Rate My Professor Lyra Bergamo

Dr. Marilia Lyra Bergamo is a Lecturer in Design (Game Art/Interactive Design) at the University of Newcastle, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences. She holds a Doctor of Arts from Universidade de Brasília and undergraduate degrees in Design and Computer Science. Bergamo has over fifteen years of experience as a computer artist and lecturer in Design and Digital Art. Prior to joining the University of Newcastle, she served as a Professor in the School of Fine Arts at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, from June 1, 2009, to November 15, 2022, where she taught Digital Arts, Animation, and Design. Her early career focused on interface design and traditional printed graphics, transitioning into research on interaction, digital images, evolution, and interaction with digital systems.

Bergamo's research specializations encompass artificial life, creative coding, emergent systems, computer art, generative art, interface design, and robotic art. Her fields of research include design practice and methods (30%), interaction and experience design (30%), and digital and electronic media art (40%). Notable publications include the journal article 'Assemblage Robotic Plants: Individualizations of Many Orders of Magnitude' in LEONARDO (2024); 'Graphic Design with Creative Coding' in DAT Journal (2026); 'Speculative robotic co-design for coastal restoration: a case study with Landcare volunteers in Newcastle' in Codesign (2026); 'Delay techniques and delay technologies: Amazonian waters transindividuation records' in Artnodes (2025); and 'The Assemblage Robotic Plant: A Design Approach' in DAT Journal (2023). Conference contributions feature 'Hardware speculation for robotic plants through cellular automata principle' at ALIFE 2023 and 'Deceptive Practices Robotic Art' at ISEA 2024. Chapters include 'Deceptive Practices' (2025) and 'Athos Bulcão's Tile Distribution Logic Using Common Digital Art' (2024). Bergamo has obtained three grants totaling $18,466, such as Investigator on 'Exploring Social Connectedness among Care Home Communities' (2024, $11,057 from The Academy of Medical Sciences). Her teaching practice integrates research into artificial life and creative coding, promoting experimentation, critical reflection, technological fluency, iterative making, and autonomy in computational art and design.