UCSC's Hiring | Assistant Teaching Professor of Sound and Media Art

The Creative Technologies program and Music Department at UC Santa Cruz are seeking an Assistant Teaching Professor of Sound and Media Art. It's a teaching-focused, tenure-track position with a departmental home in Music.

The ideal candidate is a creative coder working with music or sound, critically engaged with tech ethics, and able to teach undergrad programming courses–not a vibe coder. Terminal degree (MFA, PhD) or commensurate professional experience required.

Deadline to apply: October 12, 2026

Full details and application: https://recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF02127

Contact: Emily Spitz, espitz@ucsc.edu

About The Creative Technologies program and Music Department at UC Santa Cruz
The Music Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz is a community that attracts students who improvise, compose, experiment, and explore collaborative creative goals, all with a sense of freedom to cross traditional silos of genre and scholarship. The department is led by a multidisciplinary faculty of musicians, musicologists, technologists, anthropologists, and composers, including specialists in performance, African American and Global African musical traditions, experimental music, Hindustani musics, Central Asian musics, traditional and contemporary Korean musics, popular culture, Mexican folk music and Chicano music, aural diversity, Hip-Hop, and communal music practices. We offer undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees, including a scholarship-focused PhD and a composition-focused Doctorate of Musical Arts; we host, annually, the internationally recognized April in Santa Cruz Festival of Creative Music, and, periodically, the Pacific Rim Music Festival.

The UCSC Creative Technologies program—the first online major program in the University of California system— features a multi-departmental curriculum, teaching creative work and its contexts, across disciplines and departments, emphasizing digital environments as a nurturing nexus for justice, community, and imagination. Its faculty specialize in experimental media, critical games scholarship, digital design, collaborative practices, media history, and the study of voice, sound, and speech. This online program allows UCSC Arts students to transcend departments and genres, transcend the physical space of its campus, and bridge geographically and economically remote communities. The UCSC Music Department is joined by the Art Department and the Department of Performance, Play, and Design, as well as faculty from other Arts Division Programs, in supporting the Creative Technologies major.

UC Santa Cruz is a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) with a high proportion of first-generation and low-income students. We welcome candidates who understand the historical barriers that exist in higher education and who can clearly articulate how their teaching, mentoring, creative/professional activity, and service contribute towards building a just scholarly community.