USC’s MFA program in Fine Arts brought me to California from North Carolina. I fell in love with LA’s art scene, ocean breezes, and rugged mountains. Seeing firsthand the effects of climate change, I wrote grants to sustain a 1.5-M dollar annual operating budget for a local non-profit to expand LA’s urban forest and soak up some excess carbon.
Apart from that, I’ve devoted much of my life to developing and evaluating online, print, video and television media campaigns. For 8 years, I co-managed a small company to procure and oversee multi-million-dollar evaluations of statewide and national educational programs—exciting work that led to consulting with UC Berkeley’s Center for Community Wellness (now Health Research for Action) as an independent evaluator of their print media campaigns. I’m now focused more on high-speed computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence with D2S, offering integrated hardware/software solutions for semiconductor manufacturing, and PatientsWithPower, a software company offering free state-of-the-art treatment planning tools for breast cancer patients.
A postmodern painter interested in technology, critical theory, and modernism—my life centers as much on art, as it does on research studies and technical writing. I began teaching design and art history courses around 2000. To hone my art research, I completed a MA in Art History at UC, Riverside and went on for a PhD in Visual Studies at UC, Irvine. My thesis focused on the reception of German modernism in England, and my dissertation was on surrealism in the 1930s, a topic I plan to turn into a book.
For 12 years, I’ve served on the board of Women’s Caucus for Art–a national non-profit visual arts organization for women with local chapters across the country. WCA’s mission is to create community through art, education, and social activism. From 2016-2018, I was WCA’s National Board President. As WCA’s CEO and lead spokesperson, I fostered relationships with key creative leaders, community groups, and visual arts professionals across the US. I coordinated the efforts of a volunteer board to mount an annual conference, annual Lifetime Achievement Awards ceremony, and national exhibitions. As president, I oversaw WCA’s fundraising, communications, and social media presence.
Beyond learning HTML and CSS in the early days of the internet to take online a large research database at UCLA and to develop a shopping site for an engineering software firm, I’ve published book chapters on art, art catalog essays, book reviews, and presented at conferences. Along with published reports of major evaluation studies, I contributed to two peer-review articles on evaluations of public health materials produced by the State of California.
I equally enjoy writing, analyzing user experiences, and making art. I’m thrilled to share in the rich dialogue among engineers and designers here in Silicon Valley. When I’m not taking a business or non-profit to the next level, you’ll find me writing or teaching, buried in a book or a painting, cooking, gardening, skiing, or hiking mountain and costal trails with my partner Bill and dog Cody. On rare and wonderful occasions, I get back to NC to visit my extended family, daughter Katie and her husband Ryan.
Susan M King 