DM Alumna Nettrice Gaskins Joins LMC Advisory Board

Posted December 18, 2018

Alumnus Nettrice Gaskins has joined the Advisory Board for the School of Literature, Media, and Communications (LMC). Gaskins received a PhD in LMC’s Digital Media program in 2014.

Her model for ‘techno-vernacular creativity’ is an area of practice that investigates the characteristics of this production and its application in STEAM. Gaskins wants people of color to be able to see themselves in computing and digital media fields. She is known for her STEAM work, arguing that adding Art to the traditional Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education will open more opportunity for students of color. She believes that STEM has always existed within groups that are not traditionally part of the mainstream discourse, and through the arts (like hip-hop, film, dance, theater, video games and visual art) people may be realize that these groups were always part of the conversation. Gaskins’ areas of expertise are STEAM education, art, and digital fabrication, which include computation, 2D and 3D design, machine learning, and culturally relevant pedagogy.

Gaskins blogs for Art21, the producer of the Peabody award-winning PBS series, Art in the Twenty-First Century, and published in several journals and books including Deep Sea Dwellers: Drexciya and the Sonic Third Space (Shima), African Cosmogram Matrix in Contemporary Art and Culture (Black Theology), Meet Me at the Fair: A World's Fair Reader (ETC Press), Future Texts: Subversive Performance and Feminist Bodies (Parlor Press) and Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness (Lexington Books). The MIT Press has slated her book tentatively titled, Techno-Vernacular Creativity and Innovation, for publication in 2020. She was the director of the STEAM Lab at Boston Arts Academy and lectures internationally. She is currently a program manager at the Fab Foundation.

Gaskins has a special interest in supporting students who are from groups that are underrepresented in STEM and STEAM fields, including African American, Latino and Indigenous communities. She seeks to create more opportunities for students who have an entrepreneurial spirit.