Noah Paessel

I live in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, where there's a healthy mix of natural beauty, creative people, and intellectual curiosity. When I'm not programming, teaching, or making things in the studio, you might find me running local roads, wandering through the woods, or sketching out an idea that may or may not go anywhere.

I work at the intersection of technology, design, and education. I've spent much of my career building interactive software that helps people explore ideas, develop understanding, and express themselves creatively. Along the way, I've made computer-controlled sculptures, started a technology company, taught artists to program, and helped researchers turn ambitious ideas into working software.

I started making websites back when the web was still a strange experiment with no obvious commercial future. I was drawn to the possibilities of a medium that was simultaneously technical, visual, and social. I'm still interested in emerging technologies, especially the ones that change how we think, learn, make things, and collaborate.

What I Do

Interactive Software & Engineering

I design and build interactive applications, simulations, visual tools, and the systems that support them. My work spans frontend engineering, application architecture, APIs, and full-stack development, with a particular interest in making complicated things understandable and approachable.

Learning Technologies

I spent 14 years at The Concord Consortium developing interactive science education tools, including visual modeling environments, classroom platforms, and systems that use student activity to provide meaningful feedback. I'm interested in software that encourages exploration and gives learners room to develop their own understanding.

Creative Coding & Visual Art

I make generative artwork, animations, interactive experiments, and the occasional physical object. My tools include p5.js, Three.js, Blender, and whatever else looks interesting. My background in sculpture continues to inform how I think about software, motion, interaction, and form.

Teaching & Mentorship

I teach creative coding, web design, and interactive visualization, currently at UMass Amherst. I enjoy helping people develop confidence with unfamiliar tools, particularly artists and designers who might not initially think of themselves as programmers. My teaching emphasizes experimentation, collaboration, and learning by making.

AI & Emerging Technologies

Lately, I've been exploring AI-assisted software development, autonomous coding agents, and machine learning tools. I'm particularly interested in how these systems can expand what individuals and small teams can accomplish, without losing the human judgment and creative direction that make the work worthwhile.

A Few Career Highlights

• Helped design and build SageModeler, a visual systems-modeling environment that lets students progress from simple diagrams to sophisticated computational simulations.
• Co-led a $1.9M NSF-funded research project exploring computational modeling, visualization, and scientific reasoning in Earth science education.
• Founded SNiF Labs, raising $3.5M to develop an early sensor-network product for understanding the behavior and activities of pets.
• Exhibited a computer-controlled fountain at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston as part of its Boston Now exhibition series.
• Contributed to research on machine-learning-based feedback that helps students develop scientific arguments and reflect on their reasoning.

What I'm Exploring

I'm drawn to technologies that make new kinds of creative work possible.

Right now, that includes agentic programming, generative visuals, simulation, and the increasingly blurry boundary between software tools and creative collaborators. I'm interested in how AI might change the way we design software, how people learn, and who gets to participate in making technology.

I still find myself returning to some of the same questions that first attracted me to computers and art: What happens when we give people new ways to interact with complex ideas? How can computational systems surprise us? And how can we make powerful tools feel more like invitations than obstacles?

You can find some of my experiments, visual work, and occasional oddities in my portfolio.