Benji Zusman

Artist, Filmmaker, Scientist, Student

Benji is an artist and scientist who studied biochemistry at Harvard, and then worked to create novel antiviral medications and bio-fuel cell designs for 8 years at MIT. A Rockefeller Fellowship brought Benji to Panama to study insect biochemical defenses and systematics at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute- but his focus soon shifted to the debate over extending the Pan-American Highway into a pristine, indigenous rain forest region. This resulted in his first documentary "The Road to Darien", produced with the support of the Harvard Film Study Center. Hoping to facilitate the creation of unique work from a new, global breed of artist-scientist, Benji recently co-founded the multidisciplinary production collective CURIOUS. Ongoing projects range from film in South Africa and oral histories in Mexico to collaborations with doctors at San Francisco General Hospital and electronic musicians at MIT.

Injecting a touch of the Renaissance back into our art and science, on an international scale with an activist flavor.

I believe that a fruitful middle ground exists- it must exist- for disenchanted engineers mixing music in their basements and fed-up artists poring over math textbooks.

Biochemistry, Documentary Film