Meet Our New Faculty
Two new full-time faculty members will join NC State's Department of Performing Arts and Technology in Fall 2024.
NC State’s Department of Performing Arts and Technology is thrilled to welcome two new full-time faculty members in Fall 2024. Allison Beaty and Justin Mathew have joined the DPAT as teaching professors in dance science and music technology respectively. This is an exciting time for the department as its dance and music programs continue to evolve and expand, providing new interdisciplinary opportunities for its students.
Learn more about each new faculty member, their experience and their goals for the department below.
Allison Beaty
Assistant Teaching Professor, Dance Science
- MFA, Dance ┃ University of North Carolina at Greensboro
- B.A., Dance ┃ Texas Tech University
Allison Beaty is a dance artist, educator and researcher. Her teaching and choreographic style is greatly informed by Safety Release Technique, somatic practice and her love for psychology, anatomy and interdisciplinary collaboration. Allison’s choreographic work focuses on interdisciplinary collaboration with other art mediums in the exploration of scientific phenomena from the disciplines of psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Her choreography has been presented at the Wicklow ScreenDance Laboratory (Ireland), the Jacksonville Dance Film Festival (Florida), the International ScreenDance Festival (Iowa; Mexico), the 16th Annual Modern Dance Festival at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Texas), the American College Dance Association Southcentral Conference (Texas) and FilmFest by Rogue Dancer, among numerous other concerts and festivals. In addition, Allison’s research on collaborative choreographic practices and shared ownership in dance has been presented at the NDEO National Conferences and is published in Research in Dance Education. Alongside her creative and pedagogical practice, Allison is also engaged in quantitative research in psychology examining memory mechanisms for dance expertise.
Allison Beaty will premiere her new dance film, entre-deux: a labor of becoming, this August in the 2024 Dance Faculty Concert.
| “We are very excited to have Allison join the Department of Performing Arts and Technology’s faculty. Allison is a well-respected choreographer and researcher who is active in interdisciplinary projects, providing the performing arts with yet one more opportunity to connect with our campus colleagues in a meaningful and intentional manner.” Stuart Benkert, Department Head |
Q&A with Allison Beaty
What are you most looking forward to as you step into this role?
I am most looking forward to getting to know the students, faculty and staff in the department and learning more about how my experiences and areas of expertise can serve the dance program and university. I am excited about the direction the dance program is headed and I am eager to help enhance the student experience through my teaching, research and mentorship!
How has your research shaped your approach to dance and your experience as a dance artist?
My interdisciplinary research in dance and psychology/cognitive neuroscience has illuminated the possibility for shared dialogues that benefit both artists and scientists. Rather than viewing these disciplines as opposing forces, immense value can be found in bringing scientific principles into the dance studio and integrating embodied knowledge from dance into a laboratory setting. This shared dialogue has been artistically satisfying for me as a dance artist who previously felt I was either being pulled toward art and away from science or vice versa. Furthermore, it has been immensely rewarding to help students, other artists and audiences connect with their bodies, minds and experiences in heightened ways through this cross-disciplinary perspective.
What do you hope for your students to learn from you?
I hope my students gain a deeper understanding of their unique place within the dance field and develop confidence in their abilities, valuing their experiences and individual voices while also pushing themselves beyond their comfort zones. I aim to inspire a lasting passion for dance, preparing them to integrate and advocate for the arts throughout their lives, no matter where their careers take them after NC State.
Justin Mathew
Associate Teaching Professor, Music Technology
- Ph.D., Computer Science ┃ University of Paris-Saclay
- M.M., Music Technology ┃ New York University
- B.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering ┃ University of Rochester
Dr. Justin D. Mathew is an Associate Teaching Professor of Music Technology at North Carolina State University with academic and industry experience. Prior to North Carolina State University, he held positions in research and development in industry and served as an Adjunct Lecturer in the music engineering program at the University of Miami, Frost School of Music. His past research projects include compressed sensing techniques on spatial acoustics of instruments, methods of music information retrieval for automatic transitions and design methodologies for developing new audio mixing and production software.
Mathew is an inventor on patents about near-field spatial audio rendering, continuous real-time acoustic mapping, real-time sound and haptics synthesis and machine learning systems for sound enhancements. His current research studies the effects of spatial audio and auditory perception in complex sonic environments. In Miami, he taught undergraduates the fundamentals of digital music signal processing centering on audio and acoustic algorithms, and he taught graduate students advanced signal processing for building digital audio effect plugins. In addition, he advised several graduate students on their thesis about non-linear modeling, loudspeaker and microphone processing and applied machine learning techniques. In Raleigh, he teaches audio technology, acoustics and psychoacoustics, music technology and senior capstone courses. Using his breadth of experience, Mathew focuses his teaching on the core skills required to design, develop and test creative tools for musicians, engineers and producers.
| “We are very excited to welcome Dr. Mathew to the department. He brings a wealth of academic and professional experience to our new program ensuring marketability and relevance for our students and the professional and industrial community.” Stuart Benkert, Department Head |
Q&A with Justin Mathew
What are you most looking forward to as you step into this position?
I am excited at the opportunity to prepare students for careers in music technology and provide the ability to develop and realize new technology. I think the mix between the creativity of performing arts and the analytics of engineering and computer science provides a wonderful space for new and exciting ways to enhance the arts and music.
What goals do you have for NC State’s Music Technology degree program?
The primary goal of mine is to prepare students to exercise their creativity and use foundational technical skills to solve challenging problems. Another goal is to develop the program into a place that fosters entrepreneurship for students and faculty to develop exciting technology for the performing arts. Lastly, I would like to grow the music technology community in Raleigh and the Research Triangle into a vibrant and diverse network of collaborations.
What do you hope for your students to learn from you?
Different fields have coined their own term (human-computer interaction, human-machine interaction, human-centric design, etc.), but my hope is for them to gain technical engineering skills with a human-focus in the music and the performing arts industry. Having the ability to identify user design problems, design and build creative solutions and evaluate these solutions through user studies will set themselves for success in their future careers.
We are excited to welcome both Beaty and Mathew as valuable additions to the Department of Performing Arts and Technology!
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