Dr. Teresa Marrin Nakra

Dr. Teresa Marrin Nakra is a recognized expert in the field of Music Technology, with specializations in Computer-Human Interfaces, Music Perception, and Affective Computing. Her interactive conducting experiences (“You’re the Conductor” and “Virtual Maestro”) have been showcased across the United States and Europe in numerous museums, music festivals, and concert halls. Her work has been profiled in the New Yorker Magazine, the New York Times, CNN Headline News, BBC World Service, and the Associated Press.

Teresa founded and runs Immersion Music, a non-profit organization that provides technical solutions for the performing arts. Among Immersion Music’s clients have been Harvard University, ABC (Extreme Makeover Home Edition), the Boston Children’s Museum, the Children’s Discovery Museum (Illinois), the Leonard Bernstein Office, UBS, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Arizona State University, and McGill University. Teresa also has performed professionally as a conductor and violinist, in various opera, symphonic, and new music productions. She holds a degree in Music (magna cum laude) from Harvard University and a PhD. from the MIT Media Laboratory. Teresa currently serves as Associate Professor of Music at The College of New Jersey in Trenton, and lives with her husband and two young children in Titusville, NJ, near the spot where George Washington crossed the Delaware River on that cold December night in 1776.

Teresa's invention and doctoral research, the "Conductor's Jacket", was recently nominated by Alumni of MIT to be included as Object #55 in the MIT150 Exhibition, a year-long celebration of MIT's founding. It is on display in the Compton Gallery at MIT through 2011. She was also invited to speak at the Festival of Art + Science + Technology at MIT in February 2011, as part of the MIT150 Celebration. Here is a clip of her conversation on "Music, Mind, and Meaning" with Marvin Minsky, Morwaread Farbood, and Mike Hawley: