Faculty & Staff
Faculty & Staff
Doug Jones
Department Chair
Doug Jones has worked in recording and small-room acoustics for more than twenty years, and still consults on such projects. He has earned a Master's degree from Columbia College Chicago, where he is Professor of Acoustics and the founding chairman of the Department of Audio Arts & Acoustics. There, he directs accredited Bachelor's-degree programs in recording, architectural acoustics, live-sound reinforcement, audio for visual media, and sound installation.
Mr. Jones is a member of the Acoustical Society of America and the Audio Engineering Society, where he is active in committee work. His publications have appeared in IEEE Proceedings and International Computer Music Proceedings, and he is an every-month columnist in Live Sound International magazine. In addition to his teaching duties at the College, he organizes advanced TEF workshops and other in-service technical training for the audio industry.
Howard Sandroff
Sound Design
Howard Sandroff, composer and sound artist is an acknowledged expert in analog and computer-based electronic music and audio systems. His concert works, written for soloists, mixed chamber ensembles and orchestra, often include live or pre-recorded electronics and have been performed, recorded and broadcast throughout North, South and Central America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Sandroff regularly tours, performs lectures and consults on the design of academic and commercial electronic music systems. He has been guest artist at The Julliard School, Stanford University, Northwestern University, State University of New York in Albany, Rennsilear Polytechnic Institute, City University of New York, University of Texas, Princeton University, Kunitachi College of Music, the Institut de Recherche' et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (I.R.C.A.M.), the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, New Music America, the Aspen Music Festival, the International Computer Music Conference, the International Society of Electronic Arts, the Smithsonian Institute, Santa Fe Opera, the Chicago Symphony Chamber Series, the Ojai Festival, I.S.C.M. Boston, the Musik Factory in Bergen and the Ultima Festival in Oslo, Norway and many others. His published articles on musical and technical topics have appeared in a variety of publications including the International Computer Music Conference Proceedings, New Ways: In Music Education and Electronic Musician Magazine and his compositions have been recorded by Koch International, EMI Virgin Records, Centaur, Horizon and University of Arizona Recordings.
A Chicago native, Mr. Sandroff received the Master of Music degree with Honors in Composition from the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University and completed advanced studies in computer music and audio systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has received composition fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Athena Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, and research grants from Columbia College Chicago, Chicago Artists Abroad, The University of Chicago, the Yamaha Music Foundation and others.
S. Benjamin Kanters
Director of Recording
Benj Kanters came to Columbia College Chicago after twenty years in the audio and music industries as well as fourteen years as an instructor of audio at Northwestern University's Schools of Speech and Music. He is a former owner and chief managing engineer of Studiomedia Recording Company in Evanston. His experience includes: concert production in large and small venues; audio engineering for live, recorded, and broadcast media; advertising and public relations to both the professional and consumer audio markets; and developing and teaching courses in audio ranging from high school to graduate level. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Audio Arts & Acoustics since 1993 and is the Director of the Recording Program. Mr. Kanters received a Bachelor of Science in Speech and a Master's Degree in Music Technology, both from Northwestern University.
Dominique J. Cheenne, Ph.D.
Director of Acoustics
Dominique J. Cheenne holds a Brevet de Technicien Superieur from the University of Caen, France. He received a Masters degree and a Ph.D. - both in Electrical Engineering - from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the modeling of sound propagation over seating surfaces.
In 1979 he founded C & C Consultants, a consulting practice specializing in architectural acoustics and environmental noise control. Since its inception C & C Consultants has provided design services on hundreds of projects nationwide including individual residences, performing arts spaces, schools, offices, factories, churches, as well as local, state and Federal government facilities.
In 1995, Dr. Cheenne joined the faculty of Columbia College Chicago. He is currently serving as a tenured member of the faculty in the Department of Audio Arts & Acoustics where he directs the Acoustics Program. His main research interests are in the application of computer models to architectural acoustics and to environmental noise control issues.
Dr. Cheenne is a member of the Audio Engineering Society and of the Acoustical Society of America.
Jack Alexander
Director of Live Sound Reinforcement
Jack Alexander started his career in audio in 1967 at the Office of Instructional Resources at the University of Illinois, working in TV and Film sound.
Subsequent to graduation from U of I in 1971 [B.A. TV/Speech-Theatre/History], Mr. Alexander began his work in live sound production and related consulting, which continues to this day.
He has mixed sound for over 3500 major artists, designated and supervised numerous large-scale installations all over North America, and functioned as consultant to several of the most celebrated loudspeaker designers in the industry.
He started as a part-time instructor at Columbia College Chicago in 1983, and began his full-time appointment in 1996. He designed and supervises the Live Sound Reinforcement Program in the Department of Audio Arts & Acoustics.
He is currently Education editor [along with Doug Jones] for Live Sound International, the leading journal of the live sound production industry.
Ted Uzzle
Director of Contracting
Ted Uzzle installed and repaired commercial motion-picture equipment in the 1970s, and then founded a design consultancy in sound, acoustics, and cinema design. His projects include Toad Hall in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the performance center at Berklee College of Music in Boston and executive screening room at 20th Century Fox studios in Los Angeles. In 1980 he joined Altec Lansing Corp. as product manager for microphones and loudspeakers, and eventually became product director for electronic products as well. In these years he assisted in the designs of very large sound systems for the winter Olympics at Sarajevo and the summer Olympics at Barcelona.
After ten years at Altec he joined Intertec Publishing Co. as editor of Sound & Video Contractor magazine. After seven years there he joined the National Systems Contractors Association (a not-for-profit trade association) where he directed the development of technical training.
Mr. Uzzle is a member of the Acoustical Society, the S.M.P.T.E., and the British Kinematograph Society. He was elected a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Scoiety in 1984 for his published research on radiation patterns from loudspeakers, the acoustical transmission of perforated cinema screens, and the theory of sound-system feedback. He is a certification examiner for the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association. He has written more than 350 published papers, articles, and anthology chapters, and several books.
Jeff Kliment
Academic Manager
Prior to joining Columbia College Chicago, Jeff Kliment served as Director of Instructional Resources and Media Services at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he managed academic computing and audiovisual resources across two campuses. During this time, Mr. Kliment also taught audio production classes at City College of San Francisco.
From 1996 to 2004, Mr. Kliment worked at LucasArts as Lead Sound Designer and Sound Department Manager, directing a diverse team of music composers, sound designers, voice editors, and engineers whose work is widely recognized as among the best in the field of interactive entertainment. From 1981 to 1996, he was employed as a recording engineer and mixer at Russian Hill Recording in San Francisco, where he helped establish and maintain Russian Hill’s reputation as a world class recording facility and post-production house.
Mr. Kliment has contributed to a wide variety of projects including post-production for feature films as well as sound design, voice, and music production for television, radio, and interactive video games. He has also engineered dozens of albums for independent and major labels and mixed hundreds of live shows in venues across the country.
Mr. Kliment earned a B. A. in Broadcast Communication Arts at San Francisco State University in 1983.
Mauricio Ardila
Faculty
Mauricio Ardila joined the Audio Arts and Acoustics faculty in the Fall of 2003. He has worked in audio related fields for more than 15 years. He obtained a Bachelor of Music in Music Engineering from the University of Miami, studied Music Technology/Music Cognition at New York University and is currently finishing his PhD in Music Technology/Music Cognition at Northwestern University. His studies also include Civil Engineering and Music Theory and Composition.
His research interests are centered around perception and cognition of sound. Projects have included studies on music and emotion, perception of the soundscape, psychoacoustics, the use of sound in indigenous healing practices, and research on the sounds of the humpback whales. As a producer and engineer, he has mixed live sound as well as recorded and mastered for major artists in the US and abroad.
In his home country, Colombia, he founded and directed an accredited university degree program in audio engineering, the first of its kind in South America. He worked as a consultant for other educational institutions providing support in curriculum and facility design. His work to expand audio resources to Latin America included work as an editor and translator for MIX Magazine Spanish Edition. He is a member of the Acoustical Society of America, the College Music Society, the Association for Technology in Music Instruction, the Society of Music Percpetion and Cognition, and the Audio Engineering Society where he was actively involved in Spanish language forums at AES conferences.
Peter Zhang
Faculty
Peter Xinya Zhang joined Columbia College Chicago in August, 2006. His field is psychoacoustics, specifically sound localization. He received his degree of Bachelor of Science in physics from Peking University, P.R. China, and received his Ph.D. in physics from Michigan State University, USA. In his doctoral thesis, he investigated human binaural pitch effects to test various binaural models, and developed a new technique to simulate 3-D sound field for virtual reality with loudspeakers. He has published papers at the Journal of Acoustical Society of America, presented at various conferences, and served as chair in the session of psychological and physiological acoustics at the 4th joint conference of Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan.
Besides acoustics, Dr. Zhang is an opera tenor. He hosted performances in Chicago, Boston, East Lansing/MI, and Beijing/China. He started several organizations for cultural exchange, and gives seminars on Peking Opera and other Chinese art forms.
Dr. Zhang is a member of the Acoustical Society of America, and of the Audio Engineering Society.
Lauren Weinger
Faculty
Lauren Weinger composes image based electro-acoustic sound designs
Weinger, both individually and as a team member of artistic collaborators, has been the recipient of countless grants including multiple Rockefeller Foundation awards, several National Endowment for the Arts awards, (NEA,) San Francisco Arts Commission SXSW Interactive Festival, MUSE Award, 9th Annual Webby Awards, SBC Knowledge Network, Education World, Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Award in Music composition, Illinois State Arts Council Chicago, IL, Fellowship Finalist Award in Music Composition, A.I.R. Gallery New York, NY, Grant for Women in New Media, Meet The Composer New York, NY.
Installations, performances, commissions include: The Walker Art Center, Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Festival d'Arles,France, Whitney Museum, CN, NY Central Park Conservancy, Jacob's Pillow Festival, MA, The Joffrey Ballet, Chicago, The Samuel P. Taylor park in the Red Wood Forest, The Exploratorium Museum, Theater Artaud, a Victorian house, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Cowell Theater, and Fort Point, under the golden gate bridge in San Francisco, California. New York Film Festivals, American Film Institute, Casa de la Cultura/Center for Latino Arts, Boston, MA Roosevelt Island in New York, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Tryon Center for Visual Art, NC, P.S. 122, NYC, Institute for Contemporary Arts, Boston, MA, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, MoMA, LongIsland City, NY. Festival d'Avignon, France, Museo Fuerte Conde de Mirasol, Biblioteca Jos? M. L?zaro_Universidad de Puerto Rico_Recinto de R?o Piedras Vieques. Recordings are available on the Atavistic Label, Zoar, EMF and RERMegacorp.
Weinger joined the faculty in the department of Audio Arts and Acoustics at Columbia College Chicago in 2006 having formerly been the Director of the Sonics Arts program at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with additional positions at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. and Rhode Island School of Design, and countless lectures, workshops and residences at numerous colleges and universities.
Weinger was a Teaching Fellow and Research Scientist at New York University under the joint auspices of a Massachusetts Institutes of Technology and New York University. Weinger received her Masters in Music technology from New York University, N.Y. and Bachelors in Music composition from Bard College, N.Y.
Ronald Gresham
Faculty
Ronald Gresham received a BS in Speech-Communications from North Central College. He has more than 25 years of experience in audio as a recording/mixing engineer and sound designer. He has worked as an Audio Engineer for WGN-TV Channel 9, The Pax Network Channel 13 Chicago, The Chicago Bulls, The Orlando Magic, The Chicago Cubs, The Chicago White Sox, Fox Sport Net, ESPN, ABC Sports, The Illinois State Lottery, McDonalds, Coke, Allstate, Sears, Miller, Coors, Ford, Denny’s and many others.
Mr. Gresham’s musical clients include R Kelly, Nine-Inch Nails, TLC, Boys2Men, Monica, Gladys Knight, Temptations, Too Short, Sty Stone, Styx, Juvenile and many, many others. Studios: Studio Chicago, CRC, Streeterville Recording Studios, The Hit Factory, Daddy House of Sound, DARP, The Record Planet, The Firestation, Chicago Trax, Commercial Paper Recording, Circle House Recording and Trans-Con Recording Studios. Mr. Gresham engineered and recorded Grammy winning projects for Gladys Knight and Pips and Boys2Men. He also won 2 Emmy’s in sports for WGN-TV Channel 9.
Administrative Staff & Technical Support
Elliott K. Scott
Assistant to the Chair
Elliott Scott received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Television/Video Production from Columbia College Chicago in 2000. Mr. Scott has freelanced as a videographer, producer, and teaching artist for the Urban Missions Program and its community based partners including Duncan YMCA, Street-Level Youth Media, Gallery 37 and the Cambodian Association of Illinois. His accomplishments include his work as Video Instructor for the Cambodian Association Oral Histories/Killing Fields Museum Project and Executive Producer/Director for the live CAN-TV broadcast of Street-Level Youth Media’s 2000, 2001 as well 2002’s annual Block Party. Since 2003, Mr. Scott has worked as a teaching artist for Music Theater Workshop/West Pullman Park Youth Project. That same year he received his Masters of Art Degree in Arts Entertainment & Media Management from Columbia College Chicago. He also help develop several audio after-school and summer high-school service learning programs in collaboration with local community based organizations: Street-Level Youth Media, Young Chicago Authors, Free Street Theatre ACT Charter School, and Snow City Arts Foundation, employing many Columbia College audio students. Currently, in addition to being Assistant to the Chair of the Department of Audio Arts & Acoustics, Mr. Scott is an adjunct faculty member of Columbia College Chicago’s Television Department, instructing three courses: Aesthetics and Storytelling, Culture, Race & Media and Black Portrayals in Television.
Brett Johnson
Chief Engineer/Manager
Brett Johnson's long and varied career in professional sound includes engineering [and engineering management] for Zenith/dB Recording Studios. He also has done concert sound for the Grant Park Music Festival, Blues Fest, Jazz Fest, Gospel Fest, and more. His systems design and engineering has been used for the renovation of Buckingham Fountain, and other major projects. He has worked in film sound and broadcast audio, receiving the "Digital Broadcast Pioneer" award of the National Association of Broadcasters. His clients have included Computer Associates, Adidas Corp., the State of Illinois, the White House Office of Communications, Columbia Pictures, Fox Entertainment, and many, many more.
He has maintained an association with Columbia College Chicago for twenty years, however, where he is Manager and Chief Engineer of the Audio Arts & Acoustics Department. He is also a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers [and was recently Manager of the Chicago Section], the Society of Broadcast Engineers, and the National Association of Business and Educational Radio.
Ray Morales
AA&A Technician
Ray Morales is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago [1995]. He started working in the Audio Arts and Acoustics Department as an Assistant Studio Coordinator before moving into technical engineering and maintenance. He has also worked as a free lance audio engineer for several theaters in the Chicago area. Currently, Mr. Morales is engineering for the Chicago dance company Cerqua Rivera Art Experience, and the Ralph Wilder Orchestra.
Robert Zilligen
AA&A Digital Systems Technician
Tony Miccolis
Studio Coordinator
Tony Miccolis received a B.A. at Columbia College Chicago in Audio Arts and Acoustics, and another B.A. at Dominican University in Communications, with a minor in Music. He also attended the Art Institute of Chicago for one year in the Sound for Pictures Department. In addition to his role as Studio Coordinator, Mr. Miccolis serves as a part time faculty member in the Department of Audio Arts and Acoustics. He is also the Proprietor/Engineer of Edgewater Audio Labs, Chicago.