Liaison to India and South East Asia
Sambit Padhan
Liaison to Iraq
Ali Al Ezzi
Liaison to NZ & Adjacent Pacific Islands Nations
Raewyn Turner
Literature
Patricia Lynne Duffy
Neuroscientist
Professor Jamie Ward
Organizer
Appelusa
Photography
Michael Kluch
Phyiscs/Engineering/Design/Art
Daniel Busby
Product Design
Michael Haverkamp
Psychologist & Liaison to Russia
Anton V Sideroff-Dorso
Scent
Caro Verbeek
Science Adviser
Professor Julia Simner
Strategic Planning, Budget, Finance
Aki Hoshihara
Theater Arts
Peter Colley
Science Adviser
Professor Julia Simner
Julia Simner is a Professor of Neuropsychology and has spent the last two decades in the field of synaesthesia research. Her education and career have taken her to the Universities of Oxford, Toronto, Edinburgh and Sussex, and she currently runs the Synesthesia and Sensory Integration lab at the University of Sussex. Her work focuses on the psychological and neuroscientific bases of synesthesia, and has been published in science journals including Nature, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, and Brain, as well as in over 100 newspaper and media articles worldwide. She is the Science Officer for the UK Synaesthesia Association, Director of the ERC-funded MULTISENSE project, and Director of the ESRC-funded Savant Network. Her book, The Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia was recently shortlisted for the British Medical Association’s medical book of the year.
Jamie Ward is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He has an MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge and PhD in Psychology from Birmingham, and previously held a faculty position at University College London. He is the Co-Director of Sussex Neuroscience and was Founding Editor of the journal, Cognitive Neuroscience. He has a particular research interest in synaesthesia and, more generally, in the question of how information is integrated between the senses. He also runs the Leverhulme Doctoral Programme in ‘Sensation, Perception and Awareness’ at the University of Sussex. In addition to his research, he is well-known as an author of leading textbooks (Students Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience; Students Guide to Social Neuroscience).
Anton V. Sidoroff-Dorso is a Moscow-based linguist and psychologist. He received a full specialist degree in linguistics and language acquisition and studied for a post-graduation degree (Candidate of Sciences) in psychology at Moscow Pedagogical State University, with a dissertation on individual differences in people with synaesthesia. His research focuses on general psychological and neurocognitive aspects of synaesthesia, synaesthetic mechanisms as viewed in the frameworks of cultural-historical psychology and cognitive anthropology. Additionally, he is the co-editor of the Leonardo Bibliography list: Synaesthesia in Art and Science of the interdisciplinary journal Leonardo (MIT).
Anton has served on the board of the Artecittà Foundation as its International Coordinator since 2012, and is a member of the editorial board of the international Synesthesia Journal (Artecitta). He also founded the Russian Synaesthesia Community and monitors its web-resource synaesthesia.ru. and initiated and manages the data-base of Russian-speaking synaesthetes (now approx. 800 people). Anton translated and adapted the Russian-language version of the worldwide multilingual online synaesthesia test of the Eagleman Lab (Baylor College of Medicine) and the Consistency Test of Synaesthesia (MatLab Syntools). He is also a co-author of “Ananthropology of synaesthesia”, author and developer of Synaesthesia Quotient and a related multi-scale test battery. Additionally he assisted and participated as key speaker in the production of science documentaries on the senses and synaesthesia.
Anton is also head of the synaesthesia research group at the Centre for Multidisciplinary Research of Contemporary Childhood of the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education.
Liaison to NZ & Adjacent Pacific Islands Nations
Raewyn Turner
Raewyn Turner is an interdisciplinary visual artist concerned with cross-sensory perception and the uncharted territories of the senses. She experiments with video, interactive installations, paintings and theatre performance, working solo as well as in collaboration with artists, musicians and scientists. She has worked with olfaction since 1999. Her works have been shown in numerous national and international exhibitions and performances.
Ali is a synaesthete and a multimedia artist and writer. Born in Baghdad in 1985, Ali has a Bachelors degree in computer science from the Al Turath college university/Baghdad 2008. He is a member of The Iraqi artist syndicate, the Iraqi plastic art community, the Iraqi syndicate of Photographers and the Media Development League in Iraq. His work has been documented on the ” Findartinfo ” website.
Ali has contributed to numerous studies and projects involving synaesthesia and he is a member of the International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists, and Scientists (IASAS).
Liaison to India and South East Asia
Sambit Padhan
Sambit has an MBA from Delhi University, worked for six years as a Business Analyst for IBM and Oracle specializing in Business Intelligence and Big Data. Sambit now has his own firm specializing in digital marketing and web application development. Sambit also has a background as a filmmaker and a writer.
Ninghui XIONG, Artist and Independent Researcher, Founder of Music Painting Art Synaesthesia Studio in Beijing.
Painting music has been the theme of Ninghui’s work since 2001. As a leading expert in music visualization, his art innovation methodology and tools have become known in Synesthesia art study circles since 2015. His painting series “Landscape Seen in Chopin’s 24 Preludes”, “Ch’in Music Flowing Water” and installation series “the Cube” inspired by BACH” are representing his art. Through these projects, he has demonstrated how music can drive an artist toward creative expressions.
His research has significant importance for art education and design, as he has been promoting Synaesthesia and creativity in schools, museums and theaters in China since 2009. During 2018 VI Congress International Synesthesia, Science and Art in Spain, as a committee member of the congress, he conducted Bolero Event which was well received by international Synaesthesia community.
He is a board member of Chinese Musical Iconology Association; FUNDACIÓN INTERNACIONAL ARTECITTÀ no 743 China delegate; collaborator of Group HUM1014, Sinestesia y Creatividad Investigación Interdisciplinar Aplicada, Universidad de Granada.
Greg Jarvis is an audio-visual synesthete and a Director of the Canadian Synesthesia Association which he founded in 2013. Greg is a musician and his work has received acclaim from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NME, the BBC, and other major media alongside praise from members of The Velvet Underground, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Duran Duran, The Wailers and NASA’s launch team.
Formerly a record executive, Greg has marketed acts such as David Bowie, Nirvana, KISS, and Dolly Parton in the ‘90s while based at labels in London, Moscow, Toronto, Prague, and Warsaw.
He’s been a speaker at Harvard University, the Juilliard School, the Jack Kerouac School, and the Art Gallery of Ontario and holds an MBA in arts & media business plus a masters in teaching.
He’s currently a music business professor at Durham College in Ontario. In 2020 his group The Flowers Of Hell’s Aubrey Beardsley inspired ‘Come Hell Or High Water’ album cover will be displayed at the Tate Britain and Paris’s Musee d’Orsay as part of a major Beardsley exhibition.
Liaison to Brazil
Sergio Roclaw Basbaum
Sergio is an artist, musician and researcher based in São Paulo, Brazil. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cinema (ECA-USP), a PhD in Communication and Semiotics (PUC-SP) and a post-doc in Philosophy (UNESP).
Currently teaching at the Post Graduate Program in Technologies of Intelligence and Digital Design (TIDD) at Pontificia Universidade Católica (PUC-SP), Sergio also manages a post-graduate course in Music and Image at Faculdade Santa Marcelina (FASM), both in São Paulo.
Besides his creative career in music and other art forms, Sergio has released two theoretical books, “Sinestesia, arte e tecnologia” (Synesthesia, art and technology, Annablume/FAPESP, 2002) and “O primado da percepção e suas consequências no ambiente midiático” (The primacy of perception and its consequences in the midiatic environment, Intermeios/FAPESP, 2017) plus articles published in several countries.
Liaison to Africa
Dr. Sheila Butungi
Dr. Sheila Butungi is from Uganda, a Veterinarian working with the NAGRC&DB, a government agency under the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries which is responsible for livestock genetic Improvement and conservation of animal genetic resources. She manages several projects on behalf of the organization.
Sheila has several forms of Synethesia, the most intense being Sound – Colour Synesthesia and Mirror-touch. She is passionate about sharing and creating awareness about Synesthesia to people in her country, Uganda and across Africa.
Theater Arts
Peter Colley
Peter Colley is an award-winning British/Canadian writer based in Los Angeles and Toronto. His stage plays have been performed in 32 countries, 48 out of the 50 states in the United States, and every province in Canada.
Micheal is a synaesthete and leading expert in product design. He had a long career working for Ford Motor Company and was valued for using his synaesthetic experience to improve product design. Michael now works as an independent consultant.
Michael Kluch is a Photographer/Artist/Educator born in Chicago, Illinois, with a BFA in Photography/Film Making from UIC. Michael stopped in Pasadena while traveling the US with his wife, fell in love, and has lived there ever since. He has shot commercially for a wide range of advertising and commercial clients including Gucci, Honda, Yamaha, Bausch & Lomb…taught photography, digital imaging and design for 14 years and exhibits his personal work. Always working on new concepts, loves the complexity of simplicity.
Daniel is a physicist, engineer, and artist. He’s built an electric car, a robot bartender, and an eight-person, pedal-powered mobile dining table. He enjoys making whimsical kinetic sculptures that invite interactivity and inspire scientific understanding. He’s on the board of Arroyo Arts Collective where he helps run programming for a small neighborhood art park.
Tim is a software engineer, musician, and interactive installation artist. His wide-ranging artistic work includes a programming language for MIDI, interactive installations at Burning Man and other festivals, musical performances with PlayStation dance pads and QWERTY keyboards, and real time video looping and processing with a handheld security camera. Recently, Thompson has focused on the expressive potential of three-dimensional input in visual music instruments, using devices such as the Microsoft Kinect (in the original Space Palette) and the Sensel Morph (in the newer Space Palette Pro).
Daria Martin, artist-filmmaker and Professor of Art at Oxford University, has made a trilogy of short films inspired by mirror-touch synaesthesia: Sensorium Tests (2012), At the Threshold (2014-2015), and Theatre of the Tender (2016). She is also the editor of ‘Mirror-Touch Synaesthesia: Thresholds of Empathy With Art’ (Oxford University Press, 2017), which explores the resonances the trait may have for the world of aesthetics. Martin’s films, which have been exhibited internationally, aim to create a continuity between disparate artistic media (such as painting and performance), between people and objects, and between internal and social worlds. Solo exhibitions include Barbican, London; ACCA, Melbourne; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the New Museum, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kunstalle Zürich; and Tate Britain. Martin is currently Professor and Head of Artistic Research at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. In 2018 she won the Film London Jarman Award for “creating an eclectic and expansive body of work that has explored everything from dreams and mythology to technology and feminism”.
An independent designer for 40 years, Brian Harris creates bespoke mechatronic equipment. His inventions for motion control, stabilized camera mounts for aerial photography and robotic trajectories are used in local and international TV commercials and film productions. He trained in radio physics at the University of Auckland and has collaborated with Raewyn Turner since 2011.
Zoe Marinello-Kohn is a professional ballet dancer, actor, and artist. She received her ballet training at the San Francisco Ballet School and at the Academy of Ballet under Richard Gibson. Since then, Zoe has gone on to dance with such notable companies as the San Diego Ballet, where she is currently employed, as well as the Twin Cities Ballet of Minnesota, Cincinnati Ballet II, and the Osage Ballet.
Zoe is an original cast member of Wahzhazhe: An Osage Ballet and had the honor of performing at the Festival of Families held for Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia in 2015.
Zoe is also an actor in the American Immersion Theater and Murder Mystery Company in San Diego, California. Zoe is a poly synesthete and her work often reflects her unique perceptions of the senses.
Zoe believes that art is a fundamental pinnacle of society that has the potential to create bonds of understanding and tolerance and can be an inspiration for unification and peace.
Jaime Smith is a world-renowned sommelier, chef, and synaesthete. When Smith tastes wine, he sees various patterns, textures, and colors. As a trained chef, Smith also sees clouds of colors and texture for the smells he experiences as he prepares gourmet dishes.
Beer educator and writer, Zachary Rosen became the youngest person at the time (2009) to obtain a Certified Cicerone® title at 22, and has since become specialized in coordinating and hosting beer events. His work includes writing, consulting services, teaching classes, and leading beer dinners. Rosen specializes in using his background in chemical engineering and the arts to seek out abstract expressions of beer, pairing it with movies, music, and many other conceptual counterparts to discover how beer pairs with life.
Josiah Hultgren is Founder and practical neuroscience writer at MindFullyAlive, Chief Marketing Officer at Lotus & Oak Venture Studio, Senior Lecturer at the California Lutheran University Multimedia Department, and a Consciousness Hacking group organizer. He is a certified Neuro Coach – personally trained and mentored by renowned researcher and best-selling author, Mark Waldman. Prior, he served on the board of directors at Aid Africa, generated 3D animation and modeling for commercial film, and held key marketing leadership roles at international software corporations including MAXON. Josiah is passionate about the synergistic potential of art, neuroscience, technology, and humanism.
Bio- Lyndsey Gago earned her degree in kinesiology from California State University at Northridge. In addition, she is a professional performer, aerialist, and dancer. Lyndsey also teaches performance and is passionate about helping people with various disabilities to realize their dreams as far as performance.
Evgenia was born in Odessa, Ukraine, where she studied both Urban Planning and Architecture. Evgenia has since moved to Los Angeles, California where she continues to challenge traditionally accepted relationships between public space and social interaction. Evgenia’s work aims to explore our physical and digital worlds as a synthesized reality. In this pursuit, she deconstructs the technological ecosystems hidden behind urban and architectural material assemblages.
Appelusa is a multimedia event producer, artist, photographer, world champion roller figure skater, and a poly-synaesthete. Appelusa is the artistic director, choreographer, and producer of Synaesthesia Dance Experience: 4D Multisensory Show. She is a founding member of The International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists, and Scientists (IASAS) and serves as the organization’s Dance Curator.
James is President of the UK Synaesthesia Association (UKSA) and Vice President of the International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists and Scientists (IASAS). Wannerton has been involved in synaesthesia and cross-modal research for over two decades and has a wealth of experience in organizing and collaborating on international art/science conferences and events across the globe.
Daniel produces major international exhibitions that have a convergence of the arts and sciences. In 2017/2018, in collaboration with Building Bridges Art Exchange, the International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists and Scientists, and the Art/Sci Center at UCLA, Schuster initiated, put together the major players, and helped to produce and coordinate the world’s first major international multifaceted art and science exhibition focused on inherited synaesthesia: SYNAESTHESIA: What is the Taste of the Color Blue?
