Dana Karwas is the Director of CCAM and is faculty at the Yale School of Architecture teaching courses on mechanized perception and design for bodies in space.

At CCAM, Dana curates all programming and directs the research activities at the center. She leverages her background in architecture and interdisciplinary arts to drive CCAM’s mission to activate creative research and practice to advance the cultural landscape of our time.

Her vision for CCAM began in 2019 when she started as the Director and launched CCAM’s first publication, Maquette, an archive in motion celebrating the unique nature of CCAM’s diverse range of projects and community in the interdisciplinary arts. In 2020 she initiated Ultra Space, a research initiative and course at CCAM that explores earthly reference frames for understanding the body in space and is inspired by the work of Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins. She has initiated other collaborations at CCAM including projects with the Yale Schwarzman Center, The Yale University Art Gallery, The Quantum Institute, The Wright Lab, and others. Dana works closely with the CCAM Advisory Committee, and the faculty and staff at Yale College and the Professional Schools to activate and extend curriculum. Including curricular collaborations and workshops with Sarah Oppenheimer from the Yale School of Art and Konrad Kaczmarek from the Department of Music. She provides mentorship to students, faculty, and staff across the university and is a member of the Schwarzman Center Faculty Advisory Committee and is a fellow at Branford College.

Dana holds an MPS from Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Kansas. Her creative practice is centered around human reference frames, with a specific interest in the boundaries of sensory perception and rendering the invisible visible. She was formerly the Media Director of Maya Lin’s fifth and final memorial, What is Missing?, where she provided project direction on this worldwide, multimedia exhibition regarding climate change and endangered species.

From 2013 to 2018 she was Industry Assistant Professor of Integrated Digital Media (IDM) at New York University. At NYU, she helped build IDM into a robust art and technology program that focuses on creative practice, design research, and multidisciplinary experimentation with emerging technologies. She spearheaded collaborative opportunities with clients for her students to work with as part of their studies; clients included NASA/JPL, MoMA PS1, Microsoft, and others.

Karwas has also taught at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and NYU’s Courant Institute. Her work has been shown at galleries, museums, and festivals including ArtSpace New Haven, Caracas Contemporary Art Museum; The Helix Center; Exit Art; Karkula Gallery; The Center for Architecture; the Museum of the Moving Image; the Boston Museum of Science; and the Chelsea Art Museum. Her projects and research have received support from The National Endowment for the Humanities, Hewlett-Packard, Harvestworks, Eyebeam, NYU Provost’s Global Research Initiatives, and Tisch East.

She is currently a Tisch School of the Arts 22-23 Collaboratory fellow and a fellow at the Aurelia Institute.