Professor Jennifer Jacobs
Rooms 2024 and 2005, Elings Hall
Website: ecl.mat.ucsb.edu
The Expressive Computation Lab (ECL) is a research group within the Media Arts and Technology Department at the University of California Santa Barbara. ECL's objective is to foster the development of expressive computational tools for art, design, and engineering. We envision a future for computational production where software and hardware tools are truly shaped by the people who use them. In line with this vision, ECL builds new computational tools that enable artists, designers, and engineers to integrate core computational affordances with their own knowledge and practices. We create new hardware and software interfaces that allow practitioners to combine computational abstraction, automation, and generativity with direct manipulation, manual control, and physical materials. We develop domain-specific programming languages that allow practitioners to extend and modify software tools as they create. In the course of our research, we explore new methods to integrate iterative systems engineering with professional creative practices. The lab is based in the California NanoSystems Institute and is affiliated with the Four Eyes Lab in MAT and Computer Science and the Centers for Interactive and Visual Computing (CIVC) and Responsible Machine Learning (CRML).
ECL is seeking PhD students in Media Arts and Technology and/or Computer Science for the 2025-2026 academic year. Candidates should have a solid technical background and a strong interest in design, craft, or manufacturing applications of computation. Please find more information on the ECL lab website.
See the ECL lab website.