Faculty and Staff Achievements: Fall 2025

Within the Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) network at Carnegie Mellon, we celebrate the many contributions of the faculty and staff who come together from departments across campus to build a collaborative atmosphere for students of all disciplines, growing interdisciplinary expertise and creative inquiry through making.

Assistant Teaching Professor Robert Zacharias’s 60-223 Intro to Physical Computing class had a two-page spread writeup in Achieva's organizational magazine "Beyond Boundaries." The writeup appears on pages 28 and 29 of the 9/1/25 issue.

Then, on December 1, Zacharias was recognized with the "2025 Award of Excellence in Compassionate Action" at the annual Achieva Awards of Excellence Reception held at the Sheraton Hotel in Station Square. He worked with Achieva in spring 2025 to connect his students in 60-223 Intro to Physical Computing with some of their clients living with disabilities. The award qualification that Achieva lists is: "Awardee demonstrates a strong commitment to fostering an inclusive, welcoming community for people with disabilities and their families by raising awareness, volunteering, or providing meaningful support for people with disabilities and their families."

In his acceptance remarks, Zacharias spoke about how everyone is constantly getting assistance from all sorts of technological devices, and designers should not think of designing "assistive devices" for people living with disabilities differently than when they design for anybody else. He also thanked all of the direct care workers as well as the people who support them in their daily work of helping people with disabilities live fulfilling lives.

IDeATe Associate Dean Rich Nisa has contributed several maps to the comic book series “Calexit.” The most recent run, “The Battle of Universal City,” includes new maps. 

Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy Teaching Professor of Arts Management Brett Ashley Crawford published "Entrepreneurial Arts and Cultural Leadership" with Intellect Books in July.

College of Fine Arts Associate Professor of Music Theory Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh recently had the world premiere of a new major work, “Swell,” commissioned by the Monash Performance Arts Centre's David Li Sound Gallery, in Melbourne, Australia. This was a new 40-minute immersive work for viola d'amore and the Meyer Sound Constellation system, developed in close collaboration with Australian violist Phoebe Green. “Swell” explores resonance as both a sonic phenomenon and a metaphor, tracing the way sound shapes our perception of space and memory.

The performance took place on August 17th, 2025 at the David Li sound Gallery.

IDeATe faculty members Jonathan Walton and Tyler Crumrine recently had their games featured on the November 27 episode of "Quinn's Quest," a popular video podcast about tabletop RPGs.

Walton and Crumrine have taken turns teaching "Little Games/Big Stories: Indie RPG Studio," a course that introduces IDeATe students to the exciting world of indie RPGs and supports them in designing their own mini tabletop games. In May 2025, the instructors teamed up on a Kickstarter campaign for two new card-based games -- Walton’s "Tacklebox," a surreal fishing experience, and Crumrine’s people-watching game "Better Strangers."

Following a successful campaign, they are thrilled to be mentioned on "Quinn's Quest," alongside many other terrific indie TTRPGs that come in boxes.

Both "Tacklebox" and "Better Strangers" are available from Crumrine’s game publishing company, Possible Worlds.

Human-Computer Interaction Institute Head of Partnerships for PLUS (Personalized Learning Squared), Erin Gatz, published two papers as part of the CSCW conference in Norway this fall. The first paper, which explored the role of feminist makerspaces in building and sustaining alternative cultures of technology production received a DEI Award. The second paper, which discussed equitable community-industry collaborations, received an Honorable Mention.