Nishant Shah new Dean of ArtEZ University of the Arts Graduate School

As of 1 September 2016, Nishant Shah (1980) will be appointed Dean of Research at ArtEZ University of the Arts. In this new position, Shah will be responsible for further expanding research and Master’s education which has been bundled under the umbrella of the new Graduate School. He will be one of the three members of the ArtEZ Executive Board. He will also continue working as a professor at the Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany. With the arrival of Nishant Shah and the founding of the Graduate School, ArtEZ hopes to boost research and Master’s education. Pierre Ballings, Chairman of the Board of Governors, is thrilled with the arrival of the new dean: “Nishant Shah has an impressive international reputation in his field and is someone who can motivate people and institutes to work together. He also actively contributes to open and equal societies in which participation, knowledge-sharing and open access to knowledge are key concepts.”

Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah is the co-founder and board member of the Centre for Internet & Society in Bangalore, India, and is a professor at the Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media at Leuphana University in Germany, where he teaches in fields such as Digital Humanities, Computer-Human Interaction and Information and Communication Technologies for Development. In his new position as Dean of Research at ArtEZ, Shah will continue working as a professor at the Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media. Shah conducts work on the cutting edge of technology, identity and social and political movements. He is focused on the question of how we can remain human in a technological environment. Finally, he has dozens of publications to his name. Shah has already visited the ArtEZ Dutch Art Institute, which he described as very inspiring.

ArtEZ Graduate School
Nishant Shah will be responsible for the ArtEZ Graduate School: a platform for research, knowledge application and Master’s education. Research at ArtEZ provides an important contribution both to the innovation of education and professional practice as well as to increasing knowledge and forging a connection with the international professional field. ArtEZ plans to expand beyond the current number of four professorships with personal research domains over the coming years. Here, Nishant Shah will focus on the integration of art knowledge while maintaining the distinctive nature of the existing curricula. Shah: “In all the meetings I had at ArtEZ there was a clear vision and genuine involvement with the aim of creating a multidisciplinary research environment that can easily adapt to a changing environment and in which the student is the central focus.”
Shah’s appointment completes the new ArtEZ Executive Board. The other members are Marjolijn Brussaard (President) and Wim Fiselier (Dean of the Undergraduate School).