Monday 26 March 8:00 – 9:30
Portable Identity: The Social Life of Information-Augmented Humans
Judith Donath, Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and Director of the Sociable Media Group, MIT Media Lab, USA

Judith Donath is an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she directs the Sociable Media research group. Her work focuses on the social side of computing, synthesizing knowledge from fields such as graphic design, urban studies and cognitive science to build innovative interfaces for online communities and virtual identities. She is known internationally for pioneering research in social visualization, interface design, and computer mediated interaction. She created several of the early social applications for the web, including the first postcard service ("The Electric Postcard"), the first interactive juried art show ("Portraits in Cyberspace") and an early large-scale web event ("A Day in the Life of Cyberspace"). Her work has been exhibited at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston and in several New York galleries; she was the director of "Id/Entity", a collaborative exhibit of installations examining how science and technology' are transforming portraiture. Her current research focuses on creating expressive visualizations of social interactions and on building experimental environments that mix real and virtual experiences. She has a book in progress about how we signal identity in both mediated and immediate situations. Professor Donath received her doctoral and master's degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT, her bachelor's degree in History from Yale University, and has worked professionally as a designer and builder of educational software and experimental media

Monday 26 March 12:00 – 13:30 Luncheon
Nanotechnologies and PIDS
Claire Gu, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Claire Gu received her Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech in 1989. Then she worked as a member of the technical staff at Rockwell Science Center, and went to Penn State in 1992 as an assistant professor. In 1997, she came to UC Santa Cruz as the first Electrical Engineering faculty member, and is now a professor in EE. Her research interests include fiber optics, holographic data storage, liquid crystal displays, nonlinear optics, and optical information processing; with a current emphasis on fiber sensors using SERS (surface enhanced Raman scattering). She has published more than 180 journal and conference papers in these areas. In addition, she has co-authored a text/reference book on "Optics of Liquid Crystal Displays", and co-edited two technical books on photorefractive nonlinear optics and applications.   She received a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award in 1993.   From 2000 to 2006, she served as a Topical Editor of Optics Letters. In 2007, she has been elected a Fellow of SPIE (The International Society of Optical Engineering).

Tuesday 27 March 8:00 – 9:30
Applications of Nano for Telecommunications
Vida Ilderem, Vice President and Director for Embedded Systems Research, Motorola Labs, USA

Vida is Vice President and Director for Embedded Systems Research, Motorola Labs. Prior to this position, Vida worked on a variety of semiconductor technologies and established SiGe:C BiCMOS as high-performance and cost-effective solution for communication products. In her current role, she is focused on balancing short and long-term research for portable energy, security, intelligent imaging, cognitive sensing solutions, nanotechnology, and low cost solutions for emerging markets. Vida received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has 25 issued patents and numerous publications and is a recipient of the Motorola‚s Distinguished Innovator Award and is a member of Motorola‚s Science Advisory Board Associates.

Tuesday 27 March 12:00 – 13:30 Luncheon
Living the Future: People and Technology at Scale
Andrew Lippman, Senior Research Scientist, MIT Media Laboratory

Andrew Lippman received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from MIT. In 1995 he completed his Ph.D. studies at the EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. He served as the founding Associate Director of the MIT Media Laboratory and is currently a Senior Research Scientist at MIT. He directs a $5 Million research consortium entitled "Digital Life" that addresses bits, people and community in a wired world. In addition, he is a principal investigator of the MIT Communications Futures Program, and is an advisor to public radio programs and public television stations. He holds eleven patents in television, digital image processing and interface technologies. His current research interests are in the design of scalable wireless systems for personal expression.