Saying goodbye
Lots happened the past year, the most notable projects I have worked on as a scientific programmer were “Interactive Networks” (a collaboration with the SNE department) and “Twilight” (a graph visualization and exploration tool for multi-touch devices). I am still busy creating some short videos from the HD footage we shot, so expect them in the near future.
I am very glad that I was offered the opportunity to participate in both projects. Therefore I would like the following people who made it possible for me to work for the University of Amsterdam (UvA):
- Dr. Robert Belleman (SCS)
- Prof. Peter Sloot (SCS)
- Dr. Cees de Laat (SNE)
I would also like to thank:
- Paul Melis for his help with constructing the multi-touch table, software support and the pleasant time at the SVVR Lab.
- Dr. Elena Zudilova-Seinstra for her help and advice while I was writing my masters thesis.
- Dr. Jaap Kaandorp and Dr. Alban Ponse for giving me the opportunity to study at the UvA.
- Rudolf Strijkers for the fun time we had in Amsterdam and in Austin/Houston during SC08. And also for the stressful period while writing the paper for ICCS.
Finally I would like to thank Dr. Dick van Albada, Edwin Steffens, Erik Hitipeuw, Alexis Salin, my fellow students at the UvA and everyone I forgot.
A new challenge
After a very brief meeting in Amsterdam during the IEEE Tabletop 2008, I got in touch again with Dr. Chia Shen during the IDC 2009. Shen is a Senior Scientist and Program Manager at the Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) at Harvard University. She is well known for her work as Senior Research Scientist at MERL (the Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs).
During the breaks at IDC 2009, we had a talk about the work I was doing at the UvA and my involvement in the NUI Group. After showing some work I have been doing on network visualization (Twilight) for multi-touch devices it seemed that there were some similarities between the work I was doing at the UvA and the research that was going on at Harvard University. While discussing some of the ongoing projects, I was asked whether I was interested to join the SDR Lab as a research fellow. After some consideration, I proudly accepted her job offer.
The next months I will be working on several interesting projects. One of the tasks will be continuing the development of INVOLV, a multi-touch application developed by Michael Horn and Chia Shen in collaboration with the Encyclopedia of Life (EoL), the Tree of life (ToL) and many biology professors and scientists since May 2008. The application visualizes the data of the EoL and the ToL in a unique way using a Voronoi diagram and is used for learning and discovery.
A video of Michael Horn explaining the INVOLV project can be found below:
Living in the USA
It has only been a week since my arrival in the USA, but so far it has been a pleasant experience.
I have not made a lot of photos yet, but this one was made nearby the place where I am staying (safety first?):
More photos will be posted on Flickr @ flickr.com/photos/multigesture/
2 responses
This is great news! Good luck in your new endeavors. You have much to offer.
I’ve been following your blog for quite some time , as I always had a facination for table/touch computing. I wish you the best of luck and hope to hear more from you soon (either through this blog or others)