Making Waves: Creative Expression Through STEM and Music Education

Presented by Jay Brockman

Making Waves is an innovative STEM+Music program that sharpens students’ creative and analytical skills while building community. Using principles drawn from grade-level standards in engineering, math, and science, as well as best practices in music education, students design, build, and analyze custom musical instruments and then compose and perform original works using those instruments.  Developed by Jay Brockman, Director of the Center for Civic Innovation in partnership with Grammy artists Third Coast Percussion, Making Waves has offered educational programs to students across the country, including in the South Bend and Elkhart schools.  In this workshop, we will introduce teachers to Making Waves by having them experience the program for themselves: making instruments, composing music with those instruments, and performing a final concert.

About Jay Brockman

Jay Brockman has broad experience in academia and industry. Before joining the College of Engineering in 1992, he  worked for Intel Corporation. He is a co-founder of Lucata, Inc., a company with a patented architecture for big data analytics with offices in South Bend and New York. He is the author of an introductory engineering textbook, and he has received several awards for his teaching. In 2018 he received Notre Dame’s Grenville Clark award, given to a faculty member whose voluntary activities advance the cause of peace and human rights.