NYU Integrated Digital Media (IDM) | BxMC – NYU Integrated Digital Media (IDM)

Launched in 2004 as the Integrated Digital Media Institute of Polytechnic University, Integrated Digital Media (IDM) is the ‘STEAM‘ program offered by NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering. Focusing on the intersection of engineering and creative practice, it is located within Tandon’s Department of Technology, Culture, and Society (TCS) alongside sibling programs in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Sustainable Urban Environments (SUE).

IDM offers a four-year BS degree, a 30-credit MS degree, a cross-school minor available to all NYU students, and an accelerated 5-year BS/MS. The IDM curriculum integrates topics typically found in an arts context – creative expression and design within both fixed and interactive media – with engineering topics such as signal processing and human-computer interaction. As a program within TCS, this curriculum embraces the department’s core focus on the intersection of engineering and society, encouraging students to engage with technology in a creative, critical, sustainable, and ethical manner; IDM courses feature strong emphasis on human-centered, outward-facing work that integrates values of self-expression, equity, and social justice into engineering. The IDM program articulates these goals through a number of initiatives, many of which, such as the Ability Project, are done in close collaboration with other departments in the University.

IDM is the only program at NYU Tandon in which the majority of faculty and students are women. As with all Tandon programs, we strive to excel in diversity, inclusion, and equity, with a high proportion of first-in-family students, students of color, and students receiving significant federal aid for college. We firmly believe in the role engineering and creativity can play in affecting social change, and have proudly developed and hosted conferences, hackathons, and days of action around diversity in games, inclusion and equity in creative technology, better experiences for users of mass transit, safer streets, design for disability, and immigrant rights. We partner with Brooklyn-based non-profit arts and advocacy organizations for much of this programming, including the ISSUE Project Room, Eyebeam, Tech Kids Unlimited, and Code Liberation.

Academic Programs

In our academic programs, digital media is explored as a spectrum of practices that range from computer programming (for app development, software engineering, game development and interaction design) to 2D and 3D graphics (for human-computer interfaces, augmented reality, motion capture, and game design & development) to photography, film, and audio (for media installations, performing arts research, and integration with various mediums). Our students are artists, designers, and creative technologists working in highly fluid industries that reward the creative, the thoughtful, the technical, and the innovative.

Our Bachelor of Science program centers around the IDM core, a suite of courses that focus on the four areas of Image, Sound, Narrative, and Interactivity. These courses are combined with upper-level electives ranging from user experience design to augmented reality to motion capture, as well as courses from the Tandon Engineering core, media studies courses taken in the department of Media, Culture, and Communication (MCC), and additional courses in math, science, humanities, and social sciences. Students will be exposed to a maker-centric, project-based education focused on their development as socially engaged, creative individuals fluent in the use and development of cutting-edge technology. IDM students are encouraged to engage in research and to develop their own work through their classes, capstone projects, the Tandon VIP Program, Tandon InnoVention, NYU Entrepreneurship, the NYC Media Lab Combine Program, and internships within New York City’s $23.6B media industry.

The required courses in the Master of Science program are Ideation and Prototyping, Creative Coding, Media Studies, and Media Law. Some of the electives we offer include, but are not limited to, web design and development, digital cinema, game design and development, sound, live performance, interaction design, and mobile augmented reality. Graduate level special topics courses currently include AR, VR, motion capture, assistive technology, human-computer interfaces (HCI), mobile application development, user experience (UX) design, motion capture, digital fabrication, interactive installation, among many others. Four electives are required for the degree; these can all be taken within Integrated Digital Media or other programs within NYU Tandon School of Engineering; three out of the four electives can be taken anywhere at NYU. Our students often take courses in other Tandon departments such as Computer Science & Engineering and Tech Management & Innovation, as well as other NYU programs such as NYU Steinhardt’s Music Technology, Digital Media Design for Learning, and Art & Arts Professions, and the graduate programs at NYU Tisch in Emerging Media, such as the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and the Game Center.

The IDM curriculum combines project-based learning with the study of historical, cultural, legal and philosophical aspects of digital media. We emphasize the development of skills applicable to a broad spectrum of media through individual and collaborative work. Guest lectures and conferences supplement our curriculum and maximize students’ personal contact with leaders in various sectors of the following fields: business, advocacy, service, entertainment, and education. The program culminates in a thesis that combines theory and practice to showcase students’ creative and technical abilities.

Faculty

Our faculty include leading artists, designers, developers and performers who passionately engage in professional work and research at the intersection of engineering and creative practice.

Full-time faculty:

De Angela Duff (MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art) – Co-Director
R. Luke DuBois (DMA, Columbia University) – Co-Director
Dana Karwas (MPS, New York University) – Faculty
Mark Skwarek (MFA, Rhode Island School of Design) – Faculty
Katherine Bennett (MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago) – Visiting Faculty
Kate Sicchio (Ph.D., University of East London) – Visiting Faculty

Program staff:

Eric Maiello, Program Coordinator
Elton Kwok, Technical Director

Affiliate and Adjunct faculty:

Master of Science Alumni

Publications

Learn more about our students and their work:

Research: the Brooklyn Experimental Media Center (BxmC)

The Brooklyn Experimental Media Center (BxmC) is the research arm of IDM at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. The BxmC provides an interdisciplinary environment for media research at NYU Tandon, partnering faculty and students from the Integrated Digital Media program with collaborators from across NYU, New York City, and beyond. Our research combines experimental practices in media arts and engineering, constantly modifying industry-standard technologies and creating new ones. The BxmC has a close relationship with the School of Engineering’s Future Labs—Data, Urban, Digital, and Veterans—to provide students with opportunities for internships and startup development in the ever-growing NY tech startup scene.

Graduate students in IDM participate in research initiatives through the BxmC, and in our partnerships with other programs and schools at NYU as well as schools throughout New York City who participate in the NYC Media Lab. Our research labs include:

The NYU Ability Project, a joint research initiative with the Occupational Therapy Department (NYU Steinhardt) and the Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU Tisch) supports research in client-centered, assistive technology and adaptive design for people with disabilities.
The Mobile Augmented Reality Lab supports research into design modalities where digital experiences meet the physical world.

Our faculty and students collaborate with others across NYU in research that integrates digital media and society. These projects range from using motion capture technology to reimagine theatrical performance, to developing novel uses of virtual/augmented reality for health and wellness, to the integration of STEAM learning into special needs education, to the development of citizen science tools to empower NYC residents to monitor and report on noise pollution in their communities, to helping NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory develop next-generation user interfaces for space exploration, to assisting with the search and visualization of the historical record of New York City.

Some of our top research areas include:

Assistive Technology
Augmented and Virtual Reality
Human-Computer Interaction
Motion Capture
Real-Time Performance
Social Activism and Civic Technology
User Experience (UX)

MAGNET Facility

Integrated Digital Media is located in MAGNET (NYU’s Media and Games Network), a 40,000 square foot facility on the MetroTech campus. MAGNET is a destination for faculty and students who share an interest in the intersection of games and media. MAGNET is a multi-school cluster that co-locates academic programs in Integrated Digital Media (NYU Tandon), Game Design (NYU Tisch), Educational Communication and Technology (NYU Steinhardt), Computer Science (NYU Tandon CSE; NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences), and NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP).

Admission Requirements

Graduate Admissions accept applications year-round on a rolling basis. The following items are required for admission:

Online Application + $75 application fee
Transcripts from all previously attended institutionsLetters of Recommendation (minimum of 2)
Personal Statement
Resumé/CV
Portfolio of Creative Work (as PDF or website)
TOEFL or IELTS Scores (for international applicants only) (school code: 2668)
Certification of Finances (for international applicants only)
**No GRE is Required for the Graduate IDM Application
Interview (on skype or in person) is required with faculty and administration
All graduate applications need to be submitted through the School of Engineering Office of Graduate Admissions.

Contact IDM’s Coordinator of Academic Programs, Eric Maiello, if you have any questions: eric.maiello@nyu.edu