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Patent Issued: US-12,343,653 B2
Patent Pending: 19,224,482 |
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Pamela L. Jennings, Ph.D., MBA, MFA, NACD.DC is the CEO and Founder of CONSTRUKTS, Inc. , a digital twin platform for learning that connects hands-on and computational learning. CONSTRUKTS integrates wireless sensor networks, real-time 3D model simulation and computational analysis, and augmented reality. (Patent Issued: US-12,343,653 B2; Patent Pending: 19,224,482)
Pamela is an advocate for integrative learning and research in higher education with a particular focus on bridging cultures of knowing across human centered computing, electrical engineering, the arts, design, and humanities. She served as a committee member on the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering consensus report, Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in Higher Education: branches from the same tree.
Pamela’s commitment to integrative learning and research is demonstrated throughout her career in higher education, the federal government, creative practice, and entrepreneurship. She experienced the possibilities of open-innovation and groundbreaking research in corporate and federal think tanks; the synergies in learning methods from the arts to the sciences; how the arts and humanities can generate speculations that inform STEM inquiry and vice versa; the constrictions of the possible when institutional parochialism is too strong; the creative genius that blossoms when given, space and time in places that nurture the imagination; the power of funding to influence the course of innovation and change; the ability to increase academic impacts with small resource shifts; the complexity of building a space for integrative creativity and research that balances expectations from government mandates and grassroots enthusiasm. Throughout her career she learned that creating a culture of growth requires that we …
As an academic, Pamela developed curriculum, pedagogy, and peer mentoring strategies that center learning, creativity and innovation. She held the first joint appointment between the Human Computer Interaction Institute and the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. There, she taught undergraduates to Ph.D. students across the campus in my creative computational courses in programming, electrical engineering, and critical theories of technology. As the Inaugural Director of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration, Pamela developed a faculty R&D seed grant program and mentored faculty to strive for broader impacts with their creative R&D and community engagement projects. As the Director of the University of North Carolina system Center for Design Innovation and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Winston-Salem State University, she redesigned the Center’s program to align with our newly built twenty-six thousand square foot facility that greatly broadened campus and community engagement in the center’s programs. As the Head, Department of Media Art and Technology at North Carolina State University, Pamela led curriculum reform to remap student learning needs to faculty strengths.
Pamela was a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow (2022-24) and served as a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Research, Development & Technology. There, she helped to develop the Reconnected Communities and Thriving Communities programs that focused on the mitigating harm to underrepresented and underserved communities due to transportation infrastructure. She also co-led, with leadership from the USDOT Volpe Center, a future transportation technology road mapping project that focused on the development of an intermodal system-of-systems. Following her fellowship, Pamela joined the NIST CHIPS R&D office to support the expansion of the CHIPS SBIR program. Early in her federal career, Pamela served as a National Science Foundation Program Director in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate (CISE). Her NSF grant portfolio included the Human Centered Computing and CreativeIT programs. CreativeIT was a particularly unique NSF program that supported computer science research that bridged STEM, the Arts, and the Humanities in projects that ranged from basic research, science of design, creative computation, and STEM learning. One of her proudest NSF leadership moments was orchestrating the first interagency initiative between the NSF and the National Endowment for the Arts that laid the groundwork for a national network of academic, non-profit, federal, and corporate advocates for integrative learning and research in higher education.
Pamela is an advocate for integrative learning and research in higher education with a particular focus on bridging cultures of knowing across human centered computing, electrical engineering, the arts, design, and humanities. She served as a committee member on the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering consensus report, Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in Higher Education: branches from the same tree.
Pamela’s commitment to integrative learning and research is demonstrated throughout her career in higher education, the federal government, creative practice, and entrepreneurship. She experienced the possibilities of open-innovation and groundbreaking research in corporate and federal think tanks; the synergies in learning methods from the arts to the sciences; how the arts and humanities can generate speculations that inform STEM inquiry and vice versa; the constrictions of the possible when institutional parochialism is too strong; the creative genius that blossoms when given, space and time in places that nurture the imagination; the power of funding to influence the course of innovation and change; the ability to increase academic impacts with small resource shifts; the complexity of building a space for integrative creativity and research that balances expectations from government mandates and grassroots enthusiasm. Throughout her career she learned that creating a culture of growth requires that we …
- Expand ways of knowing to develop ideas that cross ideological divides.
- Rethink and re-design ways of encouraging fluidity and flexibility in problem solving.
- Invest in excellence by developing initiatives that crack the code of systemic institutional exclusionary practices.
- And, Cultivate innovation ecosystems that are intentional about the variety of people and ideas at the table.
As an academic, Pamela developed curriculum, pedagogy, and peer mentoring strategies that center learning, creativity and innovation. She held the first joint appointment between the Human Computer Interaction Institute and the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. There, she taught undergraduates to Ph.D. students across the campus in my creative computational courses in programming, electrical engineering, and critical theories of technology. As the Inaugural Director of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration, Pamela developed a faculty R&D seed grant program and mentored faculty to strive for broader impacts with their creative R&D and community engagement projects. As the Director of the University of North Carolina system Center for Design Innovation and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Winston-Salem State University, she redesigned the Center’s program to align with our newly built twenty-six thousand square foot facility that greatly broadened campus and community engagement in the center’s programs. As the Head, Department of Media Art and Technology at North Carolina State University, Pamela led curriculum reform to remap student learning needs to faculty strengths.
Pamela was a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow (2022-24) and served as a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of Transportation in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Research, Development & Technology. There, she helped to develop the Reconnected Communities and Thriving Communities programs that focused on the mitigating harm to underrepresented and underserved communities due to transportation infrastructure. She also co-led, with leadership from the USDOT Volpe Center, a future transportation technology road mapping project that focused on the development of an intermodal system-of-systems. Following her fellowship, Pamela joined the NIST CHIPS R&D office to support the expansion of the CHIPS SBIR program. Early in her federal career, Pamela served as a National Science Foundation Program Director in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate (CISE). Her NSF grant portfolio included the Human Centered Computing and CreativeIT programs. CreativeIT was a particularly unique NSF program that supported computer science research that bridged STEM, the Arts, and the Humanities in projects that ranged from basic research, science of design, creative computation, and STEM learning. One of her proudest NSF leadership moments was orchestrating the first interagency initiative between the NSF and the National Endowment for the Arts that laid the groundwork for a national network of academic, non-profit, federal, and corporate advocates for integrative learning and research in higher education.
The development of CONSTRUKTS® has been a collaborative process across many disciplines from the arts to electrical engineering with subject matter expert designers, engineers, computer and learning scientist and students who represented a myriad of academic disciplines from computer science and electrical engineering to visual arts, design, and theater. The most important aspect of the CONSTRUKTS® project has been collaborative learning and discovery. Sharing our insights and skills in an open, non-judgmental environment enabled the development of a system that is much larger than the skills and perspective of any one team member or discipline.
CONSTRUKTS® Team (2014-2023): Learning and Labor from coast to coast in the U.S. and abroad.
CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPS
ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIPS
FUNDERS
$1.3M in grants and corporate start-up programs has been raised to support CONSTRUKTS.
National Science Foundation
Other Funders
Corporate Product Development Support
- The Reimagined Classroom
- Wolfram Research
- Neuvatek, Inc.
- Daedalus Product Design
- San Juan Software
- Microsoft HoloLens for Academic Research,
- Highway1.io (PCH International) Hardware Start-up Incubator.
ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIPS
- The Borough of Manhattan Community College, NYC
- North Carolina State University, Raleigh,
- Winston-Salem State University, NC
- Forsythe Technical Community College, Winston-Salem, NC
- California College of Art, San Francisco
- Banff New Media Institute Advanced Research Technology Lab, Banff Canada
- Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
FUNDERS
$1.3M in grants and corporate start-up programs has been raised to support CONSTRUKTS.
National Science Foundation
- 2021 National Science Foundation, Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR)
- 2015 National Science Foundation, Cybermanufacturing
- 2013 National Science Foundation Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR)
- 2008 National Science Foundation CreativeIT Program
Other Funders
- North Carolina Chamber of Commerce SBIR Phase 1 supplemental grant
- Alberta Informatics Circle of Research Excellence (Canada)
- Carnegie Mellon University Faculty Research grants
- Rockefeller Foundation Creativity and Culture program
Corporate Product Development Support
- Grace Hopper Women in Technology Conference PitcHER competition
- Microsoft HoloLens for Academic Research program
- PCH International Highway1 Hardware Start-up Incubator
Let's talk about how you can help us launch the CONSTRUKTS® pilot.
email: CONSTRUKTS,Inc.
email: CONSTRUKTS,Inc.
CONSTRUKTS®, Inc. transforms emerging wireless, computational, and user experience technologies into engaging products with our digital twins platform for learning. CONSTRUKTS® empowers learners by opening the playing field for thinkers who think differently. We do this by leveraging creativity as a vehicle for learning while also challenging the status quo of how these technologies are originated, developed, and applied. We believe that a team of "out-of-the-box" thinkers and makers from subject matter experts to students is required to develop technologies that empower people to realize their potential as innovators of the future. CONSTRUKTS Inc. is a Delaware Corporation.
