John Maeda
RISD [President]
John Maeda is a world-renowned artist,
graphic designer, computer scientist and educator whose career reflects
his philosophy of humanizing technology. For more than a decade, he
has worked to integrate technology, education and the arts into a 21st-century
synthesis of creativity and innovation. Maeda became president of the
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in June, 2008.
At RISD, Maeda seeks to champion
the necessary role that artists and designers play in the 21st
century creative economy. He sees the traditional, hand-crafted
techniques that are fundamental to a RISD education as increasingly
relevant in a overly-digital world, as people seek to reconnect with
what is real and authentic. As President, he seeks to connect
RISD to the political, economic, social, and business spheres where
artists and designers will make a difference, and has prioritized fundraising
for scholarships to ensure the broadest possible access to a RISD education.
Maeda's early work redefined the
use of electronic media as a tool for expression by combining skilled
computer programming with sensitivity to traditional artistic concerns.
This work helped to develop the interactive motion graphics that are
prevalent on the web today. As a digital artist, Maeda has exhibited
in well-received one-man shows in London, New York and Paris. His work
is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Cartier Foundation in Paris.
He is a trustee of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
and has designed advanced projects for major corporations such as Cartier,
Google, Philips, Reebok and Samsung, among others.
In 2008 Maeda was named one of the
75 most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire magazine.
In 2001 he earned the National Design Award in the US; in 2002, the
Mainichi Design Prize in Japan; and in 2005, the Raymond Loewy Foundation
Prize in Germany.
A former professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Maeda taught media arts and sciences there
for 12 years and served as associate director of research at the MIT
Media Lab. He has published four books, his most recent, The Laws of
Simplicity, has been translated into 14 languages. Maeda has lectured
widely, including at Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton,
the Royal College of Art, Stanford and UCLA; at the Centre Pompidou,
TED conferences and Walker Art Center; and for corporations such as
Herman Miller, Sony, Steelcase, Toshiba and Yahoo!.
A native of Seattle, Maeda earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT, followed by a PhD in Design Science from the University of Tsukuba Institute of Art and Design in Japan and an MBA from Arizona State University.
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