Amanda Tasse, PhD is an Assistant Professor of New Media Communications in the School of Arts & Communication, with an emphasis on visualization. She works across media disciplines including filmmaking, animation, videogames, VR and interactive art to investigate how different forms contribute unique and dimensional perspectives to multi-layered problems. She often collaborates with scientists to explore what she calls poetic science: new methods for popular science communication using arts based practices. Her media arts dissertation at the USC School of Cinematic Arts communicated a theme from marine science using a video game, short film, and visualization apps. In addition to her PhD, Tasse received an MFA in Animation + Digital Arts at USC, worked in the film industry prior to graduate school, did a Fulbright research project in Neurocinematics at Aalto University, and co-founded a community based arts education program, the Contemplative Creativity Lab, which investigates art as meditative practice.