Dr. Gustavo Alfonso Rincon, Ph.D., M.Arch., M.F.A., B.Sc., B.A.

BIOGRAPHY - LONG |  Date: 2025

Dr. Gustavo Alfonso Rincon earned his doctorate in the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Born in Queens, New York City, and raised in Maryland and the Washington, Metropolitan area, Rincon is fluent in both English and Spanish. He has lived in Bogotá, Colombia, as well as in five major metropolitan cities across the United States. Educated as an architect, artist, and media arts research practitioner and scholar, Rincon’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Also, he has served as an educator in the fields of art, design (interactive product design), technology management (entrepreneurship), liberal arts & sciences (history/theory), and media arts (including AI & computational design).

Rincon’s dissertation,“Shaping Space as Information: A Conceptual Framework for New Media Architectures,” launches a new field of inquiry integrating the arts, architecture, and sciences. During his tenure at UCSB, Rincon worked as both an educator and researcher in the College of Engineering (Technology Management Program and Computer Science Department) and the College of Letters and Science (MAT Program and Art Department, Institute for Research in the Arts). As a Ph.D., he developed curatorial projects, educational and community outreach programs, exhibitions, events, and research spanning the domains of art, computational design, engineering, and science. He holds master’s degrees in Architecture and Urban Design from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). He also holds dual bachelor’s degrees: a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the School of Architecture, Planning, & Preservation, and a Bachelor of Arts from the Department of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD).

As a senior member of the AlloSphere Research Team, Rincon contributed to the Quantum Composition series conceptualized and composed by Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin. This collaborative research has been featured at conferences and museums both nationally and internationally. The launch of the Quantum series inaugurated the Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation in Santa Barbara, California, alongside exhibitions at the Computer History Museum (USA) and the Asia Cultural Center in Gwangju, Korea. The work has also been exhibited at major conferences, including the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), the Association for Computing Machinery Multimedia Conference (ACMMM), the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH), and TED Vancouver. As a Postdoctoral fellow with the AlloSphere Research Group, “Sketches of Sensorium,” represented the culmination of over two years of research as part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time (PST ART). This project, presented at the University of California, Irvine’s Beall Center for Art + Technology in the exhibition “Future Tense: Art, Complexity, and Uncertainty,” addresses issues of ocean health within the broader context of climate change which included a satellite exhibition space at the AlloSphere at UCSB. Rincon’s research in educational reform and outreach with the Mosher Foundation and DPEA was exhibited at the Maker Faire Bay Area and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Rincon also served as Director and Lead Curator for the Foundation for Art Resources (F.A.R.) in Los Angeles. His collaborative art and lecture events were presented at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and Theatre, Barnsdall Art Park, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA - Grand).

His architectural practice has encompassed multiple roles—including architectural designer, computational designer, fabricator, media design researcher, project manager, and design director—serving clients across the Americas, China, Europe, Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. Rincon has also served as a guest critic and reviewer at the doctoral and/or master’s levels for SCI-Arc, Tongji University, UCSB, and the University of Innsbruck, and at the undergraduate level for Cal Poly Pomona, FIU, NYIT, Otis College of Art & Design, UCLA, and Virginia Tech.

Rincon’s research and scholarly contributions have been published in catalogs, online media, conference proceedings, and journals, including ACADIA, ACMMM, Art in America, Computers and Graphics, Computer Music Journal, IEEE Virtual Reality (VR), ISEA, LA Times, Leonardo/MIT Press, OTIS College of Art & Design , and SIGGRAPH. He has presented, moderated, and contributed to panels for Ars Electronica @ ArtSci Center UCLA, the College Art Association (CAA), Contemporary & Digital Art Fair (CADAF), Leonardo/ISAST, Digital Futures World/International Inclusive Futures Festival, ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM SIGGRAPH DAC, and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS). His past affiliations include Leonardo/ISAST, the Lumen Prize, CPNAS (Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences), Digital Futures World, and the Guild of Future Architects.

Currently, Rincon serves as Co-Director, Administrative Committee Member, and Curator for Digital Futures International, facilitating its yearly worldwide online programming. He simultaneously serves as Co-Director, preparing to launch a new International US and UK educational initiative with Panarchic Codex: Design for Living with Wildfire. His research appointments have included roles as Graduate Student Researcher, Postdoctoral Fellow, Staff, and Advising Member with the AlloSphere Research Group and the MAT Program at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCSB. He now serves as Senior Advising Design Research Director for New Media Architecture(s) & Engineering, and Curator for Media Arts/Design & Science at the AlloSphere, MAT Program. Rincon has also served as a peer reviewer for SIGGRAPH (USA and Asia) Arts Papers Track & Art Gallery, ACADIA, SiGraDi, ArtNodes | RACO, and Expanded (Ars Electronica). He is an Editorial Board Member of the Design International Series at Franco Angeli (Milan) and a reviewer for Leonardo | MIT Press Journal. Additionally, he continues to serve as a juror for the Excellence in Science Communications Awards for the National Academies of Sciences (NAS), Engineering (NAE), and Medicine (NAM), as well as the Schmidt Foundation.