Mitsuru (“Mits”) Kataoka was a designer, educator, and early advocate for emerging communication technologies whose long career at UCLA helped transform the university’s design program into what would become the Department of Design Media Arts. A UCLA alumnus as well as a professor, Kataoka introduced generations of students and colleagues to new forms of visual communication and played a central role in bringing video, computing, and interactive media into the department’s teaching and research.

Born in Los Angeles in 1934, Kataoka spent part of his childhood with his parents at the Heart Mountain internment camp near Cody, Wyoming. After World War II, his family moved to Bridgeton, New Jersey, where they worked at Seabrook Farms. He later returned to Los Angeles to attend UCLA, earning both a B.A. in Education and an M.A. in Visual Communication.

Kataoka joined the faculty of the UCLA Department of Art in 1965 and remained at the university until his retirement as professor in 2001. Beginning in 1969, he introduced video, computer, and interactive media research and courses into the design curriculum. He was an early adopter of new technologies and a persistent advocate for their creative and educational possibilities, connecting artists, designers, and educators with technology companies and helping secure equipment and funding for departmental facilities and research laboratories.

In the early 1970s, Kataoka led experiments with video as an artistic medium as well as with interactive two-way cable and satellite video technologies. The department’s laboratories also provided the environment in which pioneering computer artist John Whitney Sr. taught his first computer graphics class at UCLA. In the 1980s, Kataoka helped guide the expansion of the department’s computer graphics infrastructure, and by the early 1990s he was actively recruiting faculty whose work would bring interactive media and the emerging World Wide Web into the curriculum. His foresight contributed significantly to the department’s evolution from a traditional design program into one engaged deeply with computation, media, and technology.

As a teacher and mentor, Kataoka influenced generations of UCLA students as well as faculty colleagues and others working in design and emerging media. His mentorship extended beyond the university and included figures such as designer and educator John Maeda. Former UCLA Design Media Arts chair Rebecca Allen described the importance of his contribution succinctly: “Mits was a unique character and, with his foresight, transformed the design department into what we are today.”
Kataoka died in Pasadena on May 24, 2018, at the age of 84. He is remembered for his generosity as a mentor, his curiosity about new forms of communication, and his conviction that artists and designers should engage directly with emerging technologies. His legacy remains embedded in the culture and history of UCLA Design Media Arts and in the generations of students and faculty whose work he helped make possible.