Don Marinelli

Don is a Professor of Drama and Arts Management at Carnegie Mellon. Dr. Marinelli served as the Assistant Head of the Drama Dept. (1980-86) and later the Associate Dept. Head (1986-95). During that time he helped to establish the joint-degree Master of Fine Arts in Acting Program between Carnegie Mellon and the world renowned Moscow Art Theatre School of Russia. Professor Marinelli has led an effort to develop innovative, interdisciplinary curricula in the area of drama and interactive multimedia.

Most recently, he has accepted an appointment as a researcher in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, devoting his energies to the Informedia Project, applying dramatic and cinemagraphic theory to multimedia interface and application design.

Randy Pausch

Tina (Bean) Blaine

Tina Blaine (aka Bean) is interested in developing collaborative experiences that integrate custom sound and game design with interactive media. Inspired by global traditions and spontaneous music-making, Blaine has explored musical interaction since the mid-80's building electronic MIDI controller instruments and large-scale audience participation devices for live performance. At Interval Research, she led a development team in the creation of a collaborative audiovisual instrument known as the Jam-O-Drum, now on permanent exhibit at the Experience Music Project in Seattle. Her work and subsequent collaborations with ETC students have been featured at SIGGRAPH's Emerging Technologies, Zeum's Youth Art and Technology Center in San Francisco, Give Kids the World Resort in Orlando, and Ars Electronica‚s Museum of the Future in Linz, Austria. In September 2005, she was honored for her inspiring and innovative work in the sciences by the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwestern Pennsylvania and the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh PA.

Blaine co-founded the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference and has written for numerous publications including MacUser, Computer Life, Electronic Musician and the Journal for New Music Research. An energetic composer and multi-instrumentalist, she has written music for NPR, video games, TV and documentary soundtracks. Blaine performs with RhythMix and Jim DiSpirito‚s Big World project, and has also recorded with Brian Eno, Mickey Hart, Haunted by Waters, D'CuCKOO, Tracy Blackman, Pandemonaeon, Bogo and others lured by the call of the drum.

Drew Davidson

Drew Davidson is the Academic Department Director for Game Art & Design and Interactive Media Design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. He is also an Affiliated Professor in the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a professor, producer and player of interactive media, exploring narratives and mediums across texts, comics, games and other media. Primarily, he is interested in conceptual interactive design, integrated narrative and interwoven media, collaborative design and development, applied media and game logics.

He completed his Ph.D. in Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to that, he received a B.A. and M.A. in Communications Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has presented at international conventions and conferences and has created interactive projects revolving around narrative, media, and learning. He has been an Adjunct Faculty Member at St. Edward’s University, Southwest Texas University and Austin Community College.

Professionally, he often works as a consultant. He has worked as a Senior Project Manager in the New Media Department of Holt, Rinehart and Winston. He was also a Project Manager in Learning Services at Sapient, and before that was a Producer in Learning Technologies at HumanCode.

He is the Founding Director for the Applied Media & Simulation Games Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Currently, he serves on the IGDA Education Committee, the ACTlab Steering Committee, and is also a development partner with GridBloc. For more information, see http://www.waxebb.com/

David Gurwin

David A. Gurwin is an attorney and Shareholder with the law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll PC, resident in the Firm's Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania office. A professional jazz pianist himself, he chairs the Firm's Entertainment and Media Law Group. He also chairs the Firm's Technology Transactions Group and is also a member of the Emerging Companies Group.

Mr. Gurwin represents clients in a broad variety of industries, with a particular focus on Internet, computer and technology clients, as well as those involved in the entertainment industries.

In the entertainment industries, his clients include and have included musicians, record companies, recording artists, record producers, concert promoters, songwriters, music publishers, advertising and interactive agencies, fine artists, video game developers, authors, literary publishers, television personalities, broadcasters, webcasters, playwrights, video production companies, arts organizations, professional athletes and sports organizations.

He also practices extensively in the areas of copyright, trademark and intellectual property law.

Mr. Gurwin received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree, summa cum laude, from The Ohio State University in 1982. He received his Juris Doctor degree, with honors in Law, from The Ohio State University in 1985, where he served as Article Editor of The Ohio State Law Journal and was elected to The Order of the Coif.

He is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and before the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

He is a member of the Allegheny County Bar Association (Member, Arts & the Law Section); the American Bar Association (Member, Science and Technology Section; Intellectual Property Law Section; and Forum Committee on the Entertainment and Sports Industries); and The Computer Law Association. He is a frequent lecturer and author on the subjects of entertainment law, Internet and computer law and intellectual property law.

Chris Klug

In the beginning, trained as a theatrical lighting designer, Chris Klug worked on Broadway, in regional theater and opera, and toured with various 70's rock n' roll bands. Before joining the ETC faculty, his last game industry job was as Creative Director for EA's MMORPG Earth & Beyond. Between then and now, Chris kept the wolves at bay by designing games. Starting his career with Simulations Publications, Inc., in 1981, he assisted with the design of Universe (a sci-fi role playing game), then moved on and designed the 2nd edition of DragonQuest (a fantasy RPG and winner of a Game of the Year Award), Horror Hotel (something's lurking in the shadows of an old Victorian guest house) and Damocles Mission (a sci-fi strategy game). While at SPI he edited the role playing section of Ares magazine. When TSR bought SPI in 1982, Chris and the rest of the SPI staff moved on to form Victory Games. There Chris headed up the role playing games division, and designed the James Bond 007 role playing game (a winner of a Game of the Year award as well) and oversaw the entire Bond product line. At Victory Games, Chris designed a half-dozen more titles and was, for a time, Design Director.

After leaving Victory Games, Chris became a freelance computer game designer and has worked for SegaSoft, TSR, Hasbro Interactive, 3W, THQ, Simon and Schuster Interactive, Target Games, h2o Interactive, Gizmo Games, Westwood Studios and GT Interactive. Some of his computer game credits include Star Trek DS9: Dominion Wars, Europa Universalis, Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, Diamond Dreams Baseball, and Aidyn Chronicles: First Mage.
For eight years, Chris was Vice President and chief Creative Officer for Diamond Dreams, Inc., a company dedicated to developing and marketing world-class computer baseball simulations.
Chris figures that in over 23 years designing games, he has sihipped approximately four dozen games, supplements, adventures, and/or add-ons with his name listed as designer in the credits. There may be a few working designers with more credits, but surely not many.

A leading proponent of making the games industry finally realize its' potential, Chris was a keynote speaker at the Second International Conference on Entertainment Computing hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in May of 2003. He also serves on the advisory board of Indiana University of Pennsylvania's Applied Media and Simulation Games Center as well as a Program Advisory Committee Member for Game Art & Design of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

Kerry Handron

Kerry Handron is the Director of the Earth Theater at Carnegie Museum of Natural History and an Adjunct Professor in the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. With a technical background in physics and astronomy, she comes to the world of entertainment and education through the planetarium field. She was instrumental in the planning and design phases of the Earth Theater, which is one of the first to utilize a very large format digital projection system. She wrote and produced the opening show, the Millennium Show, and has worked on several others for the theater and other planetaria. One of her goals for the theater with the ETC is to create effective digital presentations utilizing interaction techniques to engage the audience to the greatest possible extent.

Kerry is also the producer for the NASA sponsored Immersive Earth project, for which the ETC is exploring techniques and applications for interactivity in small fulldome environments.

Bakker Harger also uses improvisational techniques as director of a unique award winning company at Carnegie Mellon, which uses live interactive theatre to address controversial issues in the workplace and classroom. She has produced an exploratory DVD-ROM for interactive theatre, and is currently pursuing her interest in further applying her theory and skills in directing and improvisation to electronic mediums. Harger also has a long association with the Pittsburgh Childrenís Museum where she currently serves as a consultant.

Jessica Hodgins is an Associate Professor in Computer Science and Robotics
at Carnegie Mellon University. From 1992-2000 she on the faculty of
the College of Computing and the Graphics, Visualization and Usability
Center at Georgia Tech. She received an NSF Young Investigator Award,
a Packard Fellowship and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship. She is editor-in-chief of ACM Transactions on Graphics. Her research focuses on the coordination and control of dynamic physical systems, both natural and human-made, and explores techniques that allow robots and simulated humans to control their actions in complex and unpredictable environments. Ongoing projects include data-driven animation, simulation of human motion, adapting control systems to new dynamic models, animation interfaces for naive users, animation of passive objects, and measurements of human perception of animated motion.

Craig Lipchin is co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of XGAMING, INC a development firm which creates high end gaming accessories for all game systems. Craig manages and develops direct relationship customers, retail accounts and 11 international distributors for the company's flagship brand, X-ArcadeTM. A native of Johannesburg, South Africa, Craig worked for 6 years developing diamond polishing and distribution companies. After successfully selling his share in those businesses, Craig moved to Los Angeles, CA where he lived for 3 years before reaching his final destination in Pittsburgh, PA. Craig is working with the ETC on a one year sponsorship to collaborate with students on the development of a number of experience-enhancing interactive entertainment products.

Craig can usually be found listening to, dreaming about, or attending a Dave Matthews Band concert.

In 1991, David Polinchock used virtual reality to create Experiential Advertising(tm) programs for clients ranging from Avis to Cutty Sark. He was a featured speaker on the topic of creating experiences that allowed the consumer to enter and interact with a marketing message at conferences both in the US and abroad.

Previously, David was the CEO of Location Based Branding, specializing in oneline brand experiences that allowed the guests to enter and interact with brand stories. Projects included the creation of a Synthetic Interview for the Court TV Mall Tour and consultation with the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU, to commercialize ETC's proprietary experience-based technologies. He also served as the VP of Interactive Ideation for the DVC Group. As a key part of their Strategic Services team, David evaluated, recommended, and created interactive strategies in order to optimize investment of marketing and promotion initiatives. Clients included the Coca-Cola Think Tank, GSK and Viacom Mall Entertainment.

He began his work in the new media industry in 1991, when he founded the CyberEvent Group, Inc., (CEG). CEG created Experiential Advertising(tm) programs and was one of the first companies in the US to work with fully immersive virtual reality. Clients included the City of Avignon Festival, People Magazine, USA Network, Westwood One Radio Network, American Express, Merrill Lynch and the Grateful Dead. CyberEvent Group also produced many of the major national tours that used virtual reality, including the award winning Cutty Sark Virtual Voyage, grand opening tours for Blockbuster stores and won a MARCOM Award for Best Trade Show Exhibit with our Immersive Animation Theatre for Cabletron Systems.

David has over 20 years of experience in event marketing and strategic ideation. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU and has taught courses on Experiential Branding at the NYU School of Continuing & Professional Studies Marketing and Management Institute. He also writes frequently about brand experience topics for a variety of publications, including EM and Event Marketer.

Scott Stevens is senior systems scientist in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute as well as faculty in the Entertainment Technology Center. His research interest's lie in the emerging, complex field of multimedia. Most applications fail to take full advantage of the information bandwidth, much less the capabilities of a multimedia, digital video and audio environment. To achieve, in part, a new model of multimedia systems, Scott's research includes interface designs that consider the complexity of multimedia objects, create high-fidelity environments, and incorporate an understanding of cinema and of digital video's temporal, spatial, and psychological nature. Scott's work also aspires to take the captivating power of story and fantasy, and combine it with motivating design, for applications ranging from learning and entertainment to information access and scientific visualization.

Jesse Schell is an Instructor of Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon, specializing in Game Design. Formerly, he was Creative Director of the Walt Disney Imagineering VR Studio, where his job was to invent the future of interactive entertainment for the Walt Disney Company. Jesse worked and played there for seven years as designer, programmer, and manager on several projects for Disney theme parks and DisneyQuest (Disney's chain of VR entertainment centers). His most recent work at Disney involves design of family-friendly massively multiplayer worlds, such as Disneys Toontown Online. He came to the ETC to impart real-world experience, and to build exciting new things. He has a BSCS from Rensselaer, and an MSIN degree from Carnegie Mellon. In a previous existence, he was writer, director, performer, juggler, comedian, and circus artist for both Freihofer's Mime Circus and the Juggler's Guild. Jesse is also the the coordinator of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the International Game Developers Association

Ralph Vituccio is the Director of Media Development in Communications Design and an Instructor in the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon. He has developed, written, and produced numerous films, videos, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, web sites, and multimedia projects for Carnegie Mellon as well as many corporate and commercial clients. He is also an adjunct faculty at Pittsburgh Filmmakers where he teaches film and video production.

His media work has received several communication and media awards and his interactive training CD-ROMs on racism and teaching conflict management skills have both won National Educational Media Awards and International Television and Video Awards.

As an independent artist, Vituccio has received numerous grants in support of his work form the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Region Media Arts Fellowship Program and the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition, he has been the recipient of three Media Fellowship Awards. Vituccioís documentary, "PERFORMANCE: The Living Art ", won an Artist Distinction Award at the 1990 Berlin International Film Festival and has aired nationally on several PBS stations and internationally in several countries. His latest documentary, "When The Video Came", slated for release summer of 2003, considers the early formation of video as an art form and profiles many of the original pioneers in the field. Currently, Vituccio is in preproduction on his first feature film.

Shawn Walters
Faculty

Shawn Walters is co-founder and President of XGAMINGÆ, INC development firm which creates high end gaming accessories for all game systems. Shawn created the X-ArcadeTM, an award winning arcade joystick built on XGAMING's pioneering input device platform, which works with all current/future game consoles and PC/MacTM computers. He spent 5 months in China setting up manufacturing facilities and production staff responsible for building XGAMING's products. Shawn left university at 19 to start his first gaming company and has been successfully creating and marketing video game products for the past 7 years. Shawn is working with the ETC on a one year sponsorship to impart his entrepreneurial experience in the game industry to students and collaborate on the development of interactive entertainment products. Shawn can usually be found working, reading or traveling.

John Wesner
Faculty

John Wesner is an Adjunct Teaching Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, a member of Carnegie Mellon’s Institute for Complex Engineered Systems, and an adjunct faculty member in the ETC.   John came to Carnegie Mellon in 2000, to share his experiences—after 31 years of doing and leading Mechanical Design and Product Design at Bell Laboratories (under AT&T and Lucent).   In addition to working on the physical design of products like telephones and desktop computers, he spent time leading project management and process improvement programs.    A registered Professional Engineer, John has his BS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie, and his MS from Caltech.   Two of the “experience sharing” courses he has created include “Design for Manufacture” and “Entertainment Engineering.”     When he can break away from his professional activities, John exercises his creativity and “need” to build things by being a “passionate” model railroader, whose railroad clearly shows evidence of being created by a design engineer.

Josh Yelon
Faculty

Josh Yelon is the local 3D graphics guru for the Entertainment Technology Center. He enjoys spending his time improving Panda3D (our 3D engine) and writing cool shaders.

Josh entered the games industry in 1999, when he and a friend started a game company "eGenesis." The mission was to create a new genre of online game in which the main activity was building things: machines, cities, farms, vehicles. The primary challenges were to be resource-management challenges. Josh was the lead C++ programmer and co-designer. The vision was partially realized with their first game, "A Tale in the Desert," which received a great deal of critical acclaim. Although Josh feels the design of this game was a good first attempt at a new genre, he looks forward to designing the next game, which hopefully will come closer to realizing the ideal.

Josh received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in the field of parallel computing.

Greg Wieder
Faculty

BFA, Applied Media Arts, Edinboro University of Pennsylvannia '97
Internship: Boss Film Studios '97
Instructor at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh

Steve Audia
Technical Coordinator

If Steve hadn't discovered computers at the age of seven, he'd probably still be building transformers out of Lego. Pursuing his love of both technology and creative process, he decided to study architecture, and received a Bachelors of Science degree in Architectural Design from the University of Virginia in 1999. Upon graduation, Steve spent a one-year residency with Randy Pausch's Stage3 research group as a digital artist. This landed him a job as an artist and python programmer for Walt Disney Imagineering's DisneyQuest, where he helped design and prototype virtual and augmented reality attractions. Now back at Carnegie Mellon, Steve is also working towards being an animation teacher and developing animation tools to augment software used in the ETC curriculum. Steve still hasn't given up his dream of one day being a Y2K engineer.

Todd is a graduate from the University of Maryland with a BA in Business Management and University of Chicago with a MBA in Business Administration. Hobbies include, but not limited to, gardening, hiking, camping, and anything that involves nature. He also raises and shows Yorkshire Terriers. He is currently the President of the Greater Pittsburgh Yorkshire Terrier Club.

My son is the joy of my life. I'm a HUGE Steelers fan. Waiting patiently for the one for the Thumb.

Charles Palmer
Communications Coordinator

A new member to the staff, Charles Palmer brings over 10 years of production and support experience in the fields of multimedia and information technology. His vast areas of expertise covers design & electronic communications, internet strategies, IT infrastructures and computer support. His body of work covers web, CD/DVD ROM, programming, digital video production/editing, 3D modeling and animation, and architectural rendering.

A natural teacher, Charles has enjoyed 17 years of academic/administrative positions at Carnegie Mellon providing design and production advice to students, faculty, and staff throughout the campus community.

Jessica Trybus

Jessica heads up Edutainment Initiatives for the Entertainment Technology Center. She is working on how to leverage the cutting-edge technology design capabilities of the ETC to jump start business growth and job creation in Pennsylvania for applications that simultaneously instruct and entertain.

Jessica is a Pittsburgh native, and a 2004 graduate of the Entertainment Technology Center.

Prior to coming to Carnegie Mellon for graduate school, Jessica held marketing, business development and project management positions with Viacom and AltaVista. She also worked as an assistant within Drew Barrymore's production company, Flower Films. Jessica received her B.A. from Cornell University.