Celeste Mason is a research scientist II at the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). After completing her Masters of Human-Computer Interaction at Georgia Tech (and previously, a Bachelor’s in Materials Science and Engineering), she worked as a researcher/developer at a wearable computing startup and universities in Northern Germany. Research projects included design and development of technologies for intelligent assistance in physical training for older adults, with an emphasis on realistic intelligent virtual agents and dynamic user feedback; creation of a multi-modal dataset for action recognition and semantic/hierarchical structure discovery, with the goal of enhancing cognitive robotic planning algorithms; user interfaces, wearable, and tangible systems for the “Workflow Editor” graphical procedural customization system for order-picking and other industrial processes (now part of Teamviewer); and the collaborative research projects “Multimodal Algebra Lernen (MAL)”, a tangible mathematics educational system; and “Be-griefen”, an experimentation XR educational system for physics and electronics instruction.
 

Some of the projects Celeste has worked on at Georgia Tech include PopSign (an American Sign Language vocabulary learning mobile game - the initial prototype was the basis of her Masters project), along with the Passive Haptic Learning and Rehabilitation project (PHL/PHR Gloves help to teach the "muscle memory" of how to play piano melodies without the learner's active attention and may aid those recovering from stroke injury and other conditions improve sensation/dexterity in their affected hands), the FIDO project (tangible and wearable systems for working dogs), and the CHAT project (wearable computers used by dolphin researcher). Prior Materials Science research projects focused on design, fabrication, and characterization of piezo-electric nanogenerators, bio-inspired nanomaterials and optically transparent, electrically conductive nanoparticle/polymer composites. Her current research focuses include educational games, tools, and outreach (especially in the STEM space); assistive technologies for health, education and industry; environmental sensor systems for community-driven sustainability; and wearable (AR/XR) and implantable technologies for health, productivity, and quality-of-life/well-being. Celeste continues to pursue technology transfer efforts for these projects (PHL Gloves and PopSign in particular) with the goal of building up and refining these research prototypes toward viable products that can significantly improve and enrich users’ daily lives.

Research Interests:

• Educational and behavior-change technologies, serious games
• Wearables/XR, multimodal interaction
• Assistive technologies
• Sustainability in computing

Kait Morano is a Research Scientist II at the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). Her interests include urban planning, climate change, and spatial analysis, and her work focuses on designing innovative strategies to build community resilience. At IPaT, she serves as the Resilience Planning Director of the CEAR Hub.

Kait holds a bachelor’s in Geography from Virginia Tech and a master’s of City and Regional Planning from Georgia Tech, where she specialized in Geographic Information Systems. Prior to joining IPaT, Kait worked in local government on the Georgia coast, at the Center for Spatial Planning Analytics and Visualization at Georgia Tech, and as an ORISE Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Brian D. Jones is a senior research engineer at Georgia Tech, where since 1993, he has developed interactive applications for use in informal learning environments, on smartphones, and in the home. In 2008, Mr. Jones was named director of the Aware Home Research Initiative (AHRI), a group of Georgia Tech faculty and students researching the next generation of technologies and applications to support residents in their homes. In this capacity, Mr. Jones is working to build new research and industry partnerships as well as enable faculty and students to innovate new technologies for the home that will improve the lives of residents. As part of this effort, he oversees the Aware Home Living Lab, a facility on campus designed to provide an authentic home environment and supporting technology infrastructure for Georgia Tech faculty and students interested in researching a variety of applications in the home.  

Mr. Jones’ primary research interests are in the area of design and development of technologies to improve health and well-being and enable healthy aging and increased independence. His current research projects are considering the role of the connected home as a support in the lives of older adults and people with disabilities; exploring options for measuring gait speed in various clinic and home settings as a proxy for frailty, and designing a SmartBathroom for understanding bathroom transfers of people with lower-body functional limitations.

As a logical extension of the Aware Home as a resource for technology development, Mr. Jones collaborated with researchers in the Georgia Tech Research Institute, to establish Georgia Tech HomeLab to provide a pool of over 600 individuals age 50 and older willing to participate in research projects and evaluate industry products in their homes.

In 2007, Mr. Jones joined with other research faculty at Georgia Tech to form the Design and Technology for Healthy Aging (DATHA) initiative. This effort is aimed at bringing together researchers, students, state and local organizations, and industry with a common interest of providing our older adult population with the communities and technologies they need to successfully age in place.

Mr. Jones serves on the staff of the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) at Georgia Tech, strategizing how Georgia Tech research in empowered personal health can align with industry interests to provide more significant societal impact.

Mr. Jones holds both a Bachelor's degree (BEE `93) and a Master's of Science degree (MSEE `96) from Georgia Tech in Electrical Engineering.

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 IPaT Secure Data Enclave (IPaT SDE) (formerly 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.