Undergraduate Unit: Neuroscience in Society (Current)
Sessional tutor (remote) for Neuroscience in Society at the University of Western Australia, coordinated by Prof. Jennifer Rodger (School of Biological Sciences) and Dr. David Friedrich (Conservatorium of Music).
The unit integrates neuroscience and creative practice to encourage students to enhance their understanding and communication of neuroscientific mechanisms.
I facilitate the unit's "Atelier" workshops, supporting students as they develop major creative projects inspired by neuroscientific mechanisms, and mark the major creative assignments.
Workshop: Pepper’s Ghost Illusion & AI (2025)
A two hour workshop was developed during the Makers in Residency at Center Rog, in Slovenia (see left). During this workshop, I shared the knowledge from my residency in a freely available public workshop.
During the workshop participants were instructed to build their own Pepper’s Ghost Illusion - a classic technique that has been used for over 150 years to produce the appearance of ghostly images in space.
Furthermore, participant’s explored the historical and theatrical origins of the Pepper’s Ghost Illusion and the science of light reflection.
Finally, we also used AI models to create videos for the illusion and discussed the societal and psychological implications of using AI for creative applications.
Slides are available here.
Image by Umairah Murtaza
Workshop: Exploring Humanoids (2022)
This half day workshop aimed to introduce children aged between 9 and 10 years old to the technological components underlying humanoid robots. Children were programmed LEDs and servo motors using Arduino. This was run in collaboration with the International School of Genova.
Workshop: Hacking Hardware (2020)
The Hacking Hardware workshops was a one-day workshop facilitated as part of the 5 day Flash program run by She Codes which inspires to teach women technical skills. Women were taught to program development boards using Micropython and Micro:Bit.
Workshop: Automating Care with Arduino (2018)
This half day workshop taught young adults aged between 12 and 26 to build a system that would illuminate LEDs if a plant needed to be watered. Participants were also introduced to research using robotics to semi-automate the care of aged persons and individuals with autism, and encouraged to think about the ethical implications of these systems. This workshop was facilitated as part of the KickstART Youth Festival.
Using Arduino, the moisture content in the plant was detected based on how easily electricity flows between the two points on the sensor. The Interactive Development Environment (IDE) was used to upload the code to trigger different LEDs to illuminate based on defined moisture thresholds. When the plant has too much water the LEDs blink green, when the plant has an average level of water the LEDs blink yellow, and when it needs more water the LEDs blink red (see video below).
Undergraduate Unit: Social Robotics. Aesthetic Crossovers between Art and Science (2018)
The Social Robotics lecture and tutorial introduced students to the field of Social Robotics from scientific, ethical and design perspectives. It was facilitated as part of the undergraduate unit, Aesthetic Crossovers between Art and Science at the University of Western Australia. The unit teaches students the techniques and technologies of the sciences to explore the methodological and ideological crossovers between art and science.