About Doug
I have a passion for beauty in art, thought, and expression, and I am constantly experimenting and learning.
My background is eclectic, and I always find myself drawing on the whole of my experience, whether I am facilitating a discussion in the classroom, conducting an orchestra, or flying an airplane.
On this page you will find—in distilled form—information that will give you a sense of who I am professionally.
Resumé
- Experience
- Education and Training
- Research interests
- Presentations, arrangements, publications
- Grants, Honors, Awards
- Skills
Chair, Humanities Department, New Mexico Tech, 2006–2008
Co-Founder and Co-Director, Women's Resource Center, New Mexico Tech, 2001–2008
Associate Managing Director, Classical Music Festival, Eisenstadt, Austria, 2001–2006
Director, New Mexico Tech Music Program , 1997–present
Music Director, Animas Music Festival, 1997–2000
Ombudsman, New Mexico Tech, 2005–2007
Pre-med Advising Committee, New Mexico Tech, 2000–2007
Coach and Conductor, Kammermusik Workshop, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Spring 2010–present
Visiting Conductor, Claremont Concert Orchestra, Claremont, California, Spring 2008
Guest Conductor, Albuquerque Philharmonic Orchestra, 2006–present
Conductor, Classical Music Festival Chamber Orchestra, Eisenstadt, Austria, 2005–2006
Inaugural Conductor, Fiori Musicali String Orchestra, Ventura, California, April 2005
Guest Conductor, Sinfonietta Hungarica, Budapest, March 2005
Assistant Conductor, Classical Music Festival, Eisenstadt, Austria, 2001–2006
Conductor, New Mexico Tech Ensembles, 1997–2008
Conductor, Animas Music Festival, 1997–2007
Principal Guest Conductor, Showcase Chamber Players and Choir, 1999–2000
Conductor, National Symposium on American Women in Music, October 1995
Professor of Music, New Mexico Tech, 2010–present
Associate Professor of Music, New Mexico Tech, 2001–2010
Granted early tenure.
Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering, New Mexico Tech, 2001–present
Teach courses and course segments on leadership, listening skills, teamwork, and problem solving.
Assistant Professor of Music, New Mexico Tech, 1997–2001
Visiting Lecturer in Physics, Pomona College, 1995–1997
Teaching Assistant in Physics, UC Berkeley, 1991–1993
Taught sections of a physics survey course for non-majors.
Selected Courses Taught, 2001–present
- Fundamentals of Music
- Survey of Western Music
- Interconnections of Music and Science – Exploration of concepts such as "time", "beauty", and "logic" as they are employed in different disciplines.
- Shakespeare and Music – The musicality of Shakespeare's English.
- Survey of Opera
- Jazz Approaches and Departures – Jazz improvisation as subject and tool for the study of creativity.
- Chemical Engineering Junior Design Laboratory – Qualitative skills in communication and problem solving applied to real design problems.
- Critical Approaches to Engineering Practice – Ethics, engineering culture, leadership.
- Creativity and Innovation – Methods for transcending compromise and negotiating inventive, "both/and" design solutions.
- Problem Solving with TRIZ – Course for graduate students and engineering research faculty; advanced problem solving methodology.
- Practical Creativity – Frameworks for understanding how people think about creativity, and tools to unleash and direct creativity.
- Failure, Change, and Integrity – Philosophical and practical approaches to personal and organizational failure. Implications of uncertainty, loss, and change for goal setting and self-evaluation.
Founder, Studio Non Troppo, LLC. 2008–present
Founder and President, Dunston Sommer Innovation Group, LLC., 1999–2004
Certificate Course in Conflict Analysis, United States Institute of Peace, 2010
Edward Tufte Seminar "Presenting Data and Information", 2004
National Science Foundation Short Course "Creativity and Innovation", 2000
Lore International Courses "High-Impact Facilitation" and "Effective Coaching", 1999
DMA Conducting, Claremont Graduate University, CA, 1997
MA Conducting, Claremont Graduate University, CA, 1995
MA Physics, University of California at Berkeley, CA, 1993
BS Physics, Harvey Mudd College, CA, 1990
High distinction; honors in humanities and social sciences.
Creativity and innovation. Leadership, facilitation, and negotiation.
Presentations, arrangements, publications
Kammermusik Workshops, 2010. "What To Do When 'It' Isn't Working"
New Mexico Tech Electrical Engineering Graduate Seminar, 2008. "TRIZ: The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving"
New Mexico Tech Electrical Engineering and Physics Departments Joint Seminar, 2007. "Problem Solving with TRIZ"
Women Lawyers of Ventura County, 2005. "Answer-resistant Problems and a Model of Practical Creativity"
Eastern New Mexico University Graduate Student Association, 2003. "Practical Leadership; Practical Creativity" (Invited speaker)
New Mexico Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professorate, 2003. "Practical Leadership" (Invited speaker)
Co-coordinator, New Mexico Women's Studies Conference, 2003.
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of Women in Engineering and Science, 2002. "Students' Epistemologies in Science and Engineering: Paths to Responsibility and Connection"
New Mexico Tech Humanities Faculty Research Seminar, 2002. "Answer-resistant Problems and a Model of Practical Creativity"
New Mexico Women's Studies Conference, 2001. "One-in-three" (Sound recording)
New Mexico Conference on Assessment and Retention, 2000. "Establishing a Multidisciplinary Humanities Course to Strengthen Retention"
The Mother Goose Suite, 1999. (Music arrangement and new English text)
A to Z Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Music, 1998. (Biographical entries)
College Music Society, Pacific-Southern Chapter, 1998. "Musica Mundana: Gravity and Music"
College Music Society, Pacific-Southern Chapter, 1996. "Copies as Originals: Aspects of Nonoriginality in Music and the Arts"
Nominee, Distinguished Teaching Award, New Mexico Tech, 2005 and 2012
"Innovative Problem Solving" Grant, New Mexico Institute for Advanced Studies, 2007
National Novel Writing Month Winner, 2004. Draft novel "Windmills"
Winners of the National Novel Writing Month are those who begin and complete a 50,000 word draft between November 1st and 30th. The draft of "Windmills" is being revised for publication.
Visiting Scholar, Claremont Colleges Faculty Development Seminar in Music, 1998
JL Foundation All-Claremont Fellow, 1994–1997
National Science Foundation Fellow, Physics Department, UC Berkeley, 1991–1993
Watson Fellow, 1990–1991
Wanderjahr in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria. Apprenticed to brass instrument maker Rainer Egger in Basel, Switzerland. Designed and constructed rotary-valve high G trumpet, first used in concerts in Eisenstadt and Vienna, Austria, August, 1991.
Astronaut Scholar, 1989–1990
Arizona Honors Academy Fellow, 1989
Intensive, multidisciplinary seminar on issues of nuclear arms control.
Sibelius, Garageband, Logic Express
ArcGIS Desktop 9.3
Fluent in German
Trumpet, French horn
Private pilot
Multi-resumé (2005)
My multi-resumé is a textual, graphical, and pictoral representation of my skills and experience as a conductor and professor. The interactive presentation will open in a separate browser window. Last updated in 2005. (Viewable if your browser has the current Flash plugin installed)