Todd Richmond
Project Director
Todd is a producer, director, researcher, educator, musician, and digital theorist and practitioner. His career in new media began back in 1978 producing multi-projector slide shows for entertainment, educational and corporate clients. He also spent time as an on-air personality at an FM radio station in San Diego, California. He entered college as a music major -- an interest he still maintains as a performer, recording artist and producer -- but ended up with a degree in chemistry from the University of San Diego in 1987. Todd went on to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1994, and did his postdoctoral research in protein engineering at the University of California, San Francisco.
In 1995, he accepted a position as a chemistry professor at The Claremont Colleges, a highly-selective liberal arts cluster college located just outside of Los Angeles. Early in his faculty career he incorporated multimedia and Web technologies into his teaching and research. That work led him to evolve from his specific focus on chemistry to instead pursue a broader understanding of technology and content. When moving to the USC Annenberg Center in 2000, he concentrated his energies on firmly placing the Center at the forefront of researching new trends in new media, fostering emerging technologies and collaboration, and examining the critical questions the world will face as it moves deeper into the digital epoch. He worked closely with the USC School of Cinematic Arts, expanding his breadth in traditional media forms.
Currently Todd works in a variety of areas including: viral media and building learning communities (with the Hewlett Foundation); emergency response and disaster preparedness simulation and training with various government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security; immersive/interactive education including serious games; visualization, messaging, and media as agents of change. In addition he is actively involved with a variety of learning initiatives in Asia. He continues exploring various topics in social software, social networks, remix, and "living digital" collaborating with other visionaries such as John Seely Brown. He also is a writer and has produced/directed a number of "mini documentary" video projects as well as various new media pieces.