Maribeth Gandy Coleman is a Regent's Researcher and Director of Research for the Institute of People and Technology at Georgia Tech. She received a B.S. in Computer Engineering as well as a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. In her 20+ as a research faculty member her work has been focused on the intersection of technology for mobile/wearable computing, augmented reality, human computer interaction, assistive technology, and gaming. She is a computer scientist focused on developing novel and scientifically validated systems at the “human technology frontier” designed for purposes such as training, rehabilitation, and cognitive training, utilizing cutting-edge technology such as augmented and virtual reality. For example, she lead an initiative (funded by National Science Foundation, Dept of Education, and ACT Inc.) to research the design of games for cognitive training and assessment for older adults, persons with disabilities, and K-12 students. She also previously led a project funded by Georgia Tech’s Health Systems Institute to develop home-based computer games for stroke rehabilitation. In her AR research, she is interested in advancing AR as a new medium by focusing on authoring, evaluation, and deployment. She was the lead architect on a large open source software project called the Designer’s Augmented Reality Toolkit (DART), which had thousands of users and was used to create a variety of large-scale AR systems. She was also co-PI on an NSF grant focused on the development of presence metrics for measuring engagement in AR environments using qualitative and quantitative data. She has also applied AR technologies to a STEM education project for teens, explored how AR interfaces can enhance user abilities during maintenance and repair tasks, and is currently studying the use AR and mobile technologies to make Internet of Things environments more approachable and useful to communities. In her Director role she is responsible for organizational leadership & strategic planning, fundraising, convening & managing diverse teams, industry/academic partnerships, and translational work including commercialization of intellectual property.

While teaching textiles and fashion design studio classes at Savannah College of Art & Design, Zeagler realized his true passion lies in bridging the gap between the disciplines of Wearable design and Human-Centered Computing. A diverse background in fashion, industrial design, and textiles drive his research on electronic textiles and on-body interfaces with the Contextual Computing Group of the GVU center of Georgia Tech. As a Principal Research Scientist for the Georgia Tech Interactive Media Technology Center and Instructor for the Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design he teaches courses on Wearable Product Design and an ID section of Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing (MUC).  Zeagler enjoys working with corporations such as HP/Palm and Google to bring real-world experience into the classroom. He recently acquired a NASA Georgia Space Consortium grant to fund MUC student projects on wearable computing for space—a wonderful opportunity for undergraduate students. He is also a member of the NASA Wearable Technology Cluster a group of scientists and academics working together to give advice to those in NASA working on wearable computing or electronic textile projects. A deep understanding of the garment production process fosters innovation in his research. Zeagler’s company Pecan Pie Couture hand-dyed, embroidered, and screen-printed textiles and garments. Building upon that skillset, his recent research led to the creation of the Electronic Textile Interface Swatch Book (ESwatchBook) in collaboration with Thad Starner. The ESwatchBook is designed to help facilitate discussions between the skill and craft-based design disciplines (.i.e. fashion) and more technical disciplines (.i.e. computer science). To put the ESwatchBook’s capabilities to the test, he developed a series of workshops at multiple colleges with the purpose of bringing together designers with engineers/technology specialists. The workshops were funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant, which he co-authored. Zeagler’s most recent endeavor FIDO: Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations is an exploration into using wearable electronics to enhance interactions between service dogs and their handler/owners.

Jeff Wilson is a senior research scientist at Georgia Tech. He received a Bachelor of Computer Science in 1999 and a Masters of Computer Science in 2001 from Georgia Tech.  His areas of specialization include graphics, visualization, digital audio, game design, and virtual and augmented reality applications.  Some of the projects Jeff has worked on include large-format, projected VR displays, mobile and head-mounted AR applications, auditory interfaces for automotive applications, educational games, and mobile health applications.

Scott Gilliland has been at Georgia Tech since obtaining his Masters in Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 2008. During his time at Tech, he's gained skills as a hardware engineer, developing electronics designs and firmware for many wearable and ubiquitous systems. His previous work includes wearables for underwater use, conductive textile sensing and fabrication for use in electronic garments, and interface vests for use with service animals. He has also taught CS3651, an electronics prototyping course for computer science students, and is the manager of the GVU Prototyping Lab.

Peter Presti is a senior research scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. During his 22 years with the university he has collaborated with companies such as IBM, Humana, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Alcatel-Lucent, Bellsouth, Denon Nippon-Columbia, and others. Government research sponsors have included DARPA, NIH, NSF, DoE, USDA, and the VA. His areas of research include sensor systems and biometrics, wearable computers, signal processing, pattern recognition, embedded systems, electronics design, data visualization and computer graphics, and computational geometry. His background spanning both custom hardware and software development provides him the skills to design and build fully integrated prototype systems, and in past projects has designed and built high-speed data capture systems, a variety of kinetic sensors, biometric sensors, and wearable computer systems.

Jeremy Johnson is a research scientist with IPaT where he has been working since 1999. Jeremy’s interests include ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, human-computer interaction, computer audio, sound design and creative applications of computing to the arts. At IMTC he contributes his skill as a software engineer to guide software development projects through the full software life cycle, from requirements gathering to deployment.

Richard Starr is a research scientist responsible for the Protected Health Data infrastructure at IPaT. He develops and manages a common infrastructure to work with healthcare data. This secure environment can be employed across campus to house research data to maintain compliance with HIPAA, IRB, and partnership agreements.