Columbia’s Audio Arts and Acoustics and Theater departments will start the fall 2009 semester with new chairpersons in place.

With scholarly and professional work in the areas of auditory science, music cognition, systematic musicology, and instructional design, Pantelis Vassilakis, Ph.D. (left photo), the new chair of Audio Arts and Acoustics, stands comfortably at the intersection of art and science.

“My passion for sound is longstanding and has shaped my life as an artist, a scientist, and a professional,” said Vassilakis. “I look forward to engaging that passion and commitment to working with the department’s highly accomplished faculty of professionals, artists, and academics who are teaching and mentoring the next generation of international audio professionals.”

Over the course of his career, Vassilakis has held research, creative, and administrative positions with a number of private and public organizations in Europe, including the English National Ballet, the London Chinese Opera, and BBC Radio 3. For the past several years he has held a joint appointment at Columbia College and DePaul University.

The Theater department welcomes John Green, Ph.D. (right photo), who joins Columbia directly from his tenure at Butler University in Indianapolis, where he contributed to artistic growth and innovation across town and gown communities. Green, who noted the strong sense of ensemble he encountered among theater faculty at Columbia, also intends to collaborate across disciplines.

“In higher education we have the resources and the time to truly explore what theater in the twenty-first century is going to be,” he said. “We need to be innovative in suggesting our own ideas and also being responsive to the quiet revolution that’s been taking place in professional theater over the past decade. How many productions do we see where live performance interacts with electronic imagery, incorporating video in interesting and stimulating ways? Our students need to be learning those tools, doing those things.”

Green succeeds longtime chair Sheldon Patinkin, who headed the department for nearly 30 years. See our Q & A with Patinkin.