Serena Parr is a digital strategy leader and technical creative director specializing in media innovation. She currently heads Emerging Platforms at Getty, developing new ways to experience art online. Previously, she led The New York Times RD in exploring how emerging technologies can be applied in service of journalism.

 

Directed sculpting harmony, an interactive exhibition from the GETTY celebrating the design of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Developed in collaboration with Frank Gehry, the LA Phil and Resn, this born-digital project presents novel scholarship informed by 3D imaging research and conversations with Frank Gehry and his collaborators. The project expanded to include an in-person exhibition, Modeling Sound, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

2023 COMMUNICATION ARTS Interactive Awards: Best in Show
2023 FWA SITE OF THE MoNTH + SITE OF THE dAY
2023 AWWARDS SITE OF THE DAY

 
 

Directed PERSEPOLIS REIMAGINED, a true-to-life immersive rebuild of the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis, featuring 3D models from an exhibition at the GETTY museum placed in context. Developed in collaboration with Getty archaeologists and curators, scholars from UCLA, technologists from Media.Monks and cultural consultants from the Farhang Foundation, the project presents the most accurate repersentation of Persepolis ever created– and is the largest WebGL experience ever developed. Available in 8 languages, Persepolis Reimagined organically reached over 1.5M people across 196 countries and received top awards from premiere global juries.

2023 webby award + PEOPLE'S VOICE Best Website: Architecture, Art, Design
2022 FWA SITE OF THE yeaR: JURY AWARD + PEOPLE'S VOICE
2022 FWA SITE OF THE MONTh, june
2022 AWWWARDS SITE OF THE MONTh, june
2022 AWWWARDs spotlight, june
the new york review of books, the la times, hacker news

 
 

Directed Mesopotamia, an immersive digital feature that leverages Getty’s world-class 3D imaging capability to offer an intimate look at objects from an exhibition at the Getty Villa.

2022 webby award + PEOPLE'S VOICE Best Website: Architecture, Art, Design
2022 webby spotlight Crafted with Code
2022 Rijksmuseum 2and3d Symposium Opening Presentation

 
 

Strategy lead and project co-lead for environmental photogrammetry, a new coverage format which allows THE NEW YORK TIMES to present real-world environments in immersive and interactive 3D. Identified server-side rendering solution and led R&D partnership strategy to leverage a then-nascent 5G network.

2021 Digiday Media Award Best Brand Partnership
⇢ Example uses in NYT HERE, HERE and HERE

 
 

Strategy lead and project co-lead for Beam, a 5G-optimized mobile app. Beam lets NYT photographers file photos from their DSLR camera to the newsroom automatically, at the point of photo capture. This saves photographers from spending invaluable time trying to upload their photos, improving NYT’s overall photo coverage. Led R&D partnership strategy to leverage a then-nascent 5G network.

2021 Digiday Media Award Best Brand Partnership
⇢ Example uses in NYT HERE, HERE and HERE

 
 

Strategy lead for The News Provenance Project, a
NYT RD initiative that explores blockchain-based metadata solutions to combat misinformation online.

Neiman Lab, Brown Institute, MIT Technology Review, Yahoo Finance, Adweek

 
 

UX lead for In Someone Else’s Shoes, an AR experience about the rapidly growing population of employed homeless people in the US. Transformed 16G of volumetric capture data into an impactful narrative experience that’s compact enough to run on a phone. Completed with Havas for Arnold Worldwide.

2019 webby award Best Augmented Reality Experience
2019 Shorty Award Social Good

 
 

Creative tech lead and UX lead for Aura. This bespoke machine collects conduction data through a custom-built palm sensor, and interprets the readings as colorful matte portrait printouts. Concepted project and led creative, UX and development, including a 3D particle cloud system and Arduino-based physical computing system.

 
 
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Creator of lol_yelling, a bot that retweets clap rants. Here’s BuzzFeed News on how it was made, and why it could never last.

 
 
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Post-production and visual effects for Lilian Mehrel’s Haunt - a short VR film about presence, experienced through the eyes of a ghost.

2016 / Tribeca Film Festival, Tacoma Film Festival, Oxford Film Festival
2017 / Atlanta Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival

 
 

serena.parr@gmail.com