Denning Family Provostial Professor

    BioJonathan Berger is the Denning Family Provostial Professor in Music at Stanford University, where he teaches composition, music theory, and cognition, and directs the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).
    Jonathan is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2016 winner of the Rome Prize.
    He was the founding co-director of the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SICA, now the Stanford Arts Institute) and founding director of Yale University’s Center for Studies in Music Technology
    Described as “gripping” by both the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, “poignant”, “richly evocative” (San Francisco Chronicle), “taut, and hauntingly beautiful” (NY Times), Jonathan Berger’s recent works deal with both consciousness and conscience. His monodrama, My Lai, toured internationally. The Kronos Quartet's recording was released by Smithsonian/Folkways. His opera, The Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist was performed at Lincoln Center in July 2024. Other recent premiers include Hajar Yasini for narrator, string quartet and video (premiered by the Kronos Quartet), and Mekong:Soul (co-composed with Van Anh Vo) which was performed at the Kennedy Center and in Houston.
    Thrice commissioned by The National Endowment for the Arts, Berger’a recent commissions include The Mellon and Rockefeller Foundations, Chamber Music Society, Lincoln Center, and Chamber Music America.

    In addition to composition, Berger is an active researcher with over 80 publications in a wide range of fields relating to music, science and technology and has held research grants from DARPA, the Wallenberg Foundation, The National Academy of Sciences, the Keck Foundation, and others.
    Berger is the PI of a major grant from the Templeton Religion Trust to study how music and architecture interact to create a sense of awe.

  • Michael Bernstein

    Michael Bernstein

    Associate Professor of Computer Science

    BioMichael Bernstein is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he is a Bass University Fellow and Interim Director of the Symbolic Systems program. His research focuses on designing social, societal, and interactive technologies. This research has been reported in venues such as The New York Times, Wired, Science, and Nature. Michael has been recognized with an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the UIST Lasting Impact Award, and the Computer History Museum's Patrick J. McGovern Tech for Humanity Prize. He holds a bachelor's degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, as well as a master's degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT.

  • Keith Bowen

    Keith Bowen

    Director, Learning Design Challenge, SAL Digital Learning

    BioFor 20+ years, I have worked in the fields of international relief, development, and conflict resolution, building capacity in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, South Africa, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as educating students in the U.S., Europe, and other countries who aspire to work in these fields.

    Academics & Film
    I've worked as an academic and filmmaker, creating educational documentaries on liberation movements around the world, which I've then used with university students in my classrooms. I've had several programs distributed by the Discovery Channel, which has been rewarding, but what has been especially remarkable to me is the response of my students. I've come to appreciate the power of narrative and immediacy of film to transform students' perceptions of the world and their place in it.

    Learning Design
    Along with an emphasis on narrative and immediacy, I've built interactive programs that draw students into learning through exploration and discovery - with a dynamically shifting experience based on student choice and response. I've also developed learning programs featuring advanced multiplayer simulations with both live and online interaction.

    Scale
    I've taken this work to scale. In my work for the U.S. Government and international humanitarian organizations, I've created courses that have been completed by tens of thousands of students and practitioners, not only at the State Department, USAID, relief agencies, and universities in the U.S., but also at comparable institutions in other countries, and even in internet cafes and refugee camps around the world. I've earned about a dozen awards for these various efforts and have delivered presentations on it for the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, the 57 countries of the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe, the 35 countries of the Organization for American States, and others.

    Virtual Exchange & "Wicked" Global Problems
    I am continuing this work here at Stanford. My focus now is on using new media and technology to bring university students in the U.S. and other high-income countries into extended contact with counterpart students in fragile states and zones of conflict to address complex problems that no single country can solve on its own. As students work collaboratively to address these "wicked" problems, we measure advances in learning and shifts in attitude through qualitative and quantitative methods.

    This is an extraordinary time for those who use media and technology in teaching and learning. Blended in smart combinations, especially with traditional in-person learning, the new tools we have are powerful:

    - Visual narrative, through its expression in digital cinema
    - Expanding and interconnecting networks of lifelong learners
    - Complex human interaction, including multiplayer games and simulations
    - Complex machine interaction, including generative AI, dynamically responsive to learner needs
    - Statistical data analysis, upon which to base informed, iterative human-centered design
    - Worldwide electronic distribution, especially to inexpensive mobile devices

    If we do this right, the world will be much better for it.

  • Michael Bratman

    Michael Bratman

    U. G. and Abbie Birch Durfee Professor

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsPhilosophy of action, where this includes issues about individual agency over time, social and institutional organization and agency, and practical rationality.

  • Joan Bresnan

    Joan Bresnan

    Sadie Dernham Patek Professor in Humanities, Emerita

    BioAvailable at https://web.stanford.edu/~bresnan/