Dr. Abby Aresty is a sound artist, composer, and educator. Her community-based creative practice empowers individuals to work creatively with sound, and to share their stories while building community through collective making, integrated learning, and storytelling. Aresty is Technical Director and Lecturer for the Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) Department at Oberlin Conservatory. She teaches the Electronic Music course for Oberlin's Community Music School, and she is the Bonner Center for Service Learning's 2019-2020 Faculty Fellow. In 2019, in collaboration with Oberlin Center for the Arts and Oberlin Conservatory, Aresty founded the Girls Electronic Arts Retreat (GEAR), a 5-Day STEAM summer camp for 3-5th grade girls hosted in the TIMARA studios.

After completing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Larissa moved to Alicante, Spain in 2008. Here she worked for an international accounting firm, KPMG, as an English Consultant translating and teaching English to the employees. In 2010, she started a position at the University of Alicante teaching English as a Second Language while completing her master’s degree from the University of Jaen. She has worked as the Director of the ESOL program at Oberlin College since 2016. The program offers language and academic support to international students as well as opportunities to immerse in the American culture through a book and cinema club. At the same time, college students interested in teaching English abroad are given experiential learning through teaching assistantships and by teaching English to community members outside the college.

Abe Reshad serves as the Director of the Cooper International Learning Center (a.k.a. The Language Lab) at Oberlin College and Conservatory. With 18 years experience teaching ESOL in higher ed both abroad and at Ohio University and 6 years experience training teachers in relation to instructional technology, Abe Reshad is passionate about using technology to provide new and meaningful learning experiences for students. Previous projects of his include but are not limited to place based learning and the use of simulation in the language learning context. Currently, Abe Reshad is interested in the use of 3d printing in combination with object based and project based learning approaches in language learning classes and beyond.

Helen He (they/them) is a fifth-year double-degree student at Oberlin studying Computer Science and TIMARA, with a minor in dance and secondary studies in organ performance. As a composer, they have attended festivals and workshops around the world, including the 2017 International Music Festival of the Adriatic and the Kyiv Contemporary Music Days masterclass; they have also presented in conferences such as MUSLAB Mexico and N_SEME (National Student Electronic Music Event). Additionally, they are a member of the student council of the Society of Composers, Inc., and they on the board of the Millenium Composers Initiative. In the field of computer science, Helen's paper on privacy and activism in the transgender community has been accepted into the 2020 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, and they will be starting as a software engineer at Electronic Arts after graduation.

Ivy Fu is a second-year student at Oberlin studying Computer Science. Her interests on numerous subjects including interactive technology, music production, art installations, English/Chinese literature and ancient artifacts has led to her continuous efforts and output. As a composer she has produced 10+ pieces of work, performed in music festival and in Oberlin, also recorded in her home studio and published on media such as Youtube and NetEase music. As a programmer and artist she is skilled in Python, Java, Max MSP, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Adobe Premiere, Unity, Supercollider and Git. As an artifact lover she has worked in Shaanxi History Museum to introduce visitors historical facts of ancient ornaments. She consider herself an adventurer who is willing to test out anything that she haven’t gotten a sense of—a reason why she’s now exploring the forest of sound art and acoustic ecology, in which she has recently discovered infinite possibilities.

Lucas Brecher is a recent Oberlin graduate (’19) and Rhetoric & New Media Individual Major, studying rhetorical tradition and its cultural function from the classical to contemporary. He served as Research Assistant to ArtiFACT’s original iteration from 2018-2019, and has worked with learners across campus as a Writing Associate, Makerspace Coordinator, and Teacher’s Assistant.

Maya McCollum is a first year TIMARA and Studio Art double-degree student at Oberlin College and Conservatory. Maya enjoys building sound sculptures and original instruments, and finds the process of art making incredibly inspiring. She loves using found objects and interweaving their stories and histories into her art. Maya is very excited to be working as Abby Aresty’s research assistant for yet another semester.