Creative Code Intensive

Niki Selken 👩🏻‍💻 (she/her) is an artist, technologist and educator. Niki spent over a decade working across game design, physical computing, experimental theatre, interaction design and education. As a designer and technologist, Niki focused on working with nonprofits and small businesses in the inclusion and social impact space (Ms. Foundation, Girls Write Now, LYRIC, Hesperian Health Guides) and as an educator, she taught a range of creative coding courses in both New York and San Francisco. A graduate of Parsons School of Design, Niki has taught at her alma mater, at St. Joseph's College in Brooklyn, at the University of San Francisco, at the Bay Area Video Collective and at Gray Area—where she is the Creative Development Director and manages the artist incubator and creative code education programs. Niki's work has been featured by Yahoo Tech, Buzzfeed, Make Magazine and Adafruit, among others. Niki identifies as Latina and hails from a long line of Mexican artists and craftsmen.

David Sasson is a creative technologist born and raised in the Bay Area. He holds a BA and MS in computer science from Brown University where he specialized in data visualization and human-computer interaction. David greatly enjoys building audiovisual systems for play, and is thankful to Gray Area for providing a space for this.

Born and raised in Turkey; Ayse is San Francisco based, multidisciplinary advanced analytics and data visualization professional with a passion of seeing and creating beautiful things. In all aspects of life, she loves working with complexity; while finding clarity, truth and balance in it. Outside of data and design world, she's a certified yoga teacher working to bring more strength, gentleness and awareness to her communities. Her interest and curiosity in variety of areas help her build meaningful connections and understand the world as it is.

Alex Abalos is an electrician, musician, sound artist, instrument fabricator and synthesizer nerd who enjoys piecing together unlikely partners, instruments, found sounds, and venues, creating unique and meaningful experiences that help neighborhoods think outside of their barriers and boundaries. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay to a working class, immigrant family with a mentality of “working with what you got,” Alex attributes his success to his DIY attitude. Realizing later in life that he could use it as a tool to connect with people, he brought his passion for music to alternative educational spaces where he can bridge the gap between the avant garde music that he loves and the street culture that he grew up in.

Nat is an artist and programmer currently living in the Bay Area. They grew up in California's Mojave Desert before leaving to study Computer Science at Stanford University. They have worked as a creative technologist in XR for several companies, most recently TikTok. Currently, they are taking time off to cultivate their art practice before deciding what to do next. Their work uses simulation, computer graphics, and mixed media to speculate about language, ecology, and identity. They live with a bunch of plants and isopods, and one big mystery snail.

Matthew Nelson is an educator, artist, and activist who believes in challenging systemic inequities through the radical reimagining of tech education. He is a program manager at an ed-tech organization that teaches web development to incarcerated individuals, and a musician who explores the intersection of hardware and software processes through immersive ambient compositions. Matthew's introduction to coding came in 2017 when he discovered the live-coding music platform, Sonic Pi. Since that time, he has become passionate about coding as both a professional skill and a creative endeavor.