This presentation will focus on the integration of studying human creativity and cognition with the purpose of creating digital media experiences that have a key computational component. It will present two current works on this theme of creativity, cognition, and computation: the Digital Improv Project, an NSF-funded multi-year effort focused on the cognitive study of professional improvisational actors to inform interactive narrative technology practices; and EarSketch, a software and curriculum approach that leverages student creativity to learn computing principles through the remixing of music with code. These two projects will be used as exemplars of Dr. Magerko's research in leveraging human creativity for the design of digital media technologies and experiences. This talk will conclude with a description of the long-term trajectory for this research in entertainment and educational digital media applications with examples of upcoming projects.

Dr. Magerko is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Director of the Adaptive Digital Media (ADAM) Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon in 1999, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 2001 and 2006 respectively. He has been a pioneer in the field of interactive narrative technologies, developing AI-based technologies for interactive narrative such as IDA, ISAT, and the Digital Improv Project. Dr. Magerko's research in digital media lives within the space of computation, creativity and cognition, which delves into understanding more about humans as creative beings to enable the creation of new digital media experiences.