PhD Summer School 2011

Local cues and global constraints in image understanding

Abstract

Modern computer vision systems can reconstruct 3-d scene geometry from 2-d images, or separate foreground objects from background, or accurately detect objects of a particular class. These advances owe a lot to emergence of energy optimization-based models that allow fusing information from different parts and elements of an image in a principled way. In this talk I will give an overview of these models and illustrate their application in a number of computer vision tasks.

Biography

Olga Barinova is a Researcher in Graphics and Media Lab at Moscow State University and is currently engaged in Microsoft Research Connections projects in Russia. She holds a Ph.D. degree in computer science from the Moscow State University, her research focuses on the applications of machine learning methods to computer vision. She is an author of several patents and her work was published at a number of international computer vision and machine learning journals and conferences including PAMI, ECML, ECCV, CVPR.

Introduction to intellectual property

Abstract

I will present the different types of intellectual property and how those rights can be obtained. I will also discuss some of the factors Microsoft uses for determining whether potential intellectual property rights are worth protecting and when we may prefer instead to share our work openly. Finally, I will talk about some of the more common issues we encounter when collaborating with other people or using materials created outside the company.

Proving that programs eventually do something good

Abstract

Software failures can be sorted into two groups: those that cause the software to do something wrong (e.g. crashing), and those that result in the software not doing something useful (e.g. hanging). In recent years automatic tools have been developed which use mathematical proof techniques to certify that software cannot crash. But, based on Alan Turing’s proof of the halting problem’s undecidablity, many have considered the dream of automatically proving the absence of hangs to be impossible. While not refuting Turing’s original result, recent research now makes this dream a reality. This lecture will describe this recent work and its application to industrial software.

Biography

Dr. Byron Cook is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK as well as Professor of Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London. He is one of the developers of the Terminator program termination proving tool, as well as the SLAM software model checker. See research.microsoft.com/~bycook/ for more information.

InnerEye: Automatic visual recognition in the hospital

Abstract

In this talk I will present the research work that we are doing in Cambridge in the area of automatic medical image analysis.

Analysis of medical images is essential in modern medicine. With the increasing amount of patient data, new challenges and opportunities arise for different phases of the clinical routine, such as diagnosis and therapy. The InnerEye research project focuses on the automatic analysis of patients’ scans by using machine learning techniques for: 1. Automatic detection and segmentation of healthy anatomy, as well as anomalies; 2. Semantic navigation and visualization; 3. Robust registration. Our methods combine medical expertise and modern machine learning theory in the design of tools for computer-aided diagnosis, personalized medicine, and natural user interfaces for surgical intervention.

Biography

Antonio Criminisi joined the Machine Learning and Perception group at Microsoft Research Cambridge in June 2000 as Visiting Researcher. In February 2001, he moved to the Interactive Visual Media Group in Redmond (WA, USA) as a Post-Doctorate Researcher. In October 2002, he moved back to the Machine Learning and Perception Group in Cambridge as Researcher. Antonio’s current research interests are in the area of medical image analysis, object category recognition, image and video analysis and editing, one-to-one teleconferencing, 3D reconstruction from single and multiple images with application to virtual reality, forensic science and history of art.

Antonio Criminisi was born in 1972 in Italy. In October 1990 he was appointed “Alfiere del Lavoro” by the Italian President F. Cossiga for his successful studies. In July 1996 he received a Degree in Electronics Engineering at the University of Palermo and in December 1999, he obtained a “Doctor of Philosophy” (PhD) Degree in Computer Vision at the University of Oxford. His thesis “Accurate Visual Metrology from Single and Multiple Uncalibrated Images” won the British Computer Society Distinguished Dissertation Award for the year 2000 and was published by Springer-Verlag London Ltd. in August 2001. Antonio was a Research Fellow at Clare Hall College, Cambridge from 2002 to 2005. Antonio has won a number of best paper prizes in top computer vision conferences.

How to present a poster at an international conference

Abstract

Presenting a poster at an international conference is a terrific opportunity to promote your research and raise your professional profile in a global academic forum. However, it can be daunting to compete with other presenters to get the attention of a passing audience. As well as a clear and captivating poster, you need the ability to build rapport quickly and present your subject positively and succinctly.

This can be especially challenging when English is the shared language but not everyone’s mother tongue. Whether you are a native or a non-native English speaker, you will require flexibility and sensitivity to others in order to get your message across clearly.

During the 3 poster sessions, Sue will be hovering in the room, watching and listening to your approach. She will then prepare to highlight on the final day the key thought-processes as well as the verbal and non-verbal skills you need to give a powerful poster presentation.

After this, Sue will be available to provide confidential 1-1 feedback for any students who are interested.

Biography

Sue Duraikan runs Duraikan Training, a consultancy which aims to help individuals and organisations develop. Duraikan Training provides support in designing and delivering learning strategies. We also run training sessions and one-to-one coaching on a wide range of professional skills. As a former teacher of Modern Languages and with wide experience of working globally, Sue Duraikan has a particular interest in cross-cultural communication, and deep respect for those who operate daily in a second or third language.

Can we use computer programmes to treat cancer?

Abstract

In this talk I will explain how we use executable models to describe biological processes. In particular, I will focus on the process of cell fate determination, where stem cells commit to a single lineage (leading to a single cell type) while having the ability to undergo multi-lineage differentiation. The elucidation of intricate mechanisms that govern stem cell decisions is essential for understanding normal development. Moreover, defects in these mechanisms play an important role in disease such as cancer. In this talk, I will demonstrate how we shed new light on such mechanisms using formal executable models of cell fate decisions, and how these kinds of models enrich the world of programming languages and formal verification in ways that have never been thought of before.

Biography

Jasmin Fisher received her PhD in Neuroimmunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. She started her work on the application of formal methods to biology as a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute (2003-2004), where she worked with David Harel, and then continued to work also on the development of novel formalisms and tools that are specifically-tailored for modelling biological processes as a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Computer Science at the EPFL in Switzerland (2004-2007), together with Tom Henzinger. In 2007, Jasmin moved to Cambridge to join Microsoft Research, and since 2009 she is also an Affiliated Lecturer at Cambridge University. Her research focuses on the construction and analysis of executable models that describe various biological phenomena in order to better understand complex biological systems. She is mainly interested in processes of cell fate determination and signaling networks operating during normal development and cancer.

Blue skies to ground truth: Machine learning for Kinect human motion capture

Abstract

Kinect for Xbox 360 is not just a new way of controlling computer games, it represents a fundamental change in the way humans can interact with machines. I will talk about how Kinect solves the human body tracking problem, which involved a significant advance over the academic state of the art. The key was a clever repurposing of existing machine learning approaches to general object recognition, combined a database of training data much larger than had previously been used. The talk also illustrates how “blue skies” research can have practical benefits both short-term and long.

Biography

Andrew Fitzgibbon is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK. His research interests are in the intersection of computer vision and computer graphics, with excursions into neuroscience. Recent papers have been on models of nonrigid motion, human 3D perception, large-scale image search, and nonlinear optimization.

He has co-authored “best papers” at ICCV (twice), CVPR, and BMVC, and software he wrote won an Engineering Emmy Award in 2002 for significant contributions to the creation of complex visual effects. He studied at University College Cork, at Heriot-Watt university, and received his PhD from Edinburgh University in 1997. Until June 2005 he held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at Oxford University’s Department of Engineering Science.

Cores, cores, everywhere

Abstract

Parallel programming is now the norm: even a basic laptop will have 2, 3, or 4 processor cores, along with a GPU for handling graphics processing. This raises new challenges and opportunities: Challenges, because writing parallel software is seen as vastly more difficult than writing sequential programs. Opportunities, because efficient parallel software can run with lower power consumption, or with greater performance than a sequential program. In this talk I’ll show how projects at Microsoft Research Cambridge are helping to tackle these problems by making parallel programming easier, and by making the underlying computer operating systems a better fit for tomorrow’s highly parallel machines.

Biography

Tim Harris is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge where he works on abstractions for using multi-core computers. He is currently working on the Barrelfish operating system, and on architecture support for programming language runtime systems. His other recent work has focused on the implementation of software transactional memory for multi-core computers, and the design of programming language features based on it.

Tim has a BA and PhD in computer science from Cambridge University Computer Laboratory. He was on the faculty at the Computer Laboratory from 2000-2004 where he led the department’s research on concurrent data structures and contributed to the Xen virtual machine monitor project. He joined Microsoft Research in 2004.

Computer science as applied philosophy

Abstract

Physics, Biology, Medicine, Mathematics, and Geometry all had their origin in Ancient Greek Philosophy; I hope to show that Computing, considered as a branch of Science, has the same origins in ancient Greece; and its practical application to software engineering sheds light on several historic issues in philosophy.

My first example is of course Aristotle (384-322 bc). His syllogistic logic explained the difference between valid and invalid reasoning, not only in Mathematics and the Natural Sciences, but also in politics, law, and philosophy itself. The secret of validity lies solely in the syntactic form of the argument, and is completely independent of its subject matter in the real world. Today, it is a formal syntax that enables the computer to check very long proofs, and actually to discover proofs of conjectures. Furthermore, programming languages are defined today in terms of their syntax, which permits compilers to inhibit execution of meaningless programs. The meaning of a valid program execution is defined inductively, in the same way as a valid logical proof.

My next example is Euclid (round 300 bc). He is the designer of the world’s first programming language, used to specify constructions in geometry. His ideas still lie at the basis of all modern graphical programming languages, drawing pictures on all the screens of all the computers and cinemas and telephones in the world. His language was certainly the first, and still almost the only language, in which all the programs come with a rigorous specification of their purpose, and a proof of their correctness. Today, such proofs are beginning to protect computer programs, measuring billions of lines of code, from the risks posed viruses, worms, and other malware attacks.

My next example is William of Ockham (1287-1347). In Medieval times, the most important application of logic was to paradoxes of Theology. For example, how do you reconcile the perfect knowledge of the Deity of what is going to happen in the future with the existence of man’s free will. This problem was solved by Temporal logic, in a version based on Branching Time. Today, computers have been programmed to use Branching Time in analysis of the correctness of communication protocols and computer software designs, even in the presence of non-determinism, which is now a feature of all computer programs and programming languages.

My final example is Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716). He was a co-discoverer with Isaac Newton of the differential calculus. This works by using symbolic calculations on algebraic formulae. The correctness of the calculation is defined by the list of algebraic equations that are presented by the calculus. Leibnitz had a dream that all the truths of philosophy, theology and natural science could be derived from first principles by just such calculations. This dream is now being partially realised in massive computer data-bases, which can find evidence that supports or refutes any conjecture presented by scientists or doctors.

In the last century, the link between Computer Science and Philosophical Logic became even more intense. George Boole invented Boolean algebra, which lies at the basis of all computer hardware, as well as the Propositional Calculus, which is the basis of all proofs, both in Computer Science and in Mathematics. Gottlob Frege formalised the predicate calculus in a manner that is now recognised as adequate for all of mathematical proof. His formalisation of bound variables is now incorporated in the declarations of all computer programming languages. Bertrand Russell was most concerned with avoiding the paradoxes that he discovered at the very foundations of mathematics. He invented a theory of types to solve the problem. Types are used in most computer languages of the present day to inhibit the execution of meaningless programs. The mathematician David Hilbert hoped to prove the consistency of mathematics by means of a new specialised branch of Mathematics (Metamathematics), whose subject matter is mathematical formulae, rather than sets or numbers or geometric figures. This gave Alan Turing the idea of a computer that is capable of operating on programs held in its own store: although his motive was to prove that Hilbert’s hope for mathematics was impossible.

I will not have time to deal with the twentieth Century, so I refer you to the excellent book ‘Engines of Logic’ by Martin Davis.

Biography

Tony Hoare’s computing interests were stimulated by his first (and only) degree in the humanities (1956): he studied Latin and ancient Greek, followed by philosophy, with particular interest in mathematical philosophy and logic. He learnt Russian during National Service in the Royal Navy. He spent a postgraduate year studying statistics at Oxford and another at Moscow State University, where he discovered the sorting algorithm Quicksort. In 1960, he joined the British Computer industry as a programmer, eventually rising to the rank of Chief Engineer.

His Academic career started in 1968 with appointment as professor at the Queen’s University, Belfast. He chose his long-term research area as proof of the correctness of programs. In the thick of the troubles, he built up a strong computing department, and moved in 1978 to do the same at Oxford. Following the example of Theoretical Physics, his interests broadened to the pursuit of Unifying Theories of Programming.

On reaching retiring age, he accepted an offer of employment at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, where he has seen a strong surge of interest in automation of computer proofs of program correctness. He continues to pursue this interest, while exhorting academic researchers in long-term pursuit of even more idealistic scientific goals.

Rough guide to being an entrepreneur

Abstract

At some stage you might want to exploit your ideas by starting a company, just as Bill Gates and Paul Allen did in 1975. It might even be the next Microsoft, or bought by them. I’ll give an overview of the process, explain some of the success factors investors look for, and how to go about writing a business plan and getting off the ground.

Biography

Jack Lang is a serial entrepreneur and business angel with high-tech and internet companies based in Cambridge, where he is Entrepreneur in Residence, Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, an affiliated Lecturer and member of the Faculty Board at the Computer Lab and a by-fellow of Emmanuel College. His latest venture is as co-Founder of Artimi, which is making the next generation of ultra-wide band wireless chips. Previously he was founder of Netchannel Ltd, an early Interactive TV company which was acquired by ntl: where he became Chief Technologist. Before that founder of Electronic Share Information Ltd, one of the first online brokerages, acquired by E*TRADE Inc. Prior to that he started a consultancy (now SAIC UK Ltd) that was involved in the early days of the “Cambridge Phenomenon”, and was a proper academic at the Computer Lab. He is author of “The High Tech Entrepreneurs Handbook” (FT.Com/Prentice Hall 2001). He has other interests in molecular gastronomy and fireworks.

Social Computing – Where the Human Intelligence and Computing Technologies Meet

Abstract

Computer technologies have reshaped many areas of our lives, from science and engineering to business and entertainment. They had most astounding effects on the ways we communicate and relate to each other. On one side, new forms of social networks are emerging and providing rich user engagements, for example in the context of the media exchange on Flickr and YouTube, online gaming on Xbox Live, personal information sharing on Facebook, and real time messaging on Twitter. At the same time, the use of coordinated human efforts through crowdsourcing platforms makes difficult human undertakings feasible. They range from broad initiatives such as the Wikipedia effort focused on capturing the collective human knowledge, to tasks posted by individuals to the crowdsourcing services such as Amazon Mechanical Turk to have them completed by the crowd of registered workers. Making these social computing systems successful requires careful design and in-depth understanding of both the technology and the human behavior. In this presentation we will discuss the research challenges and the progress we made in developing techniques and tools for analyzing social computing systems.

Biography

As a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge, Natasa Milic-Frayling is setting research directions for the Integrated Systems group, a cross-disciplinary team focused on the design, prototyping and evaluation of information and communication systems and services. In her research, Natasa fosters collaboration across academic areas and considers multiple perspectives of the research problems.

Natasa received her Doctorate in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA in 1988.

Her publication record reflects the cross-disciplinary nature of her research, covering topics from machine learning and information retrieval models to the user experience in mobile and social media environments. Her latest contribution is the book chapter on the social networks analysis of Flickr social media in “Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL” by Derek Hansen, Ben Shneiderman, and Marc Smith, released in Sept 2010 by Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann.

How to write a great research paper

How to give a great research talk

Abstract

Writing papers and giving talks are key skills for any researcher, but they aren’t easy. In this pair of presentations, I’ll describe simple guidelines that I follow for writing papers and giving talks, which I think may be useful to you too. I don’t have all the answers – far from it – and I hope that the presentation will evolve into a discussion in which you share your own insights, rather than a lecture.

Biography

Simon Peyton Jones, MA, MBCS, CEng, graduated from Trinity College Cambridge in 1980. After two years in industry, he spent seven years as a lecturer at University College London, and nine years as a professor at Glasgow University, before moving to Microsoft Research in 1998. His main research interest is in functional programming languages, their implementation, and their application. He has led a succession of research projects focused around the design and implementation of production-quality functional-language systems for both uniprocessors and parallel machines. He was a key contributor to the design of the now-standard functional language Haskell, and is the lead designer of the widely-used Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC). He has written two textbooks about the implementation of functional languages. More generally, he is interested in language design, rich type systems, software component architectures, compiler technology, code generation, runtime systems, virtual machines, garbage collection, and so on. He is particularly motivated by direct use of principled theory to practical language design and implementation – that’s one reason he loves functional programming so much. He is also keen to apply ideas from advanced programming languages to mainstream settings.

Computational Ecology: Enabling intelligent management of the environment

Abstract

In recent years all parts of society – individuals, companies, governments – have become keenly aware of the need to conserve the environmental life support systems on which we all depend. When it is fully developed, ecology will enable this conservation, by providing reliable, accurate models to predict how alternative human actions would translate into outcomes at the ecosystem level, e.g. changes in biodiversity, carbon storage and water cycling. But ecology is a young science, unaccustomed – and some would say, not yet ready – to build these predictive models. In this talk I’ll outline how, in order to help equip ecology for the 21^st century, we are developing new software tools for ecological science, and using these tools to build a new global simulation model (similar in spirit to the GCMs used to predict future climates) of the structure and function of the world’s ecosystems. Hopefully, it will become clear just how much computer scientists can contribute to the long-term wellbeing of humankind.

Biography

Drew Purves is the head of the Computational Ecology and Environmental Science group at Microsoft Research, Cambridge. Drew studied ecology at Cambridge University, did a PhD in ecological modelling at the University of York (UK), and spent nearly six years as a postdoc in the EEB Department at Princeton University, before joining Microsoft Research Cambridge in 2007. Drew’s work, which ranges across many research areas in ecology, has been published in more than 30 research articles in top-tier scientific journals including Science, PNAS, and Proc Roy Soc B. Drew co-supervises several PhD students at European universities, is an affiliate lecturer at Cambridge University, and is the treasurer of the British Ecological Society.

Halo, Kinect, Bing: The Magic of Research in Microsoft Products

Abstract

This talk will be about some of the large-scale applications of cutting-edge research in computational intelligence and machine learning in Microsoft Products. We will reveal the magic behind the machine learning algorithm TrueSkill™ that matches players in Xbox LIVE games. We will explain how simple geometry and advanced high-school maths mixed with tons of imagination can lead to exciting new possibilities in the realm of computer games and beyond.

Biography

Joaquin Quiñonero Candela leads the Ranking, Allocation and Pricing team at Microsoft adCenter, which owns the design and optimization of the sponsored search auction on Bing and Yahoo!. Joaquin joined Microsoft Research as a Postdoctoral Researcher in early 2007, and was part of the small team that designed adPredictor, the algorithm that is now used by Bing and Yahoo! to predict the probability that a use clicks on an ad. In 2009 Joaquin decided to embrace engineering in a product group, and moved to adCenter where he lead the click prediction team. Since end of 2010 Joaquin has lead the Ranking, Allocation and Pricing team. As a side project, Joaquin lead the team that created The Path of Go, a full 3D version of the ancient game of Go for the Xbox 360. Joaquin studied Telecommunications Engineering at the Carlos III University of Madrid, and did a PhD in Machine Learning at the Technical University of Denmark.

The work of Microsoft Research Connections in the region

Abstract

Microsoft Research Connections is an organisation within Microsoft Research. Our aim is to collaborate with the world’s top academic and scientific researchers, institutions, and computer scientists to shape the future of computing in fields such as parallel programming, software engineering, natural user interfaces, and data-intensive scientific research. We provide fellowships, grants, and awards to help foster the next generation of world-class scientists and launch the next critical scientific breakthroughs. The PhD Scholarship Programme is the main Microsoft Research Connections engagement in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region. In this talk, I will give an overview of Microsoft Research Connections and our work in the region.

Biography

Scarlet Schwiderski-Grosche is a Research Program Manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge, working for Microsoft Research Connections in the EMEA region. As such, she is in charge of the Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship Programme and coordinates a number of research projects.

Scarlet has a PhD in Computer Science from University of Cambridge. She was in academia for almost 10 years before joining Microsoft in March 2009. In academia, she worked as Lecturer in Information Security at Royal Holloway, University of London.

F# today, F# tomorrow – data-rich programming meets functional programming Super-Drug

Abstract

Programming today exhibits a voracious appetite for information, and one of the most important trends in languages today is to make access to data and services fluent and seamless. Come and see the latest from the F# team, and learn a bit about F# as it is today, and see how we are extending F# to instantly embed the analytical or cloud programmer instantly in a world of typed data and services, whether they are cloud, web, enterprise, client or local.

Biography

Don Syme is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, Cambridge. He is the designer of the F# language, recently released as F# 2.0, including the innovative F# parallel and asynchronous programming model. He is also the co-designer and co-implementer of generics for the .NET CLR, used as a fundamental part of the programming models of C#, F# and Visual Basic, and widely seen as one of the primary language features that differentiates .NET languages from JVM-based languages. Don’s interests currently lie in information-rich typed functional programming for data-analysis, server-side programming and cloud computing.

Cloud computing for research

Abstract

In this talk I will give a general overview of Cloud Computing and show how it is revolutionising the way we can do scientific research. As an example I will present Venus-C, a European project developing a Cloud Computing service for the research community.

Biography

Dr Kenji Takeda is Solution Architect and Technical Manager for the Microsoft Research Connections EMEA team. He has extensive experience in Cloud Computing, High Performance and High Productivity Computing, Data-intensive Science, Scientific Workflows, Scholarly Communication, Engineering and Educational Outreach. He has a passion for developing novel computational approaches to tackle fundamental and applied problems in science and engineering.

He was previously Co-Director of the Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing, and Senior Lecturer in Aeronautics at the University of Southampton, UK. There he worked with leading high value manufacturing companies such as Airbus, AgustaWestland, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Formula One teams, to develop state-of-the-art capability for improving science and engineering processes. He has been recipient of the Royal Aeronautical Society Silver Award (2009), Royal Academy of Engineering/ExxonMobil Gold Medal for Excellence in Engineering Teaching (2007) and Royal Academy of Engineering Education Innovation prize (2006).

Making the most of your PhD; now and in your career

Abstract

Vitae champions the professional, personal and career development of researchers such as yourself. Our website contains information on the logistics of doing a PhD, overcoming obstacles common to postgraduate researchers, the supervision process and careers, among other useful things.

During this session we will look at some of the logistics of your doctorate, specifically managing your relationship with your supervisor. We will also start thinking about what you might want to do after you have finished your doctorate. There may well be more opportunities open to you than you think!

Biography

Tennie Videler is a programme manager for Vitae, which champions the personal, professional and career development of researchers. It has a unique position in the UK, sharing practice between universities, commissioning research and resources and shaping policy. Before that she was a researcher herself, completing a doctorate and a dozen years of post-doctoral research in different fields of structural biology.

As the person dedicated to researchers, Tennie writes and commissions resources for researchers and gives talks and runs interactive workshops. She has set up blogs for research staff and postgraduate researchers (the latter called ‘What’s up doc?’ ). Every month she writes PGRTips, containing practical advice on different aspects of doing a doctorate and careers. Tennie is also involved in some research, such the ‘What do researchers do?’ publication on the first employment destinations of doctoral graduates.

Gadgeteer

Abstract

Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer is a new prototyping platform that makes it easier to construct, program and shape new kinds of computing objects. It is comprised of modular hardware, software libraries and 3D CAD support. Together, these elements support the key activities involved both in the rapid prototyping and the small-scale production of custom embedded, interactive and connected devices.

In this talk we will show (through live coding and hardware assembly) how to design, build and program working devices using .NET Gadgeteer. The aim will be to give those present a taster of how Gadgeteer can be used as a tool for researchers and students that need to prototype and build bespoke hardware.

Biography

Nicolas Villar is a researcher in the Computer Mediated Living Group, based at the Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge, UK. He is particularly interested in the use of embedded systems—programmable microcontrollers, wireless communication devices, sensors and actuators—as building blocks in the design of physical interactive objects and user interface devices that are engaging, useful and usable. His current work focuses on understanding and developing technologies that enable interactive devices to be rapidly prototyped, manufactured and deployed into use.