Rebecca Allen leads the new NRC Hollywood laboratory in Systems Research of Nokia Research Center. She is responsible for building her team, the lab, and the external academic and media company partnerships.

Rebecca is an international visionary artist. During her over 30-year academic and professional career, her work has crossed the boundaries of art, design, and science, and is inspired by the potential of advanced technology, the aesthetics of motion, and the study of behavior. 

She joined Nokia from University of California, Los Angeles, USA, where since 1996 she is a professor and was the founding Chair of the Department of Design | Media Arts.

Since 2005 Rebecca has served as advisor to One Laptop per Child. She was Design Manager for the award-winning industrial design of the laptop and created various on-screen graphics. From 2003-2005, Rebecca was founding director of the Liminal Devices research group at MIT Media Lab Europe in Dublin, Ireland.
 
Earlier, she was Creative Director/Executive Producer and 3D Visionary at video game company, Virgin Interactive Entertainment, and a member of the world-renowned NYIT Computer Graphics Laboratory and MIT's Architecture Machine Group (predecessor of MIT Media Lab). She has also designed and directed cutting-edge projects for numerous clients including TimeWarner, Island, Mattel, Philips, Nintendo, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, Seville World Expo ‘92, Apple and DARPA.

Rebecca has published over 30 papers and articles and has lectured extensively around the world. She has received over 25 awards and grants, including an Emmy, over 20 commissions from Europe and the USA for technology based art work and has taken part in over 140 exhibitions internationally.

Rebecca received her M. Sc. Degree in Computer Graphics and Interactive Media from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA and a BFA in Film, Animation and Graphic Design from Rhode Island School of Design.

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