Ar Ducao

About Ar Ducao

Ar Ducao (they / zey pronouns) is a filmmaker, engineer, educator, and organizer who specializes in working with underrepresented and incarcerated STEAM (science, tech, art, engineering and math) learners. Through their firm DuKode Studio, they created the award-winning sci-fi arthouse animation series \"The Great Tit is a Bird,\" which follows Black and Brown feminine and gender-expansive people around the world, the losses they survive, and the ways they shape our high-tech era even as they are pushed to the margins. Their media work has been honored with the South by Southwest Community Service Award, the Best App Ever Award, and Telly Award, among others. Their innovation work has been profiled by the New York Times, MSNBC, WIRED, Discovery Channel, NPR, and many more. They are a past winner of the Science Channel reality show \"All American Makers.\"Ducao is also a co-founder and principal at Multimer, a bio-spatial analytics spinoff from MIT Media Lab and National Science Foundation SBIR awardee. A federally-certified EDWOSB (economically disadvantaged woman-owned small business) with multiple patents, Multimer has worked with marginalized communities in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Ducao is a research affiliate and instructor at MIT, and a part-time professor at NYU School of Engineering and NYU Prison Education Program. Ar Ducao is Deputy Board Chair for InuaKike.org (Kenya), Community Advisory DEI Member-at-Large for Callen-Lorde LGBTQ+ Health Center (NYC), Advocacy and Research Ambassador for the National Eczema Association (US), and Technical Advisor for the Black maternal health startup Birth By Us.

Experience

1. Co-founder, Managing Partner & Creative Technologist

   The Dukode Studio

   Jan 2010 — Present

   The DuKode Studio (dukode.com) focuses on creative data transposition to many forms, including software, animation, print, and physical objects. Its team has collaborated with nonprofits, think tanks, artists, educational publishers, pop stars, government agencies, scientists, and sociologists. Its current production is a sci-fi arthouse animation series called \"The Great Tit is a Bird\"(TGTIAB, https://thegreattitisabird.com). TGTIAB follows BIPOC women and trans folks around the world, the losses they survive, and the ways they shape our high-tech era even as they are pushed to the margins. TGTIAB explores issues its creators have witnessed firsthand, including techno-colonization, research misconduct, gender-based violence, and threats to bodily autonomy and integrity.

Education

• University of Maryland

  BM, Music Theory and Composition

  1998 — 2002

• School of Visual Arts

  MFA, Computer Art

  2002 — 2004

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Master of Science (M.Sc.)

  2011 — 2013

• University of Maryland

  Bachelor of Science - BS

  1998 — 2002