Dr. Ruben R. Puentedura is the Founder and President of Hippasus, an educational
consulting firm focusing on transformative applications of information
technologies to education.
The basis for Hippasus is to be found in Dr. Puentedura's eighteen years
of work in educational research and reform. While a teaching fellow at Harvard
University, he codeveloped new courses in the introductory sciences, aimed
at increasing the breadth and depth of science understanding for majors and
non-majors alike. This work resulted in a Phi Beta Kappa teaching award,
as well as his being named a Harvard Technology Fellow. Over the next twelve
years, as a faculty member at Bennington College, and as the Director of
the College's New Media Center, Dr. Puentedura designed and implemented new
models for teaching that made exemplary use of new media and networking technologies.
Finally, as an active participant in the Vermont Common Core Initiative educational
reform process, Dr. Puentedura has worked to bring to K-12 education the
research that has informed the rest of his work.
In addition to his work in pedagogy, Dr. Puentedura maintains a number of
active research projects. These cover a broad range, from complex systems
theory, through the creation of new tools and approaches for visualization
in the sciences and the arts, to social network theory and interface design
for social software spaces. His applications of technology extend beyond
the sphere of education and the sciences, and include significant work in
the integration of technology and art. He has worked with Cathy Weis and
various collaborating artists since 1996 on developing the Live Internet
Performance Structure (LIPS) project, which has resulted in performances
uniting locations as disparate as the city of Skopje in Macedonia and New
York City. His most recent work with Ms. Weis has focused on the creation
of "digital marionettes" that can be animated by performers as
full partners in live performance.