Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, MA: 1995 - 1997,

Masters of Science in Media Arts and Sciences with the Interactive Cinema group of the MIT Media Lab. Research interests include Behavioural Animation/Social Interfaces, Software Agents, Directable Stories. Thesis entitled "Animist Interface: Experiments in Mapping Character Animation to Computer Interface."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA : 1991-1995

Bachelor of Science degree in the field of Computer Science with Electrical Engineering June 1995. Concentration in Political Philosophy. Undergraduate Thesis: "The Creation of a Generic Engine for Interactive Storytelling", which dealt with “Lurker” --an online mutli-user interactive narrative released to the general public in the early days of the World Wide Web.

Employment

Independent Technology Consultant

2000 - Current

Consulting, teaching, and designing projects ranging from product-driven software to interactive entertainment/interactive television. Have served as Technical Lead on the Gemini-award winning “Degrassi.tv” interactive-narrative/online-community site, Technical Director for “Code Zebra” at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and have worked on projects with Snap Media, Ryerson University, ChumCity, CTV, and Médecins Sans Frontières Canada

SnapCaster Networks
Toronto, Canada: 2000

Chief Technology Officer. Lead team developing Digital Jukebox and Entertainment Network for deployment in bars, restaurants and cafes. Designed and prototyped all-Java media-playback device and broadband media-distribution network. Contact: Raja Khanna <raja@snapmedia.com>

Mattel Interactive
Novato, CA: 1998-1999

Lead Designer, Lead Engineer, A/I Programming for the Petz IV virtual character project. Lead the team working on the latest version of Dogz/Catz, the most successful commercial lifelike-character entertainment product (with over 3 million units sold worldwide). Contact: Melanie Holst <melanieholst@yahoo.fr>

PF Magic/Mindscape
San Francisco, CA: 1997-1998

Behaviour Programmer on multiple releases of the Petz line. Co-developed behaviour-based AI for autonomous character system, genetic-code based architecture for character breeding, and design for on-screen character animation and interactions. Contact: Jonathan Shambroom <jonathan@evite.com>

Riverland Next Generation
Brussels, Belgium: 1996

New Media consulting, development and production. Research on java-based agents. Consulted on net-video, video-conferencing and intranet solutions for Shell World Headquarters, Mercedes, television commercial on MTV Europe. Corporate re-engineering. Contact: Walter de Brouwer <walt@riv.be>

Proficiencies

Experience in team leadership and management, technology consulting and project design. Expertise in developing and leading Interactive Television and Interactive Entertainment projects and with Programming and System Design in Java, C++, C. Familiar with 3D/2D Animation, most current Graphics and Image manipulation tools and digital video. Comfortable with UNIX, Windows and Mac platforms. Experience with Digital/Traditional Video production.

Additional Interests

Technology-based art, interactive story-telling, artificial life, simple robotics. Have installed sculptural and interactive pieces at Next Door Gallery (Toronto), Outpost 42 (Toronto), Burning Man (Nevada). Have backpacked through Tibet, China, Japan, East Africa, and recently traveled to Antarctica.

Publications list available here
Bio available here