Ari Melenciano is an artist, designer, creative technologist, researcher, and educator who is passionate about exploring the relationships between various forms of design and the sentient experience. 

Currently, her research lies at the intersections of human-computer interactive technologies, societal impacts of technology, Black radical imagination, geo-political activism and counterculture, multisensory experiential design, biomimicry, architecture, experimental pedagogy and speculative design.

Ari is the founder of  Afrotectopia, a social institution fostering interdisciplinary innovation at the intersections of art, design, technology, Black culture and activism through collaborative research and practice. 

She currently teaches creative technology and design at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU’s Dept. of Digital Photography and Imaging, Pratt Institute’s Communications Design school, and Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts MFA program. 

Ari is currently earning a Masters of Architecture from the Pratt Institute. She received her Master’s from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and earned a Bachelor’s studying art, architecture and urban design at the Universitat de Barcelona and art and digital media at the University of Maryland.