Welcome to my website! Here’s a bit of background about me:
I became interested in interactive computer graphics while I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. Therefore I went to UNC Chapel Hill for my graduate studies, working on tracking for VR and doing early work in Augmented Reality. For my dissertation, I built the first AR system that worked (where the virtual and real stayed registered together even while the viewer moved around). After graduating, I joined HRL, working on various projects in Augmented Reality and visualization.
After that, I helped start a new Nokia Research Center in Santa Monica, where I led a team that focused on generating new forms of mobile media, incorporating Augmented Reality and pervasive computing technologies.
Currently, I lead a team in Intel Labs. My team focuses on key enabling technologies for new forms of media including VR and AR, along with prototyping novel experiences. These enabling technologies include computational displays, head-worn displays, and computational imaging. I also advise Intel on Augmented Reality and other related technologies and experiences.
I am recognized as a pioneer and innovator in Augmented Reality, and I have held prominent leadership roles in that research area. I served on the Steering Committee of the ISMAR conference, the premier academic research conference in AR. My extensive experience in industrial research includes leading and implementing research projects and demonstrations in areas such as AR, visualization, and mobile applications. I have experience in line management and team and project leadership. My track record of invited presentations, courses taught and millions of dollars in successful fundraising testifies to my communication skills. I am a T-shaped person who has actively pursued experiences and learning opportunities to work effectively with people in other fields, including interactive entertainment, experimental studies, design, mobile devices, air traffic control, and the military.
For recent examples of what my team has published, please look at the Thin VR project page which describes an approach to simultaneously achieve both a 180 degree horizontal FOV and a compact form factor in a head-worn VR display. Also check out the Light field displays project page which describes an approach to build 3D displays that enable the viewer to focus to different depths, thus reducing the eyestrain experienced in most 3D displays.
Highlights
I am known for defining the term “Augmented Reality” and guiding the early development of the field, through a survey paper that is the single most referenced work in the field of AR and is included in a list of 50 influential journal articles selected by MIT Press from over 80 MIT Press journals from 1969 to 2011.
My guide to surviving graduate school has become a popular resource on the web.
In 2016, I became an IEEE Fellow due to my contributions to Augmented Reality.
In 2022, I was elected an inaugural member of the IEEE VGTC [Visualization and Graphics Technical Community] Virtual Reality Academy, for career and lifetime achievements in VR/AR/MR. Link to a description of the award. Link to a list of Academy members.
News
- Demo: Immersive Telepresence on Light-Field Displays at Intel Innovation 2023 (Sept. 2023).
- I had the great honor of being an invited panelist at the Frederick P. Brooks Jr. Professional Memorial (March 2023). List of videos of the panels. I was on panel #5.
- Demo: Future of Telepresence at Intel Innovation 2022. (Sept. 2022).
- Elected an inaugural member of the IEEE VGTC [Visualization and Graphics Technical Community] Virtual Reality Academy. (March 2022)
- Served on the ISMAR 2022 paper/posters award committee.
- AAIA fellow.
- Serving as ISMAR 2021 panels co-chair.
- My group has two (virtual) demos in the SIGGRAPH 2020 Emerging Technologies exhibition. One is a demo of ThinVR and the other is a demo of light field displays.
- On July 15, 2020, my group gave a detailed presentation about ThinVR as a Stanford SCIEN colloquium talk.
- My team is publishing a paper titled “View-Dependent Light-Field Display that Supports Accommodation Using a Commercially-Available High Pixel Density LCD Panel” at Display Week 2020.
- My team is publishing a paper titled “ThinVR: Heterogeneous microlens arrays for compact, 180 degree FOV VR near-eye displays” at the IEEE Virtual Reality 2020 conference as an IEEE TVCG journal paper. Paper, presentation, and supplemental videos and images are available at my ThinVR project page. This won a Best Paper award at IEEE VR 2020 (Link to conference awards)
- I became an emeritus member of the ISMAR Steering Committee.
- Giving an invited talk at the SPIE AR VR MR Conference 2020 at Photonics West 2020 on Feb. 4, 2020, in San Francisco.
- Served on committee that determined the "10 year impact paper" at ISMAR 2019.
- Giving an invited talk at the Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality Conference 2019 at Photonics West 2019 on Feb. 3, 2019, in San Francisco. I'm also on a panel for that event on Feb. 4. Link to a video of the talk.
- Publishing an invited paper in the inaugural issue of the Wiley journal Human Behavior & Emerging Technologies in January 2019. Link to paper at Wiley site.
- Co-author of a paper at the 30th Annual Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference at Electronic Imaging 2019. PDF of paper
- Attended ISMAR 2018 in Munich.
- Attended SIGGRAPH 2018 in LA.
- Gave a plenary talk at IS&T International Symposium on Electronic Imaging 2018, in Burlingame, CA, 31 January 2018. Link to an article covering my talk. Link to a video of the talk.
- Giving an invited talk in the AR, VR and MR One Day Industry Conference at Photonics West on January 29, 2018 in San Francisco. Link to Photonics Online article about the event
- Attended ISMAR 2017 in Nantes, France, and served on the poster award committee.
- My team is demonstrating “Mid-Air Interaction with a 3D Aerial Display” at the SIGGRAPH 2017 Emerging Technologies venue in Los Angeles, 30 July - 3 Aug 2017.
- Invited speaker at the OSA Imaging and Applied Optics Congress, 25-29 June 2017 in San Francisco.
- Invited paper “Making Augmented Reality a Reality” to be published at the OSA Imaging and Applied Optics Congress 2017.
- Giving the morning keynote at the AR/VR Conference at SID Display Week 2017 on May 24, 2017.
- Featured speaker at the Stanford SCIEN workshop on Augmented and Mixed Reality on May 11, 2017. Link to video
- Participated in the IVRI Summit (May 2017). The International Virtual Reality Institute is a new VR/AR research center headed by Tom Furness.
- Served on papers award committee for IEEE ISMAR 2016.
- My invited essay “The Most Important Challenge Facing Augmented Reality” will be published in the MIT Press journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments in 2017.
- Gave the opening presentation at the Applied Materials Open Innovation Workshop on Next Generation Hardware for Augmented and Virtual Reality (August 2016)
- Attended SIGGRAPH 2016
- Served as judge for the Auggie awards at Augmented World Expo 2016
- Guest lecturer in Stanford CS377M: HCI Issues in Mixed and Augmented Reality
- Promoted to Principal Engineer in Intel Labs
- International Advisory Board member of the International Journal of Virtual and Augmented Reality
- Became an IEEE Fellow (January 2016)
- Giving a keynote at VARE 2015 (Virtual and Augmented Reality in Education) in Monterrey, Mexico, Nov. 19-21, 2015.
- Speaking on a panel called “AR-VR: There yet?” at the Intel Capital Global Summit 2015
- Served as Paper Awards Chair for ISMAR 2015.
- Wrote a book chapter called Location-Based Mixed and Augmented Reality Storytelling, published in Fundamentals of Wearable Computers and Augmented Reality, 2nd Edition by CRC Press. PDF of book chapter
- I will be on a panel at SIGGRAPH 2015 called “The Renaissance of VR: Are we going to do it right this time?”
- Attended the 50th anniversary of the UNC computer science department in Chapel Hill, NC.
- Co-author of the paper Real-time Guidance Camera Interface to Enhance Photo Aesthetic Quality that will be published at ACM CHI 2015.
- Wrote a book chapter called Augmented Reality Systems to be published in 2015 in the 2nd edition of Handbook of Visual Display Technology by Springer Science and Business Media.
- Gave an invited talk at Metaio’s InsideAR event in Munich, Germany (Oct. 2014). YouTube video of my talk
- Updated and reformatted my graduate school survival guide
- Attended the ISMAR 2014 conference
- Spoke at Augmented World Expo 2014 and presented a talk on Leviathan. YouTube video of my talk
- I am a member of the team that won an Intel Labs Academy Award for the “Best Promising New Idea” (April 2014)
- I contributed to the Leviathan Augmented Reality demonstrations at CES 2014 performed at the Intel CEO keynote and in the Intel booth.
- The San Jose Mercury News published an interview with Genevieve Bell, who heads the division of Intel Labs that I am in.
- Attended ISMAR 2013
- Attended SIGGRAPH 2013
- Attended the Augmented World Expo 2013
- Gave a Gilbreth Lecture for the National Academy of Engineering in February 2013.
- I will serve on the Advisory Board for NITLE starting in Fall 2013.
- I am happy to announce Gudrun Klinker and Mark Billinghurst will be taking over the duties of chairing the ISMAR Steering Committee from me, after I served for 4 years.
- Attended ISMAR 2012 (Nov. 2012)
- Attended Metaio’s InsideAR event (Oct. 2012)
- Attended SIGGRAPH 2012
- I joined Intel Labs (Santa Clara) in June 2012.
- My original AR survey paper was selected as one of 50 influential journal articles by MIT Press. These papers were selected from over 80 MIT Press journals from 1969 to 2011, covering all academic fields.
- Attended the Augmented Reality Event 2012
- Presented an HRL colloquium (Mar. 2012)
- Gave a DTS tech talk (Feb. 2012)
- Participated in an IEEE roundtable discussion on AR
- Attended ISMAR 2011 in Basel, Switzerland
- Gave a Google TechTalk (Sept. 2011)