American Composers Orchestra
The American Composers Orchestra (ACO) is dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance and promotion of orchestral music by American composers, with special commitment to educational programs in youth that position music composition and improvisation as a gateway to creative thinking. For 40 years, they have worked with over 25 schools, reaching more than 2,000 students per year. ACO Teaching Artists, through their Sonic Spark programming, are highly experienced in the use of digital tools for instruction focused on music creation with teenage students.
ACO is in charge of working in the development and implementation / teaching of the Music intervention curriculum within the SMART project.
Specifically, the ACO personnel and Teaching Artists mostly involved in SMART are: Kevin James, JL Marlor, Christopher McIntyre.
Image by Pixabay (obtained at Pexels).
Lorena Ostia – visual & sustainable artist
Lorena Ostia is a visual and plastic artist who has held roles as Producer and Director of Photography, and whose work has been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vanity Fair Italia, among many others.
She possesses extensive experience in leading visual-arts workshops for a wide range of public. Moreover, she is an expert in the digital tools that will be used in our visual-arts based interventions, and has great experience teaching kids and teenagers visual arts, suistanable and biomaterials related art, digital photography edition, and storytelling through visual arts.
Image by Md Iftekhar Uddin Emon (obtained at Pexels.com)
Sean Sirota – photographer & visual artist
Sean Sirota is an experienced photographer whose works revolve around everyday life and social documentary through visual arts and photography. He has been teaching photography and storytelling through visual arts / photography for almost a decade at the Bronx Documentary Center and has lead photography workshops for youth in both Brooklyn and the Bronx.
He is also an expert on the digital photography software that will be used on our visual-arts interventions.
Lorena and Sean are in charge of the development and implementation / teaching of the Visual-arts intervention curriculum within the SMART project. We are very grateful to have them in the team, adding their experience, creativity and innovative ideas.
Located in Brooklyn, Fort Hamilton High School is one of the largest high schools in the NYC area, with a culturally diverse community. Their dedicated staff members prepare students to meet, even exceed, the academic challenges of New York City and the New York State Education Department’s performance standards and assessments. All their curriculum is aligned with the New York State Next Generation Learning Standards (NGLS), and they set their instructional focus on literacy based on the needs of their students.
SMART’s intervention programs will be implemented here within the regular arts-based advisory lessons curriculum in grades 9th-10th, supervised by their regular teacher(s).
We are very grateful that Fort Hamilton High School (FHHS) is giving the educational context for the SMART project to be implemented. Students from 9th and 10th grades at this high school will be the target of our scientific team’s recruitment efforts.
Located in Manhattan, Baruch College Campus High School is a small high school with a clear sense of community and social justice mission. Its purpose is to provide a challenging interdisciplinary liberal arts education, highlighting the philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic issues of the human experience. Their educational approach aims to creating an environment for students to develop high level thinking skills, explore their interests, collaborate, and grow into creative, confident critical thinkers, while still exceeding in city and state performance standards.
SMART’s intervention programs will be implemented at this site as part of their after-school program, supervised by staff from their Counseling team.
We are very grateful that Baruch College Campus High School is giving the educational context for the SMART project to be implemented. Students from 9th and 10th grades at this high school will be the target of our scientific team’s recruitment efforts.
Center for Language Music and Emotion (CLaME)
CLaME is a joint venture between the Max Plank Institute and NYU, where an international team of researchers investigates foundational human experiences from novel perspectives, linking language, music, emotion, memory, and decision making. The Center is comprised of interconnected and interdisciplinary research groups that capitalize on the expertise and resources of the participating scientists across the sites.
CLaME is one of the NYU centers acting as academic hosts for LV during the Outgoing Phase of SMART’s MSCA funded period.
Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL)
MARL is an interdisciplinary center at the intersection of science, technology, music and sound, with research connecting a wide range of fields from computing and artificial intelligence, immersive experiences and algorithmic composition, to the latest advances in neuroimaging of the human brain. MARL’s work focuses on (a) understanding and modeling the human cognitive and neural mechanism supporting music and sound processing, (b) innovating the analysis, organization and
retrieval of acoustic data, and (c) advancing applications of high societal value in health, accessibility, creativity, and education.
MARL is one of the NYU centers acting as academic hosts for LV during the Outgoing Phase of SMART’s MSCA funded period.
Complutense University of Madrid (UCM)
The UCM is a public research university located in Madrid (Spain). Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world. It is named after the ancient Roman settlement of Complutum, now an archeological site in Alcalá de Henares, just east of Madrid.
UCM is the beneficiary institution of the MSCA grant and, thus, UCM is the main host for LV during the MSCA funded period.
Max Plank Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA)
The MPIEA is a joint effort between researchers from the humanities and the sciences, aiming to explore who aesthetically appreciates what, for which reasons, and under which situational and historical circumstances. MPIEA analyzes the functions of aesthetic preferences and practices for individuals and societies through its different departments and collaborative working teams.
The Department of Music within the MPIEA acts as the host institution for LV’s academic secondment during the MSCA funded period (specifically, this secondment is planned for 2024).
SaluMedia Labs
SaluMedia Labs (SALU) is the R&D subsidiary of Adhera Health, Inc. (Palo Alto, USA). As such, SALU aims to improve and refine the systems at Adhera Health. Adhera Health is conformed by scientists and technologists committed to helping people with chronic conditions and their family caregivers to live healthier. They have developed an AI-based Precision Digital Companion™ platform that delivers highly personalized, adaptive self-management programs that empower individuals to become the central resource in their health journey.
SALU acts as the host institution for LV’s non-academic placement during the MSCA funded period (specifically, this placement is planned for May – October 2026).
Previous collaborators:
Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV)
DCTV was founded in 1972 aiming to use filmmaking to inform and empower communities. They provide public programs that meet the needs of a diverse and growing community who want to tell stories that matter to them, mainly through stories supporting social change. Their programs are accessible to everyone, breaking down cultural and financial barriers, serving approximately 15,000 people annually. Their teachers are highly experienced in instructing children and teenagers on how to create visual art (images and video) using digital tools, activities that co-exist with the awardwinning documentary work done at their center.
DCTV worked in the development of the Visual-Arts (photography) intervention curriculum within the SMART project.
Specifically, the DCTV personnel and Teaching Artists that were initially involved in SMART were: Jesse Perez Antigua, Johnny Ramos, Kira Britt, Jasmine LeCount-McClanahan.
Image by Amar Preciado (obtained at Pexels).
Social Media Artistic tRaining in Teenagers (SMART) 