My main responsability is research in Human-Computer Interaction, I work with other academics in the group as well as develop my own projects, mostly around interaction with mobile devices and for creative expression. In addition to research wy work includes teaching, supervision of student projects and administrative duties.
My PhD research is on visual marker recognition and its application to HCI and Mobile HCI. My duties include writing of grant proposals for public funding and industrial partners, supervision of student projects and the design, coordination and teaching of a master-level course in computer science on mobile HCI and mobile phone programming. Academic advisor: Prof Jeffrey Huang.
Course based on individual research and taught classes. Topics include location based applications and systems, affective computing, sensor technologies for interactive environments. Master thesis on intimate interfaces for mobile human-computer interaction. Duties as RA included the frequent production and presentation of research demonstrators to sponsors and potential sponsors of the lab, and the supervision of student projects. Academic advisor: Prof Pattie Maes.
Media Lab Europe is the European Research Partner of MIT Media Lab. I worked in the Liminal Devices research group under the guidance of Prof Rebecca Allen. My focus within the group was on human interaction with mobile devices, with emphasis on unobtrusive interfaces, location based interaction and mixed reality (selected results were published at international conferences). Duties as RA included the frequent production and presentation of research demonstrators to sponsors and potential sponsors of the lab. Working with Prof Allen I also had a chance to be exposed to development and production of art installations and demos.
I developed the image processing and sound reproduction algorithms for
the Audiophoto Desk. It is "an inclusive way of reviewing audiophotos
from physical prints. An overhead camera and hidden computer are used to
recognize a printed photograph and play its associated sound
automatically". Designed by David Frohlich (HP Laboratories), it was
implemented in C++ on Linux and works in real time.
The prototype was successfully exhibited at the Helen Hamlyn show 2003
at the RCA in London and at the Second International Conference on
Appliance Design.
The course gives a strong electronics background with an emphasis on
application to communication technologies. The lecture courses are
supported by laboratory sessions. In addition to my main course in
communications I also attended media technology course lectures.
I chose the Electronics Department at the University of York because a
research group in visual information engineering and augmented reality
had recently been set up there. This allowed me to broaden the course
content, studying visual perception, computer vision, and video
production (both from a technical and a creative point of view) and work
on research into augmented reality and tangible user interfaces.
Academic advisor: Prof John Robinson
I received the Texas Instrument Prize for Best MEng Final Project: "A
Tangible User Interface for Display and Manipulation of Multimedia
Information".
I transferred to York University having completed half of the course, with average result of 90% (27/30). The subjects covered in depth mathematics (algebra, advanced calculus, numerical methods, statistics, geometry, mathematical physics) physics (mechanics, EM, advanced EM, thermodynamics), chemistry foundations, computer science, signal processing, circuit theory, and solid state devices. The course had a strong theoretical approach.
Mathematics, Physics, Inorganic and Organic Chem., Philosophy, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, English, History, Art History.
Experience in photography and darkroom techniques (personal exhibition in Palermo in December 2001, which I also set up and arranged), and in video making; one of my videos entered the final selection in an Italian national contest in June 2000 (all films in this contest had to be exactly 60 seconds long); I have completed video assignments for the courses that I have taken at York. From 2002 I have produced videos documenting research work.
Italian (native), English (fluent), Spanish (conversational), basic German (ZD).
Programming: C and C++ - including: embedded
programming; Symbian OS programming; Bluetooth; sockets; use and
creation of a variety of libraries and toolkits for real time
image/audio/signal acquisition and processing; libraries for GUI and
computer graphics. Java - including J2ME, SWING, XML parsing. PHP. HTML.
XML. VHDL and Assembly to a basic level.
Operating Systems: Linux, Windows (XP, NT, 98, 95), MS
DOS, IBM OS/2.
Engineering Applications: MATLAB, Eagle (PCB schematic
and layout) MapleV, PSpice, Xilinx, Mathematica, CVS.
Other Applications: MS OFFICE, WordPerfect, PhotoShop,
Premiere, Illustrator, Avid Cinema, CorelDraw!, PaintShopPro, CoolEdit
and other wave editors, FastTracker, Flash, 3Dstudio4.0.
Clean full driving licence. Biking, Cinema, Concerts, Music, Art Exhibits.
Available on request