Jason Edward Lewis

Jason Edward Lewis is a digital-media theorist, poet, software designer and professor in Concordia’s Department of Design and Computation Arts who has supported generations of Indigenous new media artists.

As founder of the Obx Laboratory for Experimental Media, Lewis explores how virtual environments can assist Indigenous communities in preserving, interpreting and communicating cultural histories.

He is also the director of the Initiative for Indigenous Futures, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded partnership focused on how Indigenous communities envision themselves in seven generations. Lewis is the co-founder and co-director of the award-winning Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace research network, which investigates Aboriginal participation in the digital-media future, and co-directs workshops combining traditional stories and game design at the Kahnawake First Nations’ high school.

Lewis currently co-leads an interdisciplinary team of experts exploring innovative collaborations between Indigenous communities and artificial-intelligence scientists. Abundant Intelligences: Expanding Artificial Intelligence through Indigenous Knowledge Systems is supported by a nearly $23 million grant from the New Frontiers in Research Fund and involves eight universities as well as 12 Indigenous community-based organizations from Canada, the United States and New Zealand.

Lewis is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada as well as a former Trudeau Fellow, Carnegie Fellow and ISO-MIT Co-Creation Lab Fellow.