Presenter's Full Name: Caitlin Rose (Catie) Cuan
Presenter's Academic Rank: PhD Candidate at Stanford University
Educational Background: B.S. University of California Berkeley, M.S. Stanford University
How long have you been working in your field:  ~12 years

What do you do/your expertise as it pertains to the topic you are speaking about?
After 6 years as a professional dancer and choreographer in New York City, I began dancing with robots in performances and art installations. This artistic work transformed into research testbeds for human-robot interaction and eventually led me to apply to a graduate school. My current graduate research focuses on learning from demonstration, haptics, and human-robot interaction.

Presenter’s Full Name: Sunil Iyengar
Presenter’s Title: Director of the Office of Research & Analysis, National Endowment for the Arts
Educational Background: University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
How long have you have been working in your field: 15 years

What do you do/your expertise as it pertains to the topic you are speaking about?
I research products, publications, and programs covering the arts and health at the National Endowment for the Arts.

Sunil Iyengar directs the Office of Research & Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. Under his leadership, the office has produced dozens of research reports, hosted periodic research events and webinars, led strategic plan development for the agency, and established research and data partnerships with the U.S Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. His office also conducts program evaluations and performance measurement for the Arts Endowment. Working with his team, Iyengar has created and pursued a long-term research agenda (based partly on an arts “system map” his office helped to design), founded a national data repository for the arts, and launched two awards programs for arts researchers, including the NEA Research Labs initiative. He chairs a federal Interagency Task Force on the Arts and Human Development. For nearly a decade, he has contributed a monthly research post (titled “Taking Note”) to the agency’s official blog.

Iyengar and his team have collaborated with organizations such as the Brookings Institution, the National Academy of Sciences, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to explore the arts in relation to such topics as health and well-being, economic development, and STEM and medicine. His office provides research consultative support to Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network. Most recently, he has led a research funding partnership with NIH as part of Sound Health, an initiative of the Kennedy Center and NIH in association with the Arts Endowment.

Prior to joining the agency as research director, Iyengar worked as a reporter, managing editor, and senior editor for a host of news publications covering the biomedical research, medical device, and pharmaceutical industries. He writes poems, book reviews, and literary essays. Iyengar has a BA in English from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Anthony de Mare is one of the world’s foremost champions of contemporary music. Praised time and again by The New York Times, his versatility over the past three decades has inspired the creation of over 75 new works by some of today’s most distinguished artists.  Known for his entrepreneurial performance projects, he continues to expand the boundaries of the repertoire, which includes the speaking-singing pianist genre that he pioneered over 30 years ago.

As creator, performer and co-producer of Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano, this landmark commissioning and concert project has definitively brought the work of Stephen Sondheim into the concert hall, through the extraordinary re-imaginings of composers from across the musical spectrum including Steve Reich, Wynton Marsalis, Fred Hersch, Eve Beglarian, Jon Batiste, Meredith Monk, William Bolcom, and Nico Muhly, among many others. In addition to the Project’s acclaimed national, U.K., Canadian, and Australian tours, his recording of the first 36 pieces, released on ECM, was cited on numerous “Best Of” lists and was included as a winner of the 2016 Grammy Award for Classical Producer of the Year.  In honor of Sondheim’s 90th birthday in 2020, new commissioned works for "Liaisons2020" brings the total compendium to 50. Due to restrictions from the Covid pandemic, these works will have their premiere in the 2021-22 season at venues across the USA including UCLA’s Royce Hall, the 92nd St Y in NYC, Ravinia, Green Music Center (Sonoma State University), and Hancher Auditorium (University of Iowa), among many others.

His performances over the years span five continents and his discography of over twenty recordings includes works by Ives, Cowell, & Harrison, John Cage and Meredith Monk, Astor Piazzolla, Frederic Rzewski and many others.  Since his debut with Young Concert Artists, his accolades and awards have included First Prize at the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition, and The International Contemporary Piano Competition of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He gave his Carnegie Hall debut at Zankel Hall in 2005. 

A Steinway Artist, he currently is Professor of Piano at Manhattan School of Music and New York University. He also serves as new music curator for the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in NYC.

www.anthonydemare.com
www.liaisonsproject.com

Imagine "C-SPAN being swarmed by the cast of SNL.” That’s how the Star Tribune described The Theater of Public Policy: Minnesota’s most successful, best-loved, and coincidentally only civics-inspired improv comedy company. Since 2011, they’ve been bringing hard “thinky” topics and ideas to life on stage, and more recently online. They deliver high-quality improv comedy performances, only theirs are inspired by talks and conversations with some of the biggest thinkers in Minnesota and beyond. 

Tane Danger, MPP, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, is the cofounder and host of The Theater of Public Policy. A 2014 Bush Fellow, Danger, he is dedicated to finding new ways for audiences to learn and have fun, at the same time. Since 2017, he has been working with the Mayo Clinic to deliver regular “Medical Improv” workshops designed to help participants think more creatively and collaboratively, using the tools of improv. He also teaches a class at the University of Minnesota called “Improvisation for Design” and has taught “applied improvisation" workshops nationally.

Ebony Payne-English is a writer, performer, and educator from Duval County. She is Executive Director of The Performers Academy and author of graphic novel, The Random Happenings, as well as award winning poetry collection, Secrets of Ma’at. Ebony has taught invitational workshops at the University of Florida, the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts, Morgan State University, HBO Brave New Voices, the National Afterschool Programming Conference and the Department of Juvenile Justice. Ebony’s performance accolades include The New Orleans House of Blues, The Florida Theatre, TEDx, and countless other venues nationwide.