2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
The University Project Workshops
Inventing Next Generation Communications - Interdisciplinary Collaboration – Computer Science, Engineering, Design & Personal & Social Communication
Jeremy Bailenson, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Stanford University
David Traub, VP Business Development, Vidiva
Jeff Burke, Executive Director, UCLA Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance
Kevin Almeroth, Associate Director, Center for Information Technology and Society, UC Santa Barbara
Stuart Sim, Senior Architect, e-Learning and Collaboration, Sun Microsystems
Dr. Richard Weinberg, Research Assoc Professor, School of Cinema Television, USC
Charles G. Hollins, software developer, MySpace.com; Instructor, UCLA Extension, Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts
Marty Perlmutter, Exec Pro, META-4, Moderator
Jeremy Bailenson, Assistant Professor, Department of Communicatio
n, Stanford University: Jeremy Bailenson earned a B.A. cum laude from the University of Michigan in 1994 and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Northwestern University in 1999. After receiving his doctorate, he spent four years at the Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and then an Assistant Research Professor. He currently is the director of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. Bailenson's main area of interest is the phenomenon of digital human representation, especially in the context of immersive virtual reality. He explores the manner in which people are able to represent themselves when the physical constraints of body and veridically-rendered behaviors are removed. Furthermore, he designs and studies collaborative virtual reality systems that allow physically remote individuals to meet in virtual space, and explores the manner in which these systems change the nature of verbal and nonverbal interaction. His work has been published in several academic journals, including Cognitive Psychology, Discourse Processes, Human Communication Research, Psychological Science, and PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, and his research is funded by the National Science Foundation, Stanford University, and by various Silicon Valley and international corporations.Kevin Almeroth is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science with appointments in the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) Program, the Computer Engineering (CE) Program, and the Technology Management Program (TMP). Kevin is also the Associate Director of the Center for Information Technology and Society. Kevin's interests lie at the intersection of technology, its applications, and its impact on users. On the technology side, his research interests include computer networks and protocols, wireless networking, and large-scale multimedia systems. On the impact side, Kevin is particularly interested in the effects of technology in educational environments, the roll out of new wireless-based services, and incentives for using new systems.
David Traub, VP Business Development, Vidiva: Davi
d earned a Masters in Education in 1990 from Harvard University, while conducting simultaneous class-work in interactive cinema and AI-based narrative at the MIT Media Lab. In 1984 he earned his undergraduate degrees in rhetoric and film with honors from the University of California at Berkeley, concluding with an honor thesis focusing on the use of film and television in education. His primary focus: the aggregation and delivery of "social and emotional" and other learning-centric applications/content via mobile phones, thin clients/PCs, TVs and videogames. He is currently writing the book: "17 Questions to Why You Are Here" as an introduction to his proprietary "mythological evaluation tool" that will be an example of such "augmentative" interfaces. In the real world, David has 20-years of experience as a digital media-oriented business development executive, investor, venture catalyst, and/or board member to over 35 startups/private equity companies. He has co-raised and deployed nearly $30 million dollars in support of these ventures. David has created digital media as an co-founder executive and/or executive producer of digital products across a wide variety of clients such as EMI North America, MCA Records, Philips/Polydor, Microsoft/ MSN, Apple Computer and many others. He is also an author of nearly 50 articles and reports on the evolution of the digital domain for trade publications, professional books and institutional clients; and a speaker who has given nearly 50 forward-looking keynote and other speeches throughout the world for clients such as the EU, the Swedish and Canadian Governments, TV Globo (Brazil), the National Institute of Film in Denmark, Viacom, US West, Mercedes/Siebold, The Broadband Content Development Forum and numerous other economic development agencies and universities.Martin Perlmutter, Executive Producer, META-4: Interactive video and multimedia pioneer, Marty Perlmutter has been a producer of award-winning instructional, edutainment and game content for three decades. Perlmutter has consulted to key players at all points of the Convergence compass - telecom, computing, content development - and has a professional network that spans four continents. Perlmutter is widely published, has been a frequent keynoter at new media conferences, helped found and run the San Francisco Multimedia Development Group trade association, and is currently producing broadband content for AOL and learning software for non-profit distribution.
Dr. Richard Weinberg, Research Assoc Professor, School of Cinema Television, USC: A research associate professor in the top-ranked USC School of Cinema-Television (CNTV), Richard Weinberg is the founding director of the school's Computer Animation Laboratory, which he established in 1985. He holds a joint appointment at USC's Annenberg Center for Communications. Before joining USC, Weinberg established the Computer Graphics Group at Cray Research and developed computer graphics software and systems for NASA's Johnson Space Center, Lockheed Electronics, and Digital Productions. He received his master of science degree and doctorate from the University of Minnesota, and received its Computer Science and Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2003. Weinberg's research interests include computer animation, scientific visualization, visual effects and entertainment technology. As digital movie production expands to include distributed computing facilities, he and his colleagues are increasingly dependent on high-speed, worldwide networks to review and revise digital film clips, computer animation and virtual sets remotely. They also rely on increasingly powerful graphics workstations and encounter software issues similar to those that challenge researchers that use computing in the sciences. Weinberg is a visiting professor at the Tokyo University of Technology and frequently lectures in Japan, most recently on the emerging technologies and implications of digital cinema. He co-designed the original curriculum for USC's Master of Fine Arts program in Film, Video and Computer Animation. The USC School of CNTV's Division of Animation and Digital Arts, which Weinberg helped to develop, educates undergraduate and graduate students and conducts research in the expanding and broadly defined fields of animation and digital arts. The USC School of CNTV is at the cutting edge of animation and new media, with facilities that include HP XW8200 high-performance graphics workstations with NVIDIA graphics systems, a Vicon 8-camera motion capture system, Sony high-definition digital video cameras, and extensive facilities for high definition green-screen digital compositing with an HD Ultimatte and a visual effects laboratory.
Charles G. Hollins, software developer, MySpace.com; Instructor, UCLA Extension, Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts: Charles has been developin
g Intranet and Internet Web sites and applications since 1993. He has extensive experience working with technologies such as HTML, cascading style sheets, streaming media, Java, JavaScript, ASP, Cold Fusion, XML, XSL, WML, and VoiceXML. Charles has applied these skills to develop solutions for such organizations as the Los Angeles County Network Services Division, the United Nations World Food Program, and UCLA. Since 1994, Charles has specialized in university-level curriculum development of Web and instructional technology related courses and programs. He taught UCLA's first Web technology, Java and XML courses. Mr. Hollins has since developed and taught over 25 different courses for 10 departments within the University of California school system. In 2003, Charles joined USC's School of Engineering as a part-time instructor teaching courses in the Information Technology Program. Mr. Hollins, a judge for the 2003 FlashForward Film Festival in New York, is an international convention speaker and was featured at the first Internet World tradeshow in Southeast Asia, the 2001 Digital Media Conference in Ojai California and the 2004 VoiceXML conference in San Jose.