Omaha Science Cafe with Common Senses Festival

Join Michael Hollins, James Coleman and Dr. Matthew Goodwin for our next virtual Omaha Science Café on April 13 at 9am.

This team is behind two of the Common Senses Festival installations. Essentially the two installations, combined, make up The EMMA project. Think a prescriptive environment that uses sensors to assess a person’s arousal state and then adjusts (lighting, sound, projections) to help someone self regulate.

The virtual Science Café will be offered via zoom and livestreamed to the Science Cafe Facebook page. Viewers do not need a Facebook account to view the livestream.

Register here for the zoom link.

Science Cafés involve a conversation with an expert about current science topics. They are open to everyone. Each meeting is organized around an interesting topic of conversation. Experts give a brief presentation followed by a Q&A period.

Speaker Bios

Michael Hollins is the Director of Community & Business Engagement for the iEXCEL program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Previously, he served as Chief Creative Officer for community and arts organizations such as KANEKO and Pottawattamie Arts, Culture & Entertainment (PACE). Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in Anthropology, Philosophy, and Film Studies and Master of Arts in Cinema & Media Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is currently pursuing a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) and volunteers with the Nebraska Writers Collective, Autism Action Partnership, tbd. Dance Collective and Film Streams.

James Coleman is a current doctoral student at Princeton University and is a former Senior Project Engineer at JB&B. Specialized in “Smart Buildings,” he facilitates the adoption of cutting-edge technology to deliver better occupant experiences in buildings, for all who use them. In collaboration with Dr. Goodwin, he developed The LivingRoom: a controllable environment that allows occupants to curate a calming space for themselves out of lights, sounds and images. James aspires to make Smart Building technologies widespread, so that all may benefit from environments that understand their unique preferences.

Dr. Matthew S. Goodwin is an Interdisciplinary Associate Professor with joint appointments in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences and Khoury College of Computer Science, where he is a founding faculty member of a new doctoral program in Personal Health Informatics and Directs the Computational Behavioral Science Laboratory. Dr. Goodwin was a former Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University, and Director of Clinical Research at the MIT Media Lab. He has previously served on the Executive Board of the International Society for Autism Research and the Scientific Advisory Board for Autism Speaks. He has over 20 years of research and clinical experience working with children and adults on the autism spectrum and developing and evaluating innovative technologies for behavioral assessment and intervention, including video and audio capture, telemetric physiological monitors, accelerometry sensors, and digital video/facial recognition systems