ASTRONOMY
LSU Computer Science Professor Honored with Lasting Impact Award
The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, a premier conference for developments in human and computer interaction, awarded LSU Professor Brygg Ullmer its 2009 Lasting Impact award for a paper on tangible and embedded interaction he authored during his graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in collaboration with Hiroshi Ishii, his former adviser.
Tangible and embedded interaction is Ullmer’s research specialty at LSU, where he is a professor with the Department of Computer Science and holds a joint appointment with the Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT. Researchers in this emerging field manipulate physical objects not traditionally used for computation, such as paper, blocks, furniture and clothing, to make them interfaces for digital information. Tangible and embedded interaction has important implications for many businesses, including video conferencing, health care, digital media, consumer products, interfaces for computational science applications, and more.
The Lasting Impact award honors researchers who further their disciplines in innovative ways that create future and ongoing opportunities for scientific and technological discovery. Ullmer and Ishii submitted the paper, "The metaDESK: Models and Prototypes for Tangible User Interfaces" to the ACM symposium in 1997. Ishii was Ullmer’s graduate adviser at that time. They were honored this year for the work they have done to advance tangible and embedded interaction in the past decade.
Since his arrival at LSU in 2005, Ullmer has created the tangible and visualization laboratory within CCT, where he conducts research and introduces current LSU students to opportunities in this field. In 2007, Ullmer led the CCT’s annual Mardi Gras Conference, centered around the theme “Tangible and Embedded Interaction.” That conference since has become an annual, international event, entering its fourth year.
In 2008, the Baton Rouge Business Report named Ullmer one of its “Forty Under 40” award recipients, and he also was named one of LSU’s Rainmakers in 2009 for his creative research and work with students. Ullmer, a faculty member in the College of Basic Sciences, recently collaborated with faculty in the LSU College of Art & Design on a grant-funded project to produce a tangible interaction kiosk that helps middle school students learn about science.
"I am deeply honored and humbled to receive this award with Professor Ishii for our early efforts on tangible interfaces," Ullmer said. "We've been truly delighted by the rapidly growing academic, commercial, and cultural interests in tangible interaction over the past dozen years, and we look forward to continuing our activities and collaborations in this and surrounding areas, both toward further cutting-edge and applied mass-market impacts."
TRENDING
- Artificial intelligence transforms biomedical science with groundbreaking protein discoveries
- Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Tom Tickner joins Woolpert to provide support for federal clients, projects
- IBS supercomputer Aleph shows abrupt intensification of northern wildfires due to future permafrost thawing