Dr. Ellen Pearlman  is a New York based media artist, curator, writer and critic. She is a Senior Research Assistant Professor at RISEBA University in Riga, Latvia. Ellen is the Director of ThoughtWorks Arts, a global research and innovation lab that includes the well regarded ThoughtWorks ArtsResidency. An EU Vertigo STARTS Laureate (Horizon 2020), she is a Fulbright World Learning Specialist in Art, New Media and Technology, a Zero1 American Arts Incubator/U.S. State Department cultural envoy to Kyiv, Ukraine, and a Fulbright Alumni Ties grantee. Ellen received her Ph.D. in Digital Media from the School of Creative Media at Hong Kong City University  where she premiered her brain opera "Noor", a fully immersive interactive brainwave opera at ISEA Hong Kong and the Microwave International Festival, HK. Her PhD thesis, "Is There A Place In Human Consciousness Where Surveillance Cannot Go?" was awarded highest global ranking from Leonardo LABS abstracts. "AIBO", her new emotionally intelligent artificial intelligent brainwave opera premiered at the Estonian Music Academy's state of the art black box theater and was part of Vertigo STARTS Days in Paris, France.
Ellen is also President of Art-A-Hack(TM), and Director and Curator of the New York Volumetric Society, as well as a contributing editor to Performance Arts Journal (PAJ) MIT Press.