Ali Momeni
Location:
- Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America
Bio:
Ali was born in Isfahan (Iran) and emigrated to the United States at the age of twelve. He studied physics and music at Swarthmore College and completed his doctoral degree in music composition, improvisation and performance with computers from the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at UC Berkeley. Between 2007 and 2011, Momeni was an assistant professor in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he directed the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art, and founded the urban projection collective called the MAW. Momeni next served as an associate professor in the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University where he founded and directed CMU ArtFab, a laboratory that focused on making complex creative workflows accessible to youth and non-technical folks. Momeni was also a founding faculty member in CMU’s IDEATE program, and contributed to the Music Technology program. In 2018, Ali joined Shield.ai as a Senior Principal Scientist focused on User Experience, and Brown University as a Professor of Practice within the Brown Arts Initiative and Data Science Initiative. In addition to his work in industry and his academic research and teaching, Ali is also co-founder of IRL Labs, an educational technology start-up focused on transforming everyday situations into interactive learning opportunities using everyday technologies. His research interests include educational technologies, human-computer-interaction for performative applications of robotics, playful urban interventions, interactive projection performance, machine learning for artists and designers, interactive tools for experiential learning, mobile and hybrid musical instruments, and the intersection of sound, music and health.