iDMAa Recognizes Achievement in Field

The 2010 iDMAa awards recognized excellence and achievement in the field of digital media and in digital media education at their annual awards dinner in Vancouver, BC, on November 5th.

The association recognized Amy Christen, vice president of Corporate Affairs at Cisco Systems with the Pioneering Achievement Award for her contributions to digital education through the Cisco Networking Academy.Kimberly Cooper, co-founder of Prologue Films, was awarded the Career Achievement Award for her creative leadership in the field of film, branding and visual effects.

KwangYun Wohn, Dean of the Graduate School of Culture Technology at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), was recognized for his leadership in digital media education with the iDMAa Outstanding Leadership Award. Ron Burnett, author of How Images Think and president of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design was also recognized with the iDMAa Outstanding Leadership Award.

James Oliverio, Director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida and iDMAa board member, was awarded the Distinguished Performance Award for his scoring of “Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3),” composed by Grammy Award-winning musician Wynton Marsalis. The symphony premiered in June 2010 in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and premiered in the United States at the Lincoln Center in New York City in September.

Jeff Rutenbeck, dean of the Communication and Creative Media division at Champlain College, was awarded the Distinguished Service Award. Rutenbeck served as the founding president of iDMAa in 2004, and has served as the chair of the board of directors of the association for the past five years. He was the founding director of Digital Media Studies at the University of Denver before moving to Champlain in 2008.