Alissa Antle, Professor

BIO

Dr. Antle is an innovator and scholar. Her research in design and human-computer interaction pushes the boundaries of computation to augment the ways we think and learn. As a designer and builder of interactive technologies, her goal is to explore the ways in which these innovations can improve, augment, and support children’s cognitive and emotional development. Her interactive technologies have been deployed to facilitate collaborative learning about aboriginal heritage, sustainability and social justice; improve learning outcomes for dyslexic children; and teach self-regulation to disadvantaged children.

In 2015, Dr. Antle was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. This is the highest honour for a scholar in Canada, acknowledging her as one of Canada’s intellectual leaders. Dr. Antle began her career receiving dual Bachelor degrees in Systems Design Engineering and Liberal Arts from the University of Waterloo and a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.

After her graduate studies, Dr. Antle worked in the new media industry as a senior designer and executive producer for companies including CBC Children’s Television and award winning science educator Brainium.com. Currently, Dr. Antle is a Professor in the School of Interactive Arts + Technology at SFU.

Marek Hatala, Professor

BIO

Dr. Marek Hatala is a Professor at the School Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University and a Director of the Laboratory for Ontological Research. He received his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the Technical University in Kosice (Slovakia). His research is driven by the problems arising between the computing systems and their users. The areas of his prior interests include configuration engineering design, organizational learning, semantic interoperability, ontologies and semantic web, user modeling in ubiquitous and ambient intelligence environments, and software engineering and service oriented architectures. Dr. Hatala’s current research is framed within the area of Learning Analytics. Specifically, he builds on the learning sciences to establishing the theories of effects of open learner models on learner’s motivation with the goal to improve their learning outcomes in the online learning environments.

Kate Hennessy, Associate Professor

BIO

Kate Hennessy is a cultural anthropologist with a PhD from the University of British Columbia and an MA in the Anthropology of Media from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. As the director of the Making Culture Lab, her research explores the role of digital technology in the documentation and safeguarding of cultural heritage, and the mediation of culture, history, objects, and subjects in new forms. Her video and multimedia works investigate documentary methodologies to address Indigenous and settler histories of place and space. As assistant editor of the journal Visual Anthropology Review, she designed its first multimedia volume (2003). She serves on boards of directors for the Museum of Vancouver, the American Anthropological Association's Society for Visual Anthropology, and the Access to Media Education Society (AMES). She is a co-founder of the Ethnographic Terminalia curatorial collective, which explores the border-zones between ethnography and artistic practice.  

Bernhard Riecke, Associate Professor & Graduate Chair

BIO

I am a psycho-physicist and Cognitive Scientist who’s excited about study­ing how humans orient in vir­tual and real envi­ron­ments. I received my PhD in Physics from the Tübingen University in Germany and researched for a decade in the Virtual Reality group of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany. After a post-doc in Psychology at Vanderbilt University I joined the School of Interactive Arts & Technology of Simon Fraser University as an assis­tant pro­fes­sor in 2008. My research approach com­bines fun­da­men­tal sci­en­tific research with an applied per­spec­tive of improv­ing human-computer interaction.

I com­bine multi-disciplinary research approaches and immer­sive vir­tual envi­ron­ments to inves­ti­gate what con­sti­tutes effec­tive, robust, embod­ied and intu­itive human spa­tial cog­ni­tion, ori­en­ta­tion and behav­iour (and many other things as you can see on the projects pages). This fun­da­men­tal knowl­edge is used to guide the design of novel, more effec­tive human-computer inter­faces and inter­ac­tion par­a­digms that enable sim­i­lar processes in computer-mediated envi­ron­ments like vir­tual real­ity (VR) and multi-media. These improved inter­faces can then enable and inspire fur­ther research, both fun­da­men­tal and applied.

Wolfgang Stuerzlinger, Professor; Associate Member, Computing Science

BIO

Wolfgang Stuerzlinger has been programming computers since the age of 14. He graduated with a Doctorate in Computer Science from the Technical University in Vienna, Austria in 1993 and worked at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz until 1998. At that time, his research interests focused on various areas of computer graphics, distributed, and high-performance systems. Wolfgang then served on the faculty at York University and remains an adjunct in the Centre of Vision Research at York.

Since 2014, Wolfgang is at Simon Fraser University where he is the director of the VVISE lab. His works aims to find innovative solutions for real-world problems and is often inter-disciplinary. Current research projects include better interaction techniques for spatial applications, the characterization of the effects of 3D technology on human performance, an investigation of human error behaviors when interacting with unreliable technologies, user interfaces for versions and alternatives in visual analytics, and new virtual reality hardware and software. 

Wolfgang Stuerzlinger is a member of the GRAND NCE (Graphics, Animation and New Media Network of Centres of Excellence), where he also serves on the board of directors. Moreover, he is a member of two steering committees for scientific events (one of which he co-founded), has been program chair for seven scientific events, and has participated in more than 65 international program committees. He is a (co-)author of more than a dozen patents, published more than 100 refereed scientific papers, and has participated in multiple start-ups. He has supervised more than 40 graduate students to completion, many of which now work in leading positions around the world. Wolfgang loves to ski and enjoys spending time with his children, dancing, and martial arts.

Robert Woodbury, University Professor

BIO

Robert Woodbury BArch (Carleton, Lieutenant Governor’s Silver Medal), MSc and PhD (Carnegie Mellon) has served on the faculty at CMU (1982-1993), Adelaide University (1993-2001), Technical University of British Columbia (2001-2002) and is now at Simon Fraser. He was founding Graduate Program Chair in Interactive Arts and Technology at SFU. From 2005-2008 he was Scientific Director of the Canadian Design Research Network and is currently the Director, Art and Design Practice of the Graphics, Animation and New Media Network. His research is in computational design, visual analytics and sustainability. He has over 150 publications, including his 2010 book Elements of Parametric Design. In 2009 he chaired Team North, a Canadian entry to the 2009 Solar Decathlon. In 2008 he was awarded the Innovative Research Award from the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture and the Tee Sasada Award from the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia. In 2000 he won the Stephen Cole the Elder Prize at Adelaide University.  He is a former Olympian in sailing.