The AlloSphere: An Introduction with Questions
UCSB's Office of Development - AlloSphere
We ask for your support in 2025, in achieving our ambitious goal of empowering both our Santa Barbara community as well as our global community to access the latest technologies developed and inspired by the AlloSphere. We want to thank everyone that visited us this year by continuing our innovative programming reaching all those interested in engaging an exciting future for 2025! Our efforts last year yielded record-breaking attendance at the AlloSphere with our research presentation “Sketches of Sensorium” as part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time (PST ART), a satellite location of University of California, Irvine's Beall Center for Art + Technologies “Future Tense: Art, Complexity, and Uncertainty” exhibition. Please check our Sketches of Sensorium webpage for updated dates and times.
Since the demand to experience “Sketches of Sensorium” has exceeded all expectations in 2024, our gift to all of our supporters is the announcement of the new 2025 exhibition schedule. A planned symposium and closing celebration in collaboration with the AD&A Museum will showcase core elements of the late environmental artist Newton Harrison’s (1932 - 2022) long-term project, “Sensorium for the World Ocean.”
The AlloSphere is a one of a kind immersive research facility at UC Santa Barbara, invented and directed by Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin. The AlloSphere instrument was realized by a long term investment, spanning four decades, supporting the idea of “research” as a human right. Our AlloSphere team is composed of research mentors which have successfully educated, facilitated, and trained graduate students to discover opportunities in their data and computational investigations. Our research team includes talented researchers, graduate students and postdocs from the Media Arts & Technology (MAT) graduate program.
In this last year, we have developed an exciting proposal for the National Science Foundation with our partner Virginia Tech University. Our regional collaborators at UC Irvine and Santa Cruz and AltaSea at the port of Los Angeles, as well as Virginia Tech’s regional collaborators, will join us in facilitating the scaling of the AlloSphere instrument and software suitable for museum installations, classrooms, and community organizations and venues. While we have accelerated our labs arts/science research practice by engaging with scientists exploring challenging problems ranging from climate change to quantum materials.
Our goal is to connect researchers around the world with the public and to tell the story of ocean health problems and find potential solutions.
We are pleased to announce a collaboration with NVIDIA, an American multinational technology company based in Santa Clara, CA. The Omniverse Project will enable interactive collaboration across the globe, facilitating public organizations to communicate, interact, and share information that is currently inaccessible to underserved communities.
AlloSphere mentors have been quite successful in educating future leaders to bring their knowledge, expertise, and collaborative models to advance creativity.
Your Support - Link: https://giving.ucsb.edu/Funds/Give?id=443 All gifts are welcomed as an investment to inspire action in sharing our open-source software tools and research facilities. Because of community members like you, the AlloSphere Facility will be able to continue leading the way in cutting-edge research that makes a difference. We encourage new collaborative partnerships to realize creative solutions for discovery and innovation.
We are here to be of service and to secure a better world. For more information go to our collaboration and support pages. If you have any further questions, please reach out directly to my AlloSphere team or me @ jkm@create.ucsb.edu. We look forward to hearing from you.
Please share with colleagues & friends this page to help grow the AlloSphere as a unique and important instrument within the UC Santa Barbara research landscape.
With gratitude, thank you!
My very best,
Please click on the link: Your Gift
If sending a check, please make payable to:
Office of Development
Attn: John Lofthus, AlloSphere
4219 Cheadle Hall
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-2013
All donations received are deeply appreciated.
AlloSphere & Education Reform
There are numerous philanthropic giving options available to benefit the research and education missions of the AlloSphere.
For a major donor there is the opportunity to name the facility and be recognized for your generous support.
It is also possible to invest in the scientific and artistic efforts of the AlloSphere Research Facility by making a one-time or ongoing tax-deductible donation.
Gifts of equipment or software are also welcomed and greatly appreciated.
For more information on scheduling an onsite/virtual meeting to discuss giving options, please directly contact Dr. Kuchera-Morin, the director of the AlloSphere Research Facility. Please contact the AlloSphere team at (805) 893-3010 or directly to jkm@create.ucsb.edu.
For more information on giving opportunities, please contact John Lofthus, Assistant Dean of Development, Graduate Initiatives. Please contact us at (805) 893-2190 or directly to john.lofthus@ucsb.edu.
AlloSphere & New Discoveries
Please consider a contribution directed to graduate student support. Support for top graduate students is crucial to facilitate the research agenda of the AlloSphere.
Typically it is the team of graduate students who take the scientific and technical data and work creatively with the involved faculty member or corporate representative to prepare the data for display in 3D. Extramural grant funding is often available to assist engineering and science students; financial support is typically less available for artists, musicians, and students enrolled in multidisciplinary programs like Media Arts and Technology.
For more information on giving opportunities directly impacting a students academic life, please contact Dr. Kuchera-Morin, the director of the AlloSphere Research Facility. Please contact our team at (805) 893-3010 or directly to jkm@create.ucsb.edu.
Selected AlloSphere Research & the brain