This presentation will focus on how elevating the need for personal expression in computing can heavily influence the course of applied CS research, teaching methods in computing, and the kinds of aesthetic and technical questions we ask in the fields if both the expressive and computing sides of the experience can be done so authentically. The work covered in this talk will be used to illustrate how authentic combinations of the arts and computing can elicit significant research contributions on both the technical and aesthetic side. It will present the highlights of our work in computational creativity, constructionist learning environments for CS education using music remixing, and our exploration of deep learning as a potentially powerful tool for human / AI co-creative domains.

Dr. Magerko is an Associate Professor of Digital Media & head of the Adaptive Digital Media (ADAM) Lab at Georgia Tech. He received his B.S. in Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon (1999) and his MS and Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan (2001, 2006). His research explores the intersection of creativity, cognition, and computing. This interdisciplinary work leads to studying creativity and human cognition, building artificial intelligence systems that can creatively collaborate with human users, and exploring the use of human creativity as a gateway to better understanding how to effectively teach computing skills. Much of this work results in cutting edge digital media experiences in digital games, interactive narrative, and educational media. Dr. Magerko has been research lead on over $5 million of federally-funded research, has authored over 60 peer reviewed articles related to cognition, creativity, and computation; is a recent TEDx presenter; has had his work shown at galleries and museums internationally, and has been design lead on a learning environment for computer science – called EarSketch – that has been used by over thirty thousand learners worldwide.