David
Schwittek
I design the conditions under which humans become more capable with AI.
I direct the stories, systems, and images through which people understand technology.
Why I Do This
We are living through the most significant technological transformation since the invention of the web. My work explores how people and institutions can adapt to AI without surrendering creativity, curiosity, or human agency. Through design, research, education, and public scholarship, I build systems that help people learn, collaborate, and create more effectively with intelligent technologies.
Creative Direction
Award-winning designer, art director, animator, producer, filmmaker, artist, and educator with more than twenty years of experience shaping visual systems, motion narratives, digital-humanities experiences, documentaries, public media, exhibitions, and creative teams. My practice connects campaign thinking, broadcast production, interaction design, research, and emerging technology.
Experience
Associate Professor of Graphic Design + Digital Media
Lead interdisciplinary work at the intersection of AI, design, education, motion, digital media, public scholarship, and institutional change. Chair curriculum redesign, direct grant-funded programs, coordinate BFA thesis and assessment, and build cross-campus and industry partnerships.
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design + Digital Media
Taught and developed design, motion, broadcast, interaction, film, web, game-design, and digital-media curricula while directing student production teams, public exhibitions, screenings, and collaborative research.
Adjunct Associate Professor + Senior College Laboratory Technician
Supported design and digital-media curricula and maintained the department’s creative technology infrastructure, including Macintosh labs, printing, servers, storage networks, photography facilities, video editing, media conversion, and faculty/student production workflows.
Adjunct Instructor
Taught graphic design, motion graphics, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Taught undergraduate and graduate courses in motion, video, sound, interface design, creative coding, web production, physical computing, and emerging media.
Research, Curriculum + Selected Initiatives
Selected Projects + Production Work
Design + Ethics of Emerging Systems
Interdisciplinary studio co-developed with Laura Silva using critical AI literacy, design justice, migration studies, systems thinking, research, prototyping, testing, and reflective practice.
Critical AI Literacy Institute
Google-supported faculty fellowship at the CUNY Graduate Center. Developed pedagogical frameworks for critical, creative, and responsible AI collaboration; directly informed Ethical Design curriculum.
DxD Career Readiness Accelerator
Built mentorship, portfolio development, networking, career storytelling, and industry-learning experiences with Warner Bros. Discovery professionals for CUNY art, design, animation, and media students.
Sara Little Turnbull Design Initiative
Directed a multi-year, approximately $300,000 design-education initiative supporting team-taught courses, student fellowships, visiting designers, mural and environmental-graphics collaborations, exhibitions, public programs, and the 125-page Painted Word catalog.
Dead Poets Rise
Collaborative poetry game and evolving digital learning platform exploring structured play, improvisation, collective authorship, stylistic judgment, and future forms of human-AI creative collaboration.
Operational Drift
PSC-CUNY-supported textile, generative-AI, and digital-media research examining political imagery, misinformation, policing, ICE and government overreach, visual ideology, and unstable machine memory.
Best of the Bronx
New York Emmy Award-winning public-service campaign. Produced and designed broadcast work recognized for civic storytelling, campaign cohesion, and visual execution across multiple spots.
ShiftNYC
Animated public-service campaign nominated for two New York Emmy Awards in Graphic Arts and Public Service Announcement categories. Led animation and production workflows with junior animators and crew.
¡Salud! Myths and Realities of Mexican Immigrant Health
Documentary and installation created with Alyshia Gálvez. Screened at CUNY and public venues and received an Award of Outstanding Excellence from Docs Without Borders.
Through the Lens of Age
Community-based portrait, exhibition, and publication project challenging ageism through photography, social practice, student research, and public scholarship.
Digital Recreation of the Lenox Library Picture Gallery
Peer-reviewed digital-humanities project translating art-historical research into an interactive visual experience presented at the New York Public Library, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Frick Reference Library, CUNY Graduate Center, and international conferences.
Annotating The New Union Club
Designed and developed an interactive feature for Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide using OpenSeadragon, custom JavaScript, critical annotation, content warnings, and ethical interaction design around traumatic historical material.
The Painted Word
Co-curated major Lehman College Art Gallery exhibition featuring more than thirty contemporary artists, including Shepard Fairey, Futura, Glenn Ligon, Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, and Paula Scher. Co-produced the catalog and authored “No Talk Thursdays.”
CUNY Animation Consortium
Founded and coordinate a cross-campus network serving programs with more than 1,600 students, advancing articulation, shared resources, licensing advocacy, program visibility, showcases, and grant development.
Bronx Food Humanities
Selected for collaborative curriculum development across Lehman, Hostos, Bronx Community College, and the New York Botanical Garden, linking food, archives, art, design, culture, and Bronx community knowledge.
Publications + Creative Works
Schwittek, David. “No Talk Thursdays.” In The Painted Word: Text, Gesture, and Expression in Contemporary Art. Lehman College Art Gallery.
Bland, Bartholomew; Melissa Brown; Shawn Cheng; Sean McCarthy; and David Schwittek, curators. The Painted Word: Text, Gesture, and Expression in Contemporary Art. Exhibition catalog.
Odumosu, Temi, and David Schwittek. “Interactive Feature.” In “Annotating The New Union Club: A Case Study on Critical Praxis for Digital Art Histories.” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 24, no. 2.
Dead Poets Rise. Creative work acquired and cataloged by Poets House, New York.
McGovern, Justine; Katherine Burt; and David Schwittek. “Food for Thought: Culturally Diverse Older Adults’ Views on Food and Meals Captured by Student-Led Digital Storytelling in the Bronx.” Urban Social Work 5, no. 1.
Schwittek, David, et al. “A Digital Recreation of the Lenox Library Picture Gallery: A Contribution to the Early History of Public Art Museums in the United States.” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 17, no. 2.
Through the Lens of Age: Challenging Ageism in the Bronx and Beyond with Community-Based Arts Activism. The International Journal of Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts 13, no. 2.
“Close Guantanamo Now.” Full-page advertisement, The New York Times, p. A14.
“Close Guantanamo Now.” Full-page advertisement, The Progressive, p. 23.
“Four Reclining Figures.” Creative Quarterly.
“Doc.” Independent Lens, PBS; directed by Immy Humes.
Exhibitions, Screenings + Public Creative Work
We’re Doing It All Wrong. Edward A. Dixon Gallery, Dayton, OH.
250 Years of Expression. Artspace, Richmond, VA.
Woke, Triggered… NEXT Gallery, Colorado.
Protest: The Art of Activism. ShockBoxx Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA.
The Palestinian Holocaust: Art Against Erasure. Gallery 874, St. Louis, MO.
The Painted Word: Text, Gesture, and Expression in Contemporary Art. Co-curator, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY.
Bachelor of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition. Co-curator, Lehman College Art Gallery, May 16–28.
Level Up: Writers & Gamers. American Writers Museum, Chicago, IL.
Perseverance: NYC Stories. Premiere, Lovinger Theater, Lehman College.
Instant Karma. Solo exhibition, CB Gallery, Katonah, NY.
An Object of Curiosity. Bethany Arts Community, Ossining, NY.
Paper Works! CB Gallery, Katonah, NY.
ShiftNYC. NYC TV and Taxi TV, November 1–30.
21 Trucks of San Antonio Texcala. Solo exhibition, Spot Gallery, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY.
Threads of Truth: Social Impact & Fiber Arts. Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL.
KMAA (Re)Vision Project. Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY.
Dream Big! Arts Enrichment Program. BronxNet TV.
Sanctuary Cities and the Politics of the American Dream. Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, CT.
Social Justice in the Misinformation Age. Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, PA.
¡Salud! Myths and Realities of Mexican Immigrant Health. Screening, CUNY Graduate Center.
Through the Lens of Age. Solo exhibition, Gallery 18, Bronx, NY.
83rd Annual National Exhibition. Cooperstown Art Association, Cooperstown, NY.
Dusklit Interactive Arts Festival. Seligmann Center for the Arts, Sugar Loaf, NY.
¡Salud! Official selection, CUNY Film Festival.
¡Salud! Docs Without Borders Film Festival, Award of Outstanding Excellence.
Migration, Movement + Memory. Art School of Columbia County, Ghent, NY.
Through the Lens of Age. Solo exhibition, Bronx Art Space, Bronx, NY.
Historical Typefaces: An Interpretation Through Movement. Rarebit Animation Festival.
Historical Typefaces. CUNY Film Festival, Best Visual Design.
Sonia Manzano. Solo short-documentary presentation, Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose.
Necesitando Al Otro | Needing the Other. CUNY Film Festival, Macaulay Honors College.
Out From Plato’s Cave. Lehman Student Scholarship Day.
Lehman Downtown. Westbeth Gallery, New York, NY.
Cards, Letters and Prayers. Heart of Gold International Film Festival, Australia.
Cards, Letters and Prayers. Sound Shore Video Festival, Grand Prize, Best Overall Film.
Cards, Letters and Prayers. Rochester Short Film Festival, Certificate of Merit.
Cards, Letters and Prayers. Buffalo Niagara Film Festival, Official Selection.
Cards, Letters and Prayers. Little Theater Emerging Filmmakers Series.
Cards, Letters and Prayers. Parsons Animation and Digital Film Festival, Best Digital Film.
Presentations, Panels + Lectures
Design and Ethics of Emerging Systems. Ethical AIms Conference, Baruch College.
Design and Ethics of Emerging Systems. CUNY IT Conference.
Annotating The New Union Club. CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative Lightning Talks.
Playing with Words: Dead Poets Rise and the Gamification of Improvisational Strategies in Music and Lyrics. Second Phish Studies Conference, Oregon State University.
Dead Poets Rise. Asparagus Man, Matawan, NJ.
Perseverance: NY Stories. Panel discussion, Lehman College.
Social Justice Speakers Series. Research presentation, Lehman College.
¡Salud! Myths and Realities of Mexican Immigrant Health. CUNY Graduate Center.
A Digital Recreation of the Lenox Library Picture Gallery. New Directions in the Humanities, Granada, Spain.
21 Trucks of San Antonio Texcala: A Fiber-Based, Ethnographic Portrait Series. Arts in Society, Lisbon, Portugal.
A Digital Recreation of the Lenox Library Picture Gallery. Frick Reference Library, New York.
A Digital Recreation of the Lenox Library Picture Gallery. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.
A Digital Recreation of the Lenox Library Picture Gallery. CUNY Graduate Center.
Brown Bag Lunches: A Digital Recreation of the Lenox Library Picture Gallery. Bard Graduate Center.
A Digital Recreation of the Lenox Library Picture Gallery. New York Public Library.
Necesitando Al Otro: Exploring Audience Presence in Installation. Communication & Media Studies Conference, UC Berkeley.
Aging in Place: Real Stories of the Elderly in the Bronx. Design Principles and Practices, Barcelona.
Guiding Student Research Inside and Outside the Classroom. Wave Hill, New York.
Challenging Ageism in the Bronx and Beyond. Arts in Society Conference, American University of Paris.
Redact This! Artists Against Torture. Arts in Society Conference, American University of Paris.
Through the Lens of Age. Arts in Society Conference, American University of Paris.
New York City Digital Humanities Week. CUNY Graduate Center.
¡Salud! Cátedra Puebla, BUAP, Puebla, Mexico.
¡Salud! CUNY Institute for Mexican Studies Annual Conference, John Jay College.
The Movable Classroom. CUE Conference, City College.
¡Salud! Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Day, Lehman College.
¡Salud! Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Day, Lehman College.
Redact This! Artists Against Torture. Panel discussion, Lehman College.
iRescU: Saving Lives and Data. mHealth Summit, Washington, DC.
iPads on Campus: Adopting Emerging iOS Platforms. CUNY IT Conference.
Redact This! Artists Against Torture: Art Activism. Left Forum, Pace University.
Grants, Fellowships + Funded Initiatives
Bronx Food Humanities Curriculum Development Fellowship. Lehman, Hostos, Bronx Community College, and New York Botanical Garden.
Sara Little Turnbull Foundation continuation proposal. Submitted.
PSC-CUNY Research Award. Havana Syndrome: Exploring American Perspectives on Cuba in the Disinformation Age, $3,450.
Critical AI Literacy Institute Faculty Fellowship. CUNY Graduate Center; Google-supported.
PSC-CUNY Research Award. Flu Klux Klan / Operational Drift, $3,500.
Sara Little Turnbull Foundation Grant. Continuing implementation; student fellowships, public programming, mural collaboration, and The Painted Word.
Sara Little Turnbull Design Initiative. Multi-year initiative totaling approximately $300,000.
George N. Shuster Award. 21 Trucks of San Antonio Texcala.
CUNY Interdisciplinary Research Grant. Through the Lens of Age.
PSC-CUNY Research Award. Redact This! Artists Against Torture.
PSC-CUNY Research Award. Research on ceremonial music, dance, and dress at the Goroka Show, Papua New Guinea.
NYSERDA Grant. Graphic design and lead web-platform design for Sustainable CUNY’s $2.5 million university-wide solar initiative.
PSC-CUNY Research Award. Music: The First 1000 Years.
PSC-CUNY Research Award. Westchester: Documenting the Homeless.
PSC-CUNY Research Award. Redact This! Artists and Writers Against Torture.
Leadership, Committees + Professional Service
BFA Thesis Coordinator
Oversee capstone administration, enrollment, faculty mentoring, milestones, critiques, documentation, professional preparation, and annual thesis exhibition.
BFA Assessment Coordinator
Coordinate learning-outcome review, evidence collection, curriculum feedback, assessment processes, and continuous program improvement.
LEH Curriculum Committee + Working Group Chair
Lead curriculum redesign using SWOT analysis, student journey mapping, collaborative facilitation, and general-education review with a 26-member faculty group.
Provost’s AI Working Group
Contribute to institutional AI strategy, governance, teaching policy, and work informing Lehman’s Middle States self-study.
Department of Education AI Grant Team
Helped develop a large institutional proposal focused on AI, educational transformation, and student success.
Technology Fee Committee
Represent Art and advocate for Arts + Humanities technology, hardware, software, animation, AI, HyFlex, and industry-standard creative tools.
Personnel + Budget Committee
Participate in faculty personnel review, hiring, governance, departmental priorities, and resource decisions.
CUNY Beyond
Develop career-infused degree maps connecting curriculum, competencies, student experience, and career pathways.
CUNY Inclusive Economy
Serve on the Liberal Arts Pilot Steering Group focused on embedding career readiness in liberal-arts education.
Latinx Arts Initiative
Support cross-disciplinary programming, visibility, and collaboration around Latinx art and culture.
LEH Liaison Committee
Help guide interdisciplinary LEH curriculum and serve as course approver for Arts offerings.
Lehman College Senate
Represented the Art Department in college governance.
Social Justice Speakers Series
Develop and support public programming connecting scholarship, activism, and social justice.
Hostos–Lehman Transfer Credit Review
Participated in a grant-funded project using machine learning to identify course equivalencies across CUNY.
Diversify by Design
Invited advisory board member helping inform national work around equity, access, and the future of design.
WADDA Steering Committee
Support a digital-humanities research lab studying women art dealers through data science, machine learning, and image analysis.
Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide
Peer reviewer for digital-humanities scholarship.
Barrio Roots NYC
Advisory board member for multi-location arts and cultural exchange focused on binational public expression.
Teaching + Curriculum
Courses span graphic design, broadcast and motion design, UI/UX, web production, interactive media, creative coding, photography, film and television, game design, digital multimedia, visual storytelling, independent study, and BFA thesis.
Honors + Recognition
Advisory Board Member, Diversify by Design.
Bronx Food Humanities Curriculum Development Fellow.
Faculty Fellow, Critical AI Literacy Institute, CUNY Graduate Center.
Two New York Emmy nominations for ShiftNYC: Graphic Arts and Public Service Announcement.
Award of Outstanding Excellence, Docs Without Borders Film Festival.
SUNY New Paltz 40 Under Forty Award.
Best Visual Design, CUNY Film Festival.
Telly Award, Bronze Winner, Commercial / Local TV Campaign.
New York Emmy Award, Best PSA Series, Best of the Bronx.
Sustainable CUNY Video Contest, Grand Prize.
Sustainable CUNY Video Contest, Grand Prize.
Heart of Gold International Film Festival, Official Selection.
Sound Shore Video Festival, Grand Prize, Best Overall Film.
Rochester Short Film Festival, Certificate of Merit.
Buffalo Niagara Film Festival, Official Selection.
Parsons Animation and Digital Film Festival, Best Digital Film.
Education
M.F.A., Design + Technology · Parsons School of Design, The New School.
B.A., Computer Science · State University of New York at New Paltz.
Methods + Technologies
Art Direction Methods + Technologies
AI + Critical Inquiry
Claude · ChatGPT · prompt design · critical AI literacy · human-AI collaboration · research translation.
Design + Prototyping
Figma · Adobe Creative Cloud · UX/UI · typography · publication · motion · creative direction.
Broadcast + Production
After Effects · Premiere Pro · Final Cut Pro · animation · editing · sound · shoot direction · crew coordination.
Development
HTML · CSS · JavaScript · OpenSeadragon · React Native · Supabase · Python · creative coding.
Leadership
Grant strategy · facilitation · partnerships · curriculum architecture · critique · mentorship · stakeholder alignment.
Research
Empathy design · participatory inquiry · qualitative observation · public scholarship · digital humanities · assessment.