World-renowned theater designer Peter Cooke, the new head of Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama, is bracing himself for Pittsburgh's colder climes.

"I'm coming from baking summer of Australia to a snow drift," joked a very good-natured Cooke yesterday via telephone about 2 a.m. Sydney time. "It's going to be quite a challenge."

Having made two visits to the campus in the past six weeks, he knows from whence he speaks. But whatever the weather, the Australian native is excited about being part of the energy generated at CMU, where art and science collide.

"I think a challenge facing the whole educational theater scene is new technology," said Cooke, 55, deputy director and head of design at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney for 22 years. He has designed 100 productions during the past 30 years, from drama, opera and dance to puppetry and music theater.

He succeeds Dick Block, who will return to the school's faculty after serving as interim head. Cooke plans to arrive here by mid-January.

Preparing young artists to work in less traditional and more imaginative and challenging work environments is one of his goals.

"I'd like to think we'd be considered one of the more interesting, progressive and imaginative schools in that range," he said. "Across all platforms and across all disciplines, there are a large number of students who are doing design and technology areas and sound and that just offers a fantastic opening for many of those young people."

With technologically savvy and progressive thinkers, it's going to be exciting to see where new platforms open up, he said.

"As long as people are extremely well prepared as young artists, they can produce imaginative and high quality work," Cooke said. "To interact with young technicians, computer scientists, who knows what will come of those connections? I think that's very exciting and I felt that excitement when I was there looking into the position."

As part of the dramatic art institute in Sydney, Cooke met Carnegie Mellon exchange students there on study-abroad programs.

"I was impressed with the rigor, the artistic integrity, and the education they're receiving is one of an extremely high standard," Cooke said. He especially likes the idea of a theater school in a research university.

"Within the university, they see [the School of Drama] as a creative hub and it has wonderful adjunct professors and a very elite faculty and has a strong connection to the theater profession and that was attractive to me," he said.

Cooke, born in Brisbane and educated in Kuala Lumpur, Canberra and Sydney, earned his doctorate from the University of New South Wales in Australia.

A special research fellow at the Yale School of Drama in 1996, Cooke later published the book, "Yale School of Drama Theatre Design Training," in 1999. He also received a Churchill Fellowship in 1990, which enabled him to review theater training practices at U.S. and European drama schools.

"Peter has an international network of academic and professional collaborators and colleagues that will complement the School of Drama's international approach to theater education," said Hilary Robinson, the Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean of CMU's College of Fine Arts. "As a strong administrator, researcher and stage designer he will ensure the School of Drama maintains and strengthens its great reputation. We are thrilled to have him join us."

Cooke wants to ensure the School of Drama offers the highest quality education possible in a local, national, and international sense.

"I want to make sure the Carnegie Mellon students think about not only contributing to the U.S.A., but China and Bollywood and the international arts community," he said. "I just want to make sure they're really looking out into the world, as well as digging down into their own art form."