The Leonardo Abstracts Service is an evolving, comprehensive database of thesis abstracts (PhD, Master's and MFA) on topics at the intersections between art, science and technology. This English-language database was established at Pomona College (Claremont, CA), under the direction of editor-in-chief Sheila Pinkel. Each year, in addition to being published in the database, a selection of abstracts chosen by a peer review panel for their special relevance are published in a digest on our website.

The nine highest-ranking abstracts of 2021 will be published in Leonardo journal (see upcoming Vol. 55, No. 5, October 2022). We are pleased to present below the top-ranked thesis abstracts of 2021, and we congratulate the authors of the theses.

Highest-Rated Abstracts

• Memo Akten, "Deep Visual Instruments: Realtime Continuous, Meaningful Human Control over Deep Neural Networks for Creative Expression"
• Hassan Choubassi, "The Masses: From the implosion of fantasies to the explosion of the political"
• Batool Desouky, "Programmoire: refiguring the archetype of the witch for a political agency in the technocapitalist present"
• Julie Freeman, "Defining Data as an Art Material"
• Rene Garcia Cepeda, "Curation and display of interactive new media art: making a manual"
• Andrew Knight-Hill, "Interpreting Electroacoustic Audio-visual Music"
• Lisa Korpos, "The Community Bee Clinic"
• Rosemary Lee, "Machine Learning and Notions of the Image"
• Lozana Rossenova Mehandzhiyska, "Model–Database–Interface: A study of the redesign of the ArtBase, and the role of user agency in born-digital archives"

We also wish to acknowledge the following authors of notable abstracts: Marcilon Almeida de Melo, Alejandro Araque Mendoza, Najam-Ul Assar, Phil Barton, Anthony Brooks, Jo Burzynska, Haoran Chang, Alex Chechile, Chiao-chi Chou, Sean Clark, Daniela Elneff, Cameron Fraser, Megan Hines, Derek Holzer, Laura Hopes, You-Yang Hu, Jacqueline Knight, Charu Maithani, Alex McLean, Sam Meech, Clarissa Ribeiro, Michael Straeubig, Matej Vakula, Christine Veras, Graham Wakefield, Ashley Wong and Sheung Yiu.