This project is a collaboration between the Museum of Science and the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) at the University of Southern California (USC). Our collaborators at USC come from a diverse set of backgrounds, from cutting-edge artificial intelligence to Hollywood special effects.
Selina Chu is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California. She has both a B.S. in electrical engineering from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and a M.S. in computer science from the University of California, Irvine. Chu has worked for the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center and also AT&T Labs-Research. Currently, she is a member of the Speech Analysis and Interpretation Lab (SAIL) and also the Multimedia Communications Lab at USC. Her recent work has been in the areas of general unstructured audio. Her general research interests include audio signal processing, machine learning, data mining, and pattern recognition.
H. Chad Lane, PhD is a research scientist at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies. His research focuses on intelligent tutoring systems and cognitive modeling, exploring how to use artificial intelligence to support the learning experience. Since joining the ICT in the fall of 2004, Chad has focused on learning in game-based and immersive environments, including the interaction between people and virtual humans. Chad has focused on computer science since he was in high school; he has both a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and an M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in this field. In his view, this topic is like one big puzzle waiting for people to solve the parts that are most interesting to them. When he isn't working, Chad can usually be found on the golf course, watching his hometown St. Louis Cardinals, Rams, or Blues (or playing videos games as them), or watching cartoons.
Jacki Morie is senior researcher at USC ICT. She loves to learn, and she has studied art, photography, medicine, computer science, virtual reality, and neuroscience. Even after receiving college degrees in many of these subjects, she continues to explore new ideas, inventions, discoveries and people. An artist, Jackie enjoys making things for other people to explore and enjoy, like games and interactive experiences. She spends a lot of time in online virtual worlds, like Second Life, Facebook and Habbo Hotel, meeting interesting and creative people. She designs several different avatars for each world to represent a different part of who she is.
Shri Narayanan, PhD is the Andrew J. Viterbi Professor of Engineering at the University of Southern California, and holds appointments as professor of electrical engineering and jointly as professor in computer science, linguistics and psychology. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from UCLA in 1995. Prior to USC he was with AT&T Bell Labs and AT&T Research. At USC, he is a member of the Signal and Image Processing Institute and directs the Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory.
Shri has published over 300 papers and has seven granted U.S. patents. He has received numerous awards, including the NSF CAREER award, a Mellon Award for Excellence in Mentoring, and a 2005 Best Paper award from the IEEE Signal Processing society (on creating conversational interfaces for children). He is an editor for the Computer Speech and Language Journal and an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia.
Diane Piepol is a project director with the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies. As a producer, digital educator, and digital effects artist, her credits encompass work on digital research projects, feature films (including Spiderman 2), music videos, and broadcast television. She holds a BFA degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Working in conjunction with ICT's natural language group, Diane's current focus at ICT is on producing the spoken word interactive character integrations. She is also acting as a co-principal investigator on the virtual human project in collaboration with the Museum of Science Boston. Diane has also been elected to serve as chair of the LA ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) SIGGRAPH Professional Chapter for 2008 - 2009.
William Swartout provides overall direction for ICT's research programs, including overseeing the institute's virtual human effort, widely recognized as one of the most advanced research projects of its kind. He is a research professor of computer science at USC's Viterbi School of Engineering. He received his PhD and MS in computer science from MIT and his bachelor's degree from Stanford University.
Swartout has been involved in the research and development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems for over 30 years. His particular areas of interest include virtual humans, intelligent agents, and the development of new AI architectures. He led the Mission Rehearsal Exercise project, which created an immersive virtual reality environment where military trainees interact with computer-generated virtual humans. He now leads the SASO-ST project, which is extending virtual human technology for stability and support operations.
David Traum PhD is a research scientist at the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), and a research assistant professor in the Computer Science Department, both at the University of Southern California. He received his bachelor's degree in applied math from Harvard University and his PhD in computer science at the University of Rochester. Dr Traum leads the natural language dialogue group at ICT, which collaborates with other groups on research and development of virtual humans. His research focuses on collaboration and dialogue communication between all combinations of human and artificial agents. Dr. Traum is author of over 150 technical articles, has served on many conference program committees, and is currently the president emeritus of SIGDIAL, the international special interest group in discourse and dialogue.
