Michael Century is a musician by training and an active proponent since the late 1980s of research-based creation in the experimental arts. He is presently Professor in the Department of the Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Long associated with The Banff Centre for the Arts, Century founded the Centre's Media Arts Division in 1988. 1993-1996: program manager at the Canadian Centre for Information Technology Innovation (CITI), a federal research laboratory located in Montreal, with responsibility for new media arts funding. 1996-98: policy advisor to the federal department of Canadian Heritage. From 1997, Century has done policy consulting work, leading most notably to the study Pathways to Innovation in Digital Culture for the Rockefeller Foundation. He was panelist and co-author for the U.S. National Academy of Science 2003 report on information technologies and creative practices, Beyond Productivity.