James Oliverio Stepping Down as Digital Worlds Institute Director

The UF Digital Worlds Institute today announced that James Oliverio is stepping down as Director of the Institute as of June 30, 2023. He will continue to hold full professorships in both Digital Arts & Sciences and in Music. He will be on administrative leave in Fall 2023 and will return to teaching and research in Spring 2024.

Oliverio is the founding Director of the Digital Worlds Institute, a position he has held since January 2001. During his tenure as Director, Oliverio has had many notable achievements, including:

• Establishing and maintaining the reputation of Digital Worlds (DW) as an interdisciplinary research, development, and production center in the emerging field of Digital Arts & Sciences.
• Hiring more than a dozen new faculty members, including specialists in computer vision, digital animation, video game design, entrepreneurship, experience design and production, and most recently, artificial intelligence (AI) and writing for digital media, in addition to creating and filling new staff positions in technical, production, and student service areas.
• Establishing, sustaining, and growing degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels, now known respectively as the BADAS and MiDAS programs.
• Acquiring the stewardship of the historic Norman Gym (built circa 1930) and providing vision for the adaptive re-use that transformed the gymnasium into the DW Research, Education, and Visualization Environment (REVE) in 2003. He also supervised the ongoing evolution of DW’s facility in the UF Computer Science building, now known as the DW Reality Lab.
• Creating the conceptual and functional designs for the REVE and leading its iterative renovation projects over the past two decades. The current REVE facility includes three digitally enhanced classrooms, two digital production studios, faculty and staff offices adjacent to an open workspace, a reception and visitor waiting area, and dedicated control room space to coordinate the on-campus and online activities of the Institute.

Oliverio was serving as Visiting Associate Professor and Composer in Residence at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta when he was selected to become DW’s founding Director after a national search. At that time, he was the first Director of the AudioLab in the Graphics, Visualization and Usability (GVU) Center in the Georgia Tech College of Computing and had spearheaded the creation of a new lab facility in the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology (GCATT). For his film and television soundtracks, Oliverio holds five Emmy Awards from the Atlanta chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

At DW, he has served as Principal Investigator and/or Co-PI on numerous interdisciplinary digital media and technology projects funded by agencies including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). He has appeared as keynote or invited speaker at national and international conferences, and has authored or co-authored numerous papers, presentations, and book chapters.

Oliverio’s research and development work in real-time globally distributed interactive media has been featured on CNN International and the BBC. Additional recognition includes the International Digital Media and Arts Association’s (IDMAA) nationally peer-reviewed Award for the “Most Innovative Academic Program” (2008), the inaugural “Peoria Prize for Creativity” (2005) for producing the globally distributed media arts collaboration entitled “Hands Across the Ocean,” and the “Most Courageous and Creative” Award in the High Bandwidth Challenge at the 2001 global SuperComputing Conference.

Oliverio’s orchestral scores have been commissioned and premiered by ensembles including the Cleveland Orchestra and the symphonies of Atlanta, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Spokane, among others. In 2021 the Atlanta Symphony performed, recorded, and released his “DYNASTY: Double Timpani Concerto.” He has served as Artistic Consultant on numerous projects with Wynton Marsalis, and also produced for and collaborated with Jazz @ Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. His most recent score, “Legacy Ascendant,” was commissioned and given its world premiere performances by the Cleveland Orchestra in January 2023.

Posted: April 11, 2023