Invited Speakers

Invited Speakers

Ken Perlin is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University, directs the NYU Games For Learning Institute. He was also founding director of the Media Research Laboratory and director of the NYU Center for Advanced Technology. His research interests include graphics, animation, user interfaces, science education and multimedia. He received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, which are widely used in feature films and television, as well as the 2008 ACM/SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award, the TrapCode award for achievement in computer graphics research, the NYC Mayor's award for excellence in Science and Technology and the Sokol award for outstanding Science faculty at NYU, and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. He has also been a featured artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Dr. Perlin received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University, and a B.A. in theoretical mathematics from Harvard University. Before working at NYU he was Head of Software Development at R/GREENBERG Associates in New York, NY. Prior to that he was the System Architect for computer generated animation at Mathematical Applications Group, Inc. He has served on the Board of Directors of the New York chapter of ACM/SIGGRAPH, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Software Industry Association.

   

Chia Shen is Director of the SDR Lab at the Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at Harvard University. She was a Senior Research Scientist at MERL (the Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she also served as Associate Director of the Research Lab from 2003 to 2006. For the past ten years, much of her research has focused on tabletop user interface and interaction techniques, and on the utility, benefits, pitfalls, and applications of tabletop computing. DiamondSpin, developed at MERL under her direction during 2001–2003, is the first open toolkit made available to the tabletop research community and academic institutes throughout the world for the construction of experimental multi-user tabletop concepts and applications. Her co-authored paper on the PDH (Personal Digital Historian), a tabletop story-sharing system, has been ranked as the most cited paper for the 2002 ACM CSCW (ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work). Prior to moving to the field of Human Computer Interaction, she worked for over ten years in parallel and distributed real-time systems. She was Conference Chair of the 20th ACM UIST 2007, and served on the IEEE Technical Committees on Real Time Systems and Operating Systems and Application Environments. Dr. Shen is on the Editorial Board of ACM Computers in Entertainment, and on the Steering Committee of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces. Dr. Shen received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her B.S. from SONY at Stony Brook.

   

Bill Buxton is the author of Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design, published jointly by Morgan Kaufmann and Focal Press as well as a columnist on design and innovation for BusinessWeek.com. He is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and has a 30 year involvement in research, design and commentary around human aspects of technology, and digital tools for creative endeavour, including music, film and industrial design. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was a researcher at Xerox PARC, a professor at the University of Toronto, and Chief Scientist of Alias Research and SGI Inc. – where 2003 he was co-recipient of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement. In 2007, he was named Doctor of Design, honoris causa, by the Ontario College of Art and Design, in 2008 became the 10th recipient of the ACM/SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award for fundamental contributions to the field of human-computer interaction. In January 2009 was elected a Fellow of the ACM, and in June was awarded a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, by his alma mater, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. More information on Buxton and his work can be found at http://www.billbuxton.com/.