Fall 2020 SIAT Graduate Research Colloquium

Convened by: Dr. Kate Hennessy
hennessy_kate [at] sfu.ca

The Graduate Research Colloquium aims to be a forum for the building of community, for exposure to diversity of research work and methods, and for fostering understanding of disciplinary commonalities and differences. SIAT (School of Interactive Arts and Technology) is a strongly interdisciplinary program and the Research Colloquium aims to reflect this by exposing students to a broad range of approaches to research in the areas of Interactive Arts, Design and Technologies.

Through this colloquium series, presentations by SIAT faculty, SFU non-SIAT faculty, and outside visitors will be scheduled alongside presentations by students. Where possible, presentations by international visiting researchers will be integrated into the program. The emphasis is on a community of research which includes students. This colloquium is designed to engage students in discussion and debate on the utility, results and methods of research; on work-life balance; on health and wellbeing; to be introduced to one another and to the members of the broader research and industry community.

This week students are introduced to Dr. Wolfgang Stuerzlinger and Dr. Steve DiPaola's perspectives and research in Virtual Environments. 

Biographies

Dr. Wolfgang Stuerzlinger: Building on his deep expertise in virtual reality and human-computer interaction, Dr. Stuerzlinger is a leading researcher in spatial and three-dimensional user interfaces. He got his Doctorate from the Vienna University of Technology. Since 2014, he is a full professor at the School of Interactive Arts + Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. His works aims to find innovative solutions for real-world problems. Current research projects include better interaction techniques for 3D systems, new human-in-the-loop systems for big data analysis (visual analytics and immersive analytics), the characterization of the effects of technology limitations on human performance, investigations of human behaviors with occasionally failing technologies, user interfaces for versions, scenarios and alternatives, and new Virtual and Augmented Reality hardware and software. He has supervised more than 50 graduate students to completion.

Dr. Steve DiPaola: Dr. Steve DiPaola, active as both an artist and scientist is past director of the Cognitive Science Program at SFU, and leads the iVizLab (ivizlab.sfu.ca<http://ivizlab.sfu.ca/>), a research lab that strives to make computational systems bend more to the human experience by incorporating biological, cognitive and behavior in AI models. He has held leadership positions at leading edge companies including Electronic Arts, and Saatchi Innovation. His digital artwork his shown internationally including the MOMA, MIT Museum, The Smithsonian and Whitney Museum of Art.