Music and Sound
Through a University of Rochester program that allows faculty the time to explore work in other disciplines, David Headlam, Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music and Mark Bocko, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the College have been able to work extensively together. Their partnership has resulted in new courses—both at Eastman and in the College—as well as new research projects and new laboratory space devoted to the study of digital music.
Renato Perucchio, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering
Archeology, Architecture and Engineering
“My students and I work on the one hand with colleagues in archeology, classics, and architecture, and curators of monuments, and on the other with colleagues in developmental biology, anatomy, and cardiology.”
Signature Programs Connecting Humanities
to Sciences and Engineering
- Jump to information about:
- Music and Sound
- Images and Light
- Archeology, Architecture and Engineering
It is generally good for our academic profile to align well with other major private universities, but we can benefit greatly from having a small number of “signature programs” for which we are visibly distinctive. We are in an unusually good position to develop a signature in bridging the humanities to the sciences and engineering:
Music and Sound
One initiative connects the humanities to science and engineering through music. The combined strengths of the Eastman School and the College Music Department give us exceptional coverage of music theory and performance, our historical strengths in sensory and cognitive science (with an emphasis on language) provide a powerful foundation for work on music cognition, and our strengths in signal processing and artificial intelligence provide a foundation for work on encoding and representation.
- Under the umbrella of a Center for Music and Sound we can push the research frontiers in diverse areas:
- Physical science/engineering problems such as machines that listen (i.e., can transcribe music)
- Music telepresence
- Music as digital object
- Cognitive science: perfect pitch, tonality induction, relationships between music and language
We can have correspondingly distinctive programs in the curriculum, by establishing a new BS in Musical Science, along with a minor and clusters, and a new MS track in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Our planning for this initiative has been undertaken in collaboration with the Eastman School. The potential research impact is exceptional and the initiative will attract extraordinary students.
Images and Light
The second initiative connects the visual arts to science and engineering. It has been planned jointly with George Eastman House. As the initiative is further shaped we hope to collaborate with the Memorial Art Gallery and the Visual Studies Workshop. The potential research impact is large, as is anticipated enrollment. Few other institutions could compete with us.
- Our Visual and Cultural Studies program is a national model, we have strong and broad engagement in film, and George Eastman House is an international resource for film and photography.
- We have a small, but unusually potent, presence in the emerging domain of digital humanities, focused on images.
- We have exceptional strengths in the science of seeing, extending from sensory physiology to visual perception, and in formal aspects of image representation and analysis.
- We can draw these strengths together and augment them, through a Center for Humanities and Image Technology, to make a mark on several major research domains:
- Visual production
- Image management for digital humanities
- Standards for encoding images
- Image reconstruction
- Classification and identification of images by content
- Managing provenance
- This initiative carries many curricular opportunities that can substantially raise the profile of the humanities on campus.
- Strengthen the studio arts
- Strengthen the BA in Film and Media Studies through the introduction of new courses and internships
- Mount a collection of linked MA programs in Photographic Studies, in Film and Media Studies, and in Conservation Studies
- Establish a Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
- Mount a PhD in Film and Media Studies
Archeology, Architecture and Engineering
A smaller initiative would create an unusual undergraduate program that integrates engineering, art history, religion and classics, and history. The program, which will have both an historical and a global perspective, is focused on engineering as a discipline in the service of infrastructural projects, such as canals, roads, bridges and aqueducts, the production of artifacts, such as weapons and musical instruments, and the structural needs of architecture. We can offer a major, a minor, and clusters. The program will also have a heavy emphasis on research and will be integrated with study abroad (through, for example, our program in Arezzo).