Shawn is a researcher, professor, developer, and activist.  His focus is on the development and use of emerging technologies related to media creation, distribution, and interaction.  His projects generally involve the development of tools that help democratize media making, distribution, and interactivity utilizing mobile and web based technologies.

Shawn is an Associate Arts Professor and Director of the Interactive Media Arts program within the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His teaching includes courses on participatory and social media, programming, web development, mobile technologies, and interactive telephony. In 2008 he was honored with the David Payne Carter award for excellence in teaching from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

He has demonstrated, exhibited and presented his work at many conferences and technology demonstrations including O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony, O'Reilly's Emerging Technology, ACM Multimedia, Vloggercon and Strong Angel II.  He was a co-organizer of the Open Media Developers Summit, Beyond Broadcast (2006) and iPhoneDevCamp NYC. 

His independent development work has been focused on building interactive real time and mobile applications for artists and activists, notably working in collaboration with Robert Whitman, The Guardian Project, and WITNESS.

Shawn holds a Master’s degree in Interactive Telecommunications from NYU and a Bachelor’s degree in Media Study from SUNY at Buffalo.