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C
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
MICHAEL ZYDA is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. Dr. Zyda is also an academic associate and associate chair for academic affairs in that department. He has been at NPS since February 1984. Dr. Zyda's main research focus is computer graphics, specifically the development of large-scale, networked, three-dimensional virtual environments and visual simulation systems. Dr. Zyda was a member of the National Research Council committee that produced the report Virtual Reality: Scientific and Technical Challenges. He is also the senior editor for virtual environments for the MIT Press quarterly PRESENCE, the journal of teleoperations and virtual environments. Dr. Zyda has been active with the Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and was the chair of the 1990 conference, held in Snowbird, Utah, and chair of the 1995 symposium, held in Monterey, California. Dr. Zyda began his career in computer graphics in 1973 as part of an undergraduate research group, the Senses Bureau, at the University of California, San Diego. He received a B.A. in bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego, in 1976; an M.S. in computer science/neurocybernetics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1978; and a D.Sc. in computer science from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, in 1984.
DONNA J. COX is a professor in the School of Art & Design and associate director for technologies in the School of Art at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is also codirector for Scien-
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tific Communications and Media Systems at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Ms. Cox has exhibited computer images and animations in more than 100 invitational and juried exhibits during the past nine years, including shows at the Bronx Museum of Art in New York, the Everson Art Museum in New York, the Feature Gallery in Chicago, the Feature Gallery in New York City, the Fermilab in Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. She has authored many juried papers on computer graphics and scientific visualization and received the Coler-Maxwell Medal for Excellence in 1989. Her work has been reviewed or cited in more than 75 publications, including Time, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, and IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. Ms. Cox spent a sabbatical working on an IMAX film, Cosmic Voyage, for the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. As associate producer for scientific visualization and art director, she has orchestrated scientific visualization software, data, and design for Pixar Animation Studios, Santa Barbara Studios, Princeton University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Ms. Cox received an M.F.A. in computer graphic arts and a B.A. from from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
WARREN J. KATZ is vice president and cofounder of MäK Technologies. His responsibilities include corporate operations, new business development, and program management. MäK's corporate goal is to provide cutting-edge research and development services to the Department of Defense in the areas of distributed interactive simulation (DIS) and networked virtual reality (VR) systems and to convert the results of this research into commercial products for the entertainment and industrial markets. MäK's first commercial product, the VR-Linkä developer's toolkit, is the most widely used commercial DIS interface in the world. It is an application programmer's toolkit that makes possible networking of distributed simulations and VR systems. The toolkit complies with the Defense Department's DIS protocol, enabling multiple participants to interact in real time via low-bandwidth network connections. VR-Link is designed for easy integration with existing and new simulations, VR systems, and games. From June 1987 to October 1990, Mr. Katz worked for Bolt, Beranek, and Newman on the SIMNET project. He was the resident drive-train simulation expert, responsible for mathematical modeling of the physical systems and software development. Mr. Katz received B.S. degrees in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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JOSHUA LARSON-MOGAL is manager of product strategy for Silicon Graphics' Light Client Division. He is responsible for supervising product management of the division's products and for driving innovation into commercial applications for the range of markets addressed by the division. He was previously the manager of the Enabling Technologies Group in the Advanced Systems Division at Silicon Graphics, where he oversaw a group of product managers working on the OpenGL, IRIS Performer, Open Inventor, REACT, and ImageVision Library software products and the real-time and virtual reality market/technology spaces. In previous positions at Silicon Graphics, Mr. Larson-Mogal served as manager of the market development group, market manager for emerging technologies, product manager for advanced graphics systems, and senior graphics software developer. In these positions he identified new growth markets for advanced graphics hardware and initiated Silicon Graphics' participation in markets for visual simulation, virtual reality, and interactive entertainment. He also initiated the product planning process for the Infinite Reality graphics subsystem, the follow-on to Reality Engine, managed the Power Vision (VGX) graphics workstation products, and developed feature-based solid modeling applications for computer-integrated design, analysis, and manufacturing. In 1985 Mr. Larson-Mogal founded Deneb Robotics Inc., where he designed the system architecture and developed the user interface for IGRIP, a software application for robot work-cell simulation and off-line training. As a graphics software developer at Auto-Trol Technology Corporation, he developed device-independent graphics libraries to support both computer-aided design and computer-aided facilities management applications. Mr. Larson-Mogal received a B.S. degree in computer science from Cornell University.
GILMAN LOUIE has been chair of Spectrum HoloByte Inc. since 1992. In 1982 Mr. Louie founded Nexa Corporation, a developer of entertainment software that later merged with Spectrum HoloByte. Mr. Louie is the creator of the best-selling Falcon air combat simulation, one of the company's leading brand franchises. He received a B.S. in business administration from San Francisco State University.
PAUL LYPACZEWSKI is part of the management team continuing to build and manage Alias | Wavefront in Toronto. He is working with the former executive vice-president of Wavefront to form a distributed development organization of engineers and support staff in Toronto, California, Vancouver, Santa Barbara, and Paris. Mr. Lypaczewski continues to manage corporate research and development (R&D) and oversees all levels of development from product planning, product release, and stra-
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tegic account management for all of the Toronto products. Mr. Lypaczewski joined Alias Research Inc. in February 1992 as part of a management turnaround team. In his role as vice-president of product development, he oversaw the restructuring of R&D and all levels of development from product planning to product release for all Alias products and was involved in legal and intellectual property issues associated with R&D. Prior to joining Alias, Mr. Lypaczewski worked at CAE Electronic Ltd., a producer of real-time systems, including flight training simulators, air traffic control and energy control systems, and space systems, such as the controls for the Space Shuttle's Canadarm. Mr. Lypaczewski joined the company as an autopilot systems engineer and held a variety of management positions, including senior manager of simulator programs engineering and manager of avionics simulation. In these positions he was responsible for all project engineering and sales proposal support for flight simulation and computer-based training systems. Mr. Lypaczewski received a B.Eng. degree from McGill University and is a member of L'Ordre des Ingenieurs du Quebec.
RANDY PAUSCH is an associate professor of computer science, human-computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a B.S. in computer science from Brown University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in 1988. He has been a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. In 1995 he spent a sabbatical with the Walt Disney Imagineering virtual reality studio. Dr. Pausch is the author or co-author of five books and more than 50 reviewed journal and conference proceedings articles, is an active consultant with both Walt Disney Imagineering and Xerox PARC, and has served on a number of National Research Council panels.
ALEXANDER SINGER began his career as a photojournalist and educational filmmaker. His 30-year directing career has resulted in 250 television shows, several full-length feature movies, and many commercials. His directorial credits include Profiles in Courage, Police Story, The Fugitive, Run for Your Life, Hill Street Blues, Lou Grant, Cagney and Lacey, Star Trek: Voyager, and Deep Space 9. Mr. Singer won an Emmy for an episode of The Bold Ones (1972) and represented the series Police Story (1975) and Lou Grant (1979) for their Emmys. He has lectured on film production, cinematography, and directing and has taught courses at private institutions, universities on two continents, the University of California at Los Angeles extension, and for the Directors Guild of America Special Projects. In addition to his directorial work, Mr. Singer has, for the past several years, been a member of the Global Business Network, a consulting group based
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in San Francisco with wide-ranging concerns centered on the global economy. Recently, Mr. Singer was under contract as a film consultant to Universal Studio's Orlando theme park and MCA/Matsushita. His work at MCA/Matsushita centered on the development of an entertainment application for virtual reality technology.
JORDAN WEISMAN is chief creative officer for Virtual World Entertainment Inc. This title recognizes his pivotal role as the principal creative architect at Virtual World. Acclaimed as one of the world's premier game and software designers, Mr. Weisman has led the company to its present position atop the fledgling "experience" industry. In 1980 Mr. Weisman and his partner, Ross Babcick, formed the FASA Corporation, a fantasy role-playing board-game publishing company. As FASA's president, Jordan codesigned two of the top five best-selling games in the industry, BattleTech and Shadowrun. FASA now publishes multiple lines of fantasy and science fiction novels based on its game universes. It was at FASA that Mr. Weisman began to develop the principles behind the interactive games that Virtual World Entertainment now practices at Virtual World. Virtual World opened its BattleTech Center in Chicago in August 1990. As the first location-based virtual reality center in the world, it gave the public a taste of a technology that was formerly the private domain of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the military. Mr. Weisman has received numerous awards for game design and has lectured extensively on virtual reality and game design around the world.