The Speakers

Jeanine Cowen, professor of film scoring at Berklee College of Music, is a composer, music producer, and sound designer who focuses primarily on the intersection of audio and visual medias, with particular interest in the burgeoning VR/AR/XR worlds and video games. Educated at Northwestern University as a classical percussionist, and at Berklee College of Music with degrees in film scoring, and music production and engineering, Cowen has also completed master's work in interactive design and game development at Savannah College of Art and Design. As a highly experienced technologist with extensive musical training Cowen excels in creative, collaborative productions with credits spanning the film, television, game, and music industries.

Daniel Goggin is a creative technologist, designer, problem solver, developer, and project manager with over a decade of industry specific experience in the realm of interactive experiential design.  Growing up in Munich, Germany gave Daniel an appreciation for international work which has taken him to help develop large experiential projects in Shanghai, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, London, Barcelona, and all over the US.  Daniel is the founder of Busy Boy LLC, a creative services group focused on experiential design. Daniel and Busy Boy have brought their own style of fun and playful design to large international clients such as Samsung, Tiffany & Co, Cartier, The Museum of Ice Cream, and many more.

Milan Kovacev is CMO and Co-founder of Hoverlay, bringing over 20 years of digital marketing expertise for B2C and B2B in the music, entertainment, online education, and software industry. He is Berklee College of Music alumni and one of the creators of Berklee Online music school. YouTube has selected him to be one of their first marketing ambassadors. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from the University of Belgrade and Associates Degree in Music Business / Management from Berklee College of Music.

Dave "Dax" Maynard is the Chief Technology Officer for Solar Havoc LLC, and Synaptic Sparks Inc, a 501c3 technology based non-profit; both residing in Sunny Orlando Florida. He also holds a position with Cole Engineering Services Inc. as a Computer Scientist within the US Military / Government Agency Simulation and Training Industry. Dave has been involved with Video Game Technology since the Commodore 64 / Apple IIe era. Dave has also presented to hundreds of audiences world-wide showing the importance of video game technologies both in the Military space and in cross-domains including the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Energy. During Dave's previous tenure with Lockheed Martin he had worked with every branch of the US Military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, PEOSTRI, RDECOM, NAVAir, DARPA, Skunk Works, Sandia National Laboratories, the Department of Homeland Security, the Ministry of Defence (UK) as well as many others.

Marcela Rada has over nine years of experience as a sound engineer recording, editing, mixing, and mastering audio for independent artists. She has worked across music genres as well as symphony orchestras, film scoring sessions and ensembles.

She holds a Bachelor of Music with a major in Digital Audio Arts from the University of Lethbridge, and a Master’s Degree from Berklee College of Music with an emphasis on Music Production, Technology, and Innovation. Her master’s thesis focused on immersive audio and its application to 360 videos for Virtual Reality and social media platforms.

Marcela has taught music production and audio engineering at Algonquin College and Interlochen Centre for the Arts. She is currently teaching full-time at the University of Lethbridge. Marcela is passionate about using the latest audio and video technology for the creation of innovative and immersive projects and is constantly expanding her knowledge through academic research.

Known to many by his old DJ name, Ghostdad, Ryan Sciaino's practice centers around combining music and the moving image. He has performed live visuals at night clubs, venues, and some of the largest music festivals around the world. His visual practice started while touring with his band WIN WIN and continued while touring with the rapper Spank Rock. Ever since an initial collaboration at Coachella in 2012, Sciaino has worked with American DJ Porter Robinson on live visuals for shows. They have further collaborated for Porter's critically acclaimed Worlds, "Shelter," and Virtual Self projects. In addition, Sciaino has created visual experiences for international touring artists including A-Track, Anna Lunoe, and Chrome Sparks, and activations for brands like Nike and Lenovo.

Sciaino continues to produce music and, in 2016, started working with the band Prince Rama on stage and in the studio. He has scored three short films for director Larry Cohen as well as commercial pieces for brands including Facebook and Puma. He works at home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, when not traveling to a city near you.

Loudon Stearns is the director of live experience design and academic technology at Berklee NYC. He is also course author and instructor at Berklee Online, where he focuses on showing students how to analyze contemporary styles and use the latest music technology in their own works. An innovator in both education and art, Stearns authored a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called Introduction to Music Production, providing high-quality free eduction to hundreds of thousands of students. He received awards from the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) for excellence in teaching and from the Emerson College Visual and Media Art Department for excellence in media art.

Stearns has a Bachelor of Music in contemporary writing and production and bass performance from Berklee, and a Master of Fine Arts in media art from Emerson. He pulls from a broad range of skills in the creation of multimedia performances that include live music, projection-mapping, dance, visual art, and interactivity. Of particular interest to Stearns is using the world as a performance space by using internet streaming to coordinate numerous performers and audiences on different parts of the globe. The technical and aesthetic challenges of this type of performance are new and exciting, and require the sort of broad skill set that Stearns has developed through his extensive education in music, sound, performance, motion graphics, photography, programming, and construction.

Kristjan is a critically-acclaimed director of film, theater, and immersive experiences. Over the course of a fifteen year career, Thor has directed and produced two feature films, countless theater, short film, and video projects as well as produced various types of live events.  Kristjan is also the co-founder and creator of the Blackout Experience, the world’s most notorious fear experience. He has taught at NYU, Dartmouth, Fordham, and NYCDA. Additionally, Kristjan often works as an acting coach for various industry professionals.