Philip Baldwin, a tenured professor in the Theatre department and international grant recipient, is a firm and passionate believer in changing “STEM” to “STEAM”. A frequent visitor of the iCREATE spaces, he is always spotted trying something new.

Professor Baldwin has hosted numerous classes each semester, each in something different like “Human-Computer Interfaces”, “Immersive Spaces”, and “The Telepresent Self”. Several of his classes took place and met regularly each week in iCREATE’s Innovation Lab and incorporated the use of inexpensive but pioneering technologies.

By working to incorporate creative, innovative thinking with cutting edge technologies into his classes, Professor Baldwin is promoting thinking out-of-the-box to his students so that it’s relevant to all audiences – not just the engineers and the researchers. “ The cool people should get a hold of this first. We’ve created a schism between the scientists and the humans.”

Unlike some professors, he doesn’t try to make it a difficult course for the students, but focuses on the learning experience itself. “It’s about the cultural health of the individual,” he says, “This stuff is so new, even I don’t know it. I come from four generations of professors, and students are my colleagues.”

Using iCREATE’s Innovation Lab and its technologies has been an integral part of what he teaches to his students, and the mindset that he tries to promote in all his work. “We are should be trying to find the next Steve Jobs by heightening innovation with college students to see beyond the numbers at Stony Brook. It’s about the ability to see in a different way, and the sense of ‘play’.”