Fellowships 2017
Cassie Tarakajian (2017)
Cassie Tarakajian is a software developer, hardware engineer, creative technologist, and artist. She is a cofounder at the digital creative agency Girlfriends, an engineer at Cycling '74, and a contributor to open source. She is interested in ways that art drives technology and vice versa. Cassie was mentored by Daniel Shiffman and Lauren McCarthy. This Fellowship is sponsored by NYU ITP. Read about her fellowship project here.
The p5.js Web Editor is an in-browser interactive development environment for writing p5.js sketches. It aims to lower the bar for creative coding. Users can start writing p5.js by simply opening a browser window, without the need to download software or do any configuration. It is free to use and it is an open source project.
Andrew Nicolaou (2017)
Andrew Nicolaou is a Creative Technologist with a background building web applications and connected products. He's passionate about the power web-based tools offer for expanding creative expression. Andrew was mentored by Cassie Tarakajian. Read about his fellowship project here.
Andrew worked on general enhancements to the p5.js Web Editor. He'll also explored ways to support new users and shorten the feedback loop for discovering p5.js features and iterating on ideas.
DIY Girls (2017)
DIY Girls seeks to increase girl’s interest and success in STEAM through new educational experiences and mentor relationships. Sylvia Aguiñaga is the director of curriculum at DIY Girls and a digital media artist with Y_NIS. Vanessa Landes is a program leader at DIY Girls and a Biomedical engineering PhD student at USC. They were mentored by Jesse Cahn-Thompson and Lauren McCarthy. Read about their fellowship project here.
Sylvia and Vanessa worked with their mentors to add creative new projects to the DIY Girls’ Processing curriculum, emphasize programming in p5.js, and broaden accessibility by offering English and Spanish zines online.
Gottfried Haider (2017)
Gottfried Haider is an artist, educator and tool-maker. His background is Digital Arts, with a degree from the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He is also recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and holds an MFA in Design Media Arts from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Gottfried was mentored by Ben Fry. Read about his fellowship project here.
Gottfried worked on libraries, tutorials, and core infrastructure for running Processing on small and inexpensive ARM devices running Linux.
Niklas Peters (2017)
Niklas Peters is a visual artist and musician based in Johannesburg. Prior to moving to South Africa, he worked as a portfolio analyst at an impact investing non-profit headquartered in NYC. Niklas was mentored by Daniel Shiffman. Read more about his fellowship project here.
Niklas developed and piloted a curriculum to introduce learners with low computer literacy to the fundamentals of computer programming and creative expression through code.
Saskia Freeke (2017)
Saskia Freeke is an artist, creative coder, interaction and visual designer. She is interested in creating playful experiences. She makes daily art, mainly generated with code, since January 1, 2015. She is a member of Code Liberation and is doing her masters in Computational Arts at Goldsmiths University of London. Saskia was mentored by Phoenix Perry and Johanna Hedva. Read more about her fellowship project here.
To encourage women to explore coding as a tool to express themselves in creative ways, Saskia developed, organized, and created a series of workshops to teach p5.js in person to women, non-binary, and femme-identifying people in London and Europe, in collaborations with Code Liberation.
Susan Evans (2017)
Susan Evans is passionate about creating safe, inclusive, and supportive computer science education communities. She has a diverse background in improving the human experience through UX design and code. She rides her bike everywhere and doesn't think aptitude is a thing. Susan was mentored by Dr. Rhazes Spell. Read more about her fellowship project here.
People in prison deserve open access to education, especially computer science education, which opens access to high-paying jobs. Susan crafted and offered a series of classes in Washington state prisons using p5.js.