Speaker Bios

Monica Bruning

Managing director, J CENTER for Innovative Higher Education, University of Minnesota

Monica Bruning is managing director of the Jandris Center for Innovative Higher Education in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Organizational Leadership and Professional Development. The J CENTER is anchored in the belief that transformational changes are necessary to ensure and sustain high-quality, accessible and affordable higher education for future generations. Bruning co-leads the center’s efforts to inspire leaders and scholars to make change, engage communities of innovative practice and disrupt assumptions through the use of creative tools and change practices.

She has experience serving as associate vice chancellor for enrollment and institutional effectiveness and directing related units at the University of Minnesota. Bruning was a research associate and graduate faculty member at Iowa State University and co-led numerous large, multi-year, collaborative grant projects. She has a doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies from Iowa State, a master’s in public administration from the University of Colorado-Denver and a bachelor’s in education from North Dakota State University.

Elizabeth Daley

Dean, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

Elizabeth Daley holds the Steven J. Ross/Time Warner Dean’s Chair in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She was the founding executive director of the USC Annenberg Center for Communication and serves as executive director of the USC Institute for Multimedia Literacy.

Before coming to USC in 1989 as chair of the Film and Television Production Program, Daley served as director of the film and television subsidiary of the Mark Taper Forum and was a producer for MGM/Television. She also has been an independent producer and media consultant, and serves on the board of directors of AVID Technologies, as well as a number of non-profit boards.

Daley earned a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Tulane University and Newcomb College. She has received a number of awards, including the Alfred Hitchcock Legacy Award, given on behalf of the Hitchcock Family and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. She was twice nominated for a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award.

In 2006, Daley presided over the official renaming of the USC School of Cinema and Television as the School of Cinematic Arts by George Lucas. Since then a new complex has been built, comprising production, teaching and administrative space, including four sound stages and a production center.

Under Daley’s leadership, the School of Cinematic Arts has added three new divisions in animation and digital arts and interactive media, built the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, established 25 endowed positions, and formed successful partnerships with a variety of entertainment and technology companies.

Ira Greenberg

Director, Center of Creative Computation, Southern Methodist University

Ira Greenberg holds a joint appointment as professor of computer science and engineering in the Meadows School of the Arts and the Lyle School of Engineering at SMU. Previously, he was on the faculty of Miami University (Ohio)’s School of Fine Arts and Interactive Media Studies program and was an affiliate member of the Department of Computer Science and Systems Analysis.

Greenberg earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Cornell University and master of fine arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Greenberg’s eclectic background includes work as a painter, 2D and 3D animator, print designer, web and interactive designer/developer, programmer, art director, creative director, managing director, art and computer science professor and author.

He was affiliated with the Flywheel Gallery in Piermont, New York, and the Bowery Gallery in New York City, and was a managing director and creative director for H2O Associates in New York’s Silicon Alley. He has lectured and held residencies at numerous locations around the world, including Dublin, Edinburgh and Florence (Italy), as well as across the United States, from Pennsylvania to Iowa, to California and Washington.

Greenberg’s research and teaching interests include aesthetics and computation, expressive programming, emergent forms, net-based art, artificial intelligence, physical computing and computer art pedagogy. He is currently building a new 3D graphics library, called Protobyte, for developing artificial life forms.

Charles O’Connor

Dean, Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Charles O’Connor became the Hixson-Lied Endowed Dean of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts at UNL in 2012. Previously, he was dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University; chair of the Department of Theatre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; executive director of the Nevada Conservatory Theatre; and a member of the faculty in UNL’s Department of Theatre Arts, now the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film.

O’Connor earned a master of fine arts degree from the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television (now the School of Cinema Arts) and a bachelor’s degree in theatre from California State University, Northridge. He has won numerous awards for his work in computer visualization and design for television and theatre.

At Indiana, he was instrumental in securing an endowment from Sweetwater Sound, Inc. to support a new music technology program. He also opened an off-campus art gallery as part of the city’s urban redevelopment efforts. Under his leadership at the University of Nevada, the Nevada Conservatory Theatre became the most subscribed performing arts organization in Las Vegas, winning the “Best of Las Vegas” award in 2006.

While at UNL in the 1990s, O’Connor envisioned and formed a film and new media program implementing the early use of digital technology and interactive media. He served as the faculty liaison in the planning and design of the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center and the renovated Temple Building, which houses the film and new media program.

Harvey Perlman

Chancellor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Harvey Perlman was named the 19th chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2001. He was a member of the NU law faculty from 1967 to 1974, when he joined the faculty at the University of Virginia Law School. He returned to Nebraska in 1983 to become the dean of the Nebraska Law College, a post he held until 1998 when he returned to the professoriate. He served as interim vice chancellor for academic affairs and interim chancellor before becoming chancellor.

A Nebraska native, Perlman earned a bachelor of arts degree in history and a juris doctorate from the University of Nebraska. During his law school years, he was editor in chief of the Nebraska Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif, a law honors society.

In 2011, Perlman was named an honorary university professor of Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an, China.

He is a member of the Nebraska State and American Bar Associations and is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Association.

During his tenure as chancellor, Perlman has been instrumental in securing several generous gifts from the Johnny Carson estate and the John W. Carson Foundation to support theatre and film programs in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film in the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts and the broadcasting program in the College of Journalism and Mass Communication, as well as the Johnny Carson Opportunity Scholarship Fund and the lobby renovation of the Johnny Carson Theater at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.

Perlman has enjoyed a brief film career in the You-Tube video series, “Harvey’s Perls of Knowledge.”

Virajita Singh

Senior research fellow/adjunct assistant professor, University of Minnesota College of Design
Virajita Singh leads Design Thinking @ College of Design, whose goal is to unleash the creative potential of individuals and organizations across sectors to innovate in fulfilling their mission.

She teaches Design Thinking for Innovation to graduate students from across disciplines at the university. She brings her deep expertise as a designer, educator and researcher from the fields of architecture, sustainable design and design thinking to her work, including the Higher Ed Redesign Initiative, a collaboration with the Jandris Center for Innovative Higher Education, or J CENTER, in the College of Education and Human Development and the Midwestern Higher Education Compact.

Singh’s other work includes co-leading the College of Design’s Public Interest Design Initiative and working with communities across Minnesota through the Design for Community Resilience program that she created at the Center for Sustainable Building Research. She has a bachelor’s degree from Mumbai, India, and a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Minnesota, both in architecture.

Paul Steger

Director, Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Paul Steger directs UNL’s Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film and is executive director of the Nebraska Repertory Theatre. He has taught at a number of theatre training programs, including the National Theatre Conservatory, Webster University’s Conservatory, North Carolina School of the Arts, Florida State University and the Asolo Conservatory.

Steger also is a fight director, director and actor with credits on Broadway and in numerous regional theatres. A certified teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors, Steger holds advanced certificates from the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat and Fight Directors Canada. He has taught and performed internationally in London, Sweden, Denmark and Norway and helped form the Nordic Stagefight Society.

A member of a number of theatrical organizations, including Actors’ Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild and the National Theatre Conference, Steger also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Schools of Theatre.

With directing credits for more than 50 productions in educational and professional theatre, Steger has collaborated with a variety of video and performance artists in such venues as Franklin Furnace in New York; Randolph Street Gallery, Club Lower Links, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; the Contemporary Museum of Art in Glasgow; and the Ljubljana Festival in Slovenia.