does the data speak to you?

I use rhythm and sound in climate communication 
Arctic Sea Ice, for live piano performance, was premiered in McCaw Hall at TEDx Seattle.
​Performed by Kristina Lee, this piece uses both gesture and pitch to express the satellite record of arctic sea ice. 
I am currently collaborating on a collection of arctic climate soundtracks that weave together 
the ​place-based perspectives of Alaska Natives with climate data.

download the audio file

why make music from data?

download the music score

This winter I collaborated  with scholar-poet C.R. Grimmer for a poetry audio book O-- {Ezekiel's Wife].  
​The audio book with poems by C.R. Grimmer, digital sound art by Judy Twedt, and visual art by Colleen Burner  is
now available through Gasher Press. 

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Our sense of what is real is often clouded by our preoccupations, passivity, or politics. But when an artwork removes these filters...our perspective shifts. Our vision expands. We feel more connected.                                                                                                        -Karen Olsen, Public Art Review

listen to more climate soundtracks

 Human behavior is the biggest source of uncertainty in climate predictions.  
I mix art and science to promote public reckoning with our changing climate and the associated risks of rampant carbon pollution.      

 Infosonics are the audio analogue to infographics: short sound tracks that convey important information in a dataset. Acoustic communication opens many pathways for communicating mood or emotional content. Some data sets convey information that should signal alarm or a sense of urgency. Sound can often do this more effectively than visual media.  I make infosonics in the climate realm. 

I also use climate data to inspire longer, more abstract climate soundtracks with digital sound synthesis and ambisonics to create three-dimensional, spatialized sound fields. These sound tracks explore tensions between the time-scales of lived human experience and the time-scales of climate change. 

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A passion for public scholarship and
science-based, equity-driven
​ environmental stewardship

I have a masters degree in Atmospheric Sciences and am a doctoral student in a self-designed doctoral program in climate data sonification at the University of Washington. Science is almost exclusively communicated through visual media, but our ears are highly skilled at signal processing. I use digital sound as a medium to process and communicate climate data. 

I am also committed to gender, racial and economic justice. I lead a climate justice workgroup in our graduate student labor union, UAW Local 4121, and founded a climate & clean energy speakers bureau for the King County Labor Council.