Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, chief designer of the AlloSphere facility, composer, and media artist with over thirty-five (35) years of experience in media systems engineering, outlines the vision for our research.
Etherial: A Quantum Composition & Installation featured at ISEA, Gwangju, Republic of Korea. Also can be viewed at the California NanoSystems Institute's AlloPortal and AlloSphere.
Our Team is led by Dr. Kuchera-Morin (Director, Inventor, & Lead Researcher) of the Allosphere Research Group. Dr. Andres Cabrera as Media Systems Engineer, Dennis Adderton as Technical Director. And the AlloSphere Team.
No matter how large or how small, every gift makes a difference!
AlloSphere
The AlloSphere is a one of a kind immersive research facility at UC Santa Barbara. Directed & invented by Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, the research group includes talented researchers, graduate students and postdocs from the Media Arts & Technology (MAT) graduate program. The team’s expertise in building embodied interactive and immersive systems is critical for keeping the AlloSphere instrument running, evolving, and creating innovative research collaborations with leading artists and scientists. Thanks to recent support from generous donors and the UCSB administration, we have been working on some exciting collaborations.
Each new collaboration has started with a discussion on how to engage the grand challenges of the field and the potential to extend the limits of current technological research frameworks.
We take our research and creative practice directly to the public to facilitate future young minds!
National Science Foundation
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 climate research will culminate in building a sophisticated immersive system for scientific research, artistic practice and public outreach that will have the opportunity to speed up important discoveries to save the planet. This work utilizes Ocean Health Index data from the Halpern Lab at UCSB to create a tool that is both educational and able to be utilized for ocean research.
Our most recent exploration was a collaboration with Professor Palmstrøm's research group, which allowed us to navigate 3D maps of electronic band structures of single crystal materials, taken from Angle Resolved Photoemission (ARPES) data at the Advanced Light Source (Berkeley) and SLAC (Stanford) synchrotrons. The AlloSphere was able to provide a unique immersive presentation to the Quantum Foundry NSF review in May 2023.
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.
NVIDIA's OmniVerse
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.
The AlloSphere enables exploring various types of volumetric data used in scientific research.
Our distributed system allows for analysis to happen in real-time and utilizes multimodality, interactivity, and the wide screen space to deliver as much information as possible to understand the dataset.
MSG Sphere Inspired by the AlloSphere
Our alumni are currently placed at many universities, social organizations, companies, and startups and are lending their expertise to outstanding result.
One example is the creation and development of the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas and other planned MSG Spheres.
We are very proud to share that AlloSphere alumni are participating in this developing global phenomenon.
AlloSphere mentors have been quite successful in educating future leaders to bring their knowledge, expertise, and collaborative models to advance creativity.
Your Support!
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. Our talented AlloSphere research group is committed to moving the AlloSphere and all projects forward!
Your contribution can help maintain the AlloSphere Research Group’s important creative research practice, as well as support Graduate Student Researchers, Postdoctoral Researchers, and much needed equipment within our lab facilities.
Your support will help us continue our important work of building a new community of collaboration to secure a bright new future.
You may specify how you would like the donated funds to be used.
Please share this page to help grow the AlloSphere as a unique and important instrument within the UC Santa Barbara research landscape.
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.
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.
