Jekyll2026-04-26T13:59:12+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/feed.xmlKeene’s BlogA blog for all things KeeneTracing the City2026-03-24T08:32:51+00:002026-03-24T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/2026-03-24/tracingTracing the City features student work our The Cooper Union’s interdisciplinary course, Data Science for Social Good that I’m teaching this year with Tandis Shoushtary A’20. This course pairs engineering, art, and architecture students with New York City nonprofits to help address real-world challenges together. Cooper students help these organizations explore open datasets drawn from NYC Open Data sources, communicate findings visually, and propose data-informed interventions. Projects often highlight disparities in health outcomes, environmental conditions, educational access, and justice-system involvement across different city neighborhoods.
For Tracing the City, collaborations with nonprofits such as Bee U, which works in beekeeping education, youth leadership, and environmental advocacy, and Civic Health Alliance, which focuses on civic participation, voter access, and mobilizing healthcare professionals, investigate how open data can support youth empowerment, community health, tenancy protections, and corporate wage theft. The exhibition is presented around New York City’s Open Data Week 2026 and also includes selected projects from previous years of Data Science for Social Good.
]]>Gorilla Tag2025-10-23T08:32:51+00:002025-10-23T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/2025-10-23/gorillaHere’s a fun story - the creator of Gorilla Tag, one of the most popular VR games ever, is a Cooper Union Alum!]]>Generative Machine Learning for Architecture, Spring 20252025-05-15T08:32:51+00:002025-05-15T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/jekyll/update/2025-05-15/genMLWe held an exciting event in the Great Hall, hosting two incredible speakers, Mario Klingemann and Casey Reas, in a discussion around generative arts, moderated by Christiane Paul. You can see the talk here, the password is generative
As always, we exhibited some of our great student work, some pictures below.
]]>Wildfire Prediction2025-02-06T08:32:51+00:002025-02-06T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/jekyll/update/2025-02-06/wildfiresCheck out this writeup on Mike Bentivegna’s Master’s thesis on wildfire prediction]]>Computer Science at The Cooper Union2024-08-19T08:32:51+00:002024-08-19T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/jekyll/update/2024-08-19/CSIn exciting news, I have been named Inagural Chair of a new Computer Science program at The Cooper Union!]]>Generative Algorithms for Art and Architecture2024-07-29T00:00:00+00:002024-07-29T00:00:00+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/2024-07-29/collabMLAfter many years and countless revisions, our article on collaboratively teaching generative algorithms has been published.
]]>Data Science for Social Good, Spring 20242024-05-15T08:32:51+00:002024-05-15T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/jekyll/update/2024-05-15/DSSGWe opended our annual data science for social good exhibition today. Once again we partnered with several non profits and performed data visualization and analysis. Have a look below for descriptions of the projects and some pictures of the installation.
The National Black Womans Justice Institute mission is to research, elevate, and educate the public about innovative, community-led solutions to address the criminalization of Black women and girls. We partnered with them to do an analysis on the distance between incarcerated women in NYC and their home communities.
Accelerating Circularity is a nonprofit that catalyzes new circular supply chains and business models to turn used textiles into mainstream raw materials. We developed an educational exhibit on the circular economy with 2 components. The first was a live action game that illustrates the difficulty of rapidly sorting textiles. The seconds was a series of infographics, printed on clothing, around the topics of clothing recycling.
]]>Workshop on Generative Machine Learning for Architecture and Art, Spring 20242024-04-20T08:32:51+00:002024-04-20T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/jekyll/update/2024-04-20/mlarchAlong with my colleague Ben Aranda, we hosted the 2nd Workshop on Generative Art, Architecture & Engineering Collaboration. Leading practitioners in the field of generative art, design and machine learning presented their work and engaged in a discussion led by students. This workshop was an extension ofour multi-year effort to explore generative algorithms and Machine Learning at Cooper Union through a series of interdisciplinary seminars and studios, where students from the art, architecture and engineering schools work together.
Our panelists included:
As part of this workshop, we also exhibited the work from our Generative Machine Learning for Architecture and Art course. Some of the work is shown below.
]]>Data Science for Social Good, Spring 20232023-05-15T08:32:51+00:002023-05-15T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/jekyll/update/2023-05-15/DSSGWe opended our annual data science for social good exhibition today. Once again we partnered with several non profits and performed data visualization and analysis. Have a look below for descriptions of the projects and some pictures of the installation.
The Bail Project is a national nonprofit organization that pays bail for people in need, reuniting families and restoring the presumption of innocence. We began devloping web-scraping tools to investigate re-arrest rates in Escambi County Florida.
Additionally we design and installed an exhibit which will highlight the inequities of bail amounts with a focus on the human loss of cash bail.
Accelerating Circularity is a nonprofit that catalyzes new circular supply chains and business models to turn used textiles into mainstream raw materials. We worked with them to analyze the amount of divertible textile in the NYC waste stream. They provided us with a dataset about a hand sorted and labeled sample of trash collected in collaboration with the department of sanitation. We provided them with an analysis, and developed an installation around the topic of textile recyling.
Housing Rights Initiative is a national non-profit watchdog group that investigates real estate fraud, connects tenants to legal services, and promotes tenants’ rights to fair and affordable housing. For this project, they shared with us a dataset related to an investigation they performed on voucher discrminations. They called numerous landlords and brokers about posted vacancies and asked if they would accept a housing voucher. To refuse a voucher is illegal, but many landlords and brokers nonetheless refuse or avoid accepting them. They provided with us a dataset of the locations of all the apartments they investigated, what happened when they called, and whether or not they felt it warranted filing a claim against the landlord or broker.
With this dataset, we provided an analysis of the demographics of the neighborhoods to gain some insight into where this type of discrimination is more prevalant. We also developed an interactive website to highlight this issue.
We also provided analyses and visualizations for City Harvest and Grameen America. That work was preformed on internal datasets and so we are unable to show the results publicily.
]]>Workshop on Generative Machine Learning for Architecture and Art, Spring 20232023-04-22T08:32:51+00:002023-04-22T08:32:51+00:00https://samkeene.github.io/jekyll/update/2023-04-22/mlarchAlong with my colleague Ben Aranda, we hosted our inaugural Workshop on Generative Art, Architecture & Engineering Collaboration. Leading practitioners in the field of generative art, design and machine learning presented their work and engaged in a discussion led by students. This workshop was an extension a multi-year effort to explore generative algorithms and Machine Learning at Cooper Union through a series of interdisciplinary seminars and studios, where students from the art, architecture and engineering schools work together.
Our panelists included:
Adam Berninger, Founder, Tender
Neta Bomani, Artist, Learner, Educator
Andrew Kudless, Professor University of Houston, Founder Matsys
Zach Lieberman, Artist, Professor MIT Media Lab
Ingrid Burrington, Writer, Artist
Marcelo Coelho, Head of Design at Formlabs, MIT Department of Architecture
R. Luke DuBois, Artist, Associate Professor of Integrated Design & Media, NYU
Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Artist, Learner
As part of this workshop, we also exhibited the work from our Generative Machine Learning for Architecture and Art course. Some of the work is shown below.
Emotions
The user sits inside a mirrored chamber, where an AI detects their emotion. These cues are fed to a generative algorithm which creates images illuminating the chamber.
Team: Sue Zhou, Nicole Joseph, Anne He
Replacement
This piece classifies the users age, gender, race, and emotion. It then replaces the users face with a generated version of themselves as the AI sees them. It can be deeply unsettling to see yourself replaced, particularly when the biases of AI are revealed in the process.
Team: Aiden Shankman, Garret Ingman, Samuel Finley
Stable Blocks
This project allowed users to play with simple kindergarten blocks, take pictures, and ask them to be realized into architectural buildings
Cellular Automata
This video uses 3-dimensional cellular automata and generative images to envision the growth and decay of buildings:
Team: Daniel Matallana, Leslie-Fairuz Abad-Neagu, Gavri Kepets
