Claudia holds a B.A. in cultural anthropology and linguistics from Arizona State University and a M.S. in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is pursuing a M.S. in Human Factors and Cognitive Systems Engineering at Rensselaer, and plans to enter the Ph.D. program in Information Technology in 1999.
Her research interests include assessment of people's emotions and mental states while they are in telepresence environments, and the effects of mental state on their perceptions of the psychological "realness" of such environments. An example is the work she has done with Ronald W. Noel on the relationship between velocity and the psychological perception of speed in telepresence environments. She is currently exploring how designers can exploit people's mental models of devices or interfaces to make their responses more accurate. Both projects will be applied in the Minds & Machines Studio's games research and development of "super-teaching" technologies.
Hunter has been a technical writer and interface designer for IBM for five years. She also worked as an editor and graphic artist for the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer. Her work has twice received the Society for Technical Communications' first-place international award for documentation, and numerous corporate awards within IBM.
Previously, she was coordinator of Mesa Community College's remedial skills learning center and tutoring program in Mesa, Arizona. She has also taught composition and technical writing for Skidmore College, State University of New York at Utica/Rome, and Rensselaer.
Hunter researched innovative methods for measuring the quality of technical documentation for a consortium of major technology companies. Her papers on quality and productivity metrics for technical documentation have appeared in the proceedings of the IEEE Professional Communication Conference and the Society for Technical Communication Annual Conference since 1990.
E-mail Claudia Hunter
Tom specializes in analog and digital design, embedded control, and systems design. He received his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from RPI in 1998. He is now pursuing an MS in Cognitive Systems Engineering. His masters thesis involves the design and development of an intelligent agent to monitor lab access, security and environmental control. Current teaching responsibilities include a Minds and Machines first year studies course in Cognitive Robotics, and instruction in the programming language LISP for Creativity in Human and Artificial Agents. As Technical Director of the lab, he manages day to day business, as well as facilitation and support of research endeavors.
I am one of the few original minds and machines students left at RPI before it became an actual major. I graduated in december of '99 with my Bachelor of Science in Computer & Systems Engineering, dual majoring in Philosophy, but focusing especially on Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence and theory of mind. I function as one of the lead software engineers/developers in the M&M lab, specializing in the computer science end of Artificial Intelligence, with an emphasis on computational learning theory (Neural Networks/Fuzzy Logic/Evolutionary Methods). I am currently persuing his Master of Science in Computer Science through the PPCS Cognitive Systems Engineering program (and with hopes to graduate in May of '01).My masters project is the development of an interactive tutoring system for teaching an introductory course in logic. It will be utilizing agent technology and machine learning techniques (via fuzzy logic) to help the instructor drive home important yet elusive concepts. My web page will have a more complete description of the project specification, and the link to the page is below.
In my spare time, I try and shoot as much pool as possible, spend as little time in front of a computer screen as possible, and relax as much as possible. If you'd like to know a bit more about me and what interests me, feel free to have a look at my website http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~bellop. I can also be reached via email to the address listed above.
As of September '98, I'm the only Philosophy grad student at RPI, and I get a tremendous kick out of the fact that when I graduate, it will be with a Master of Science. I got a BA from Dartmouth College in June of '97, as a Cognitive Science major, which has given me a very comfortable starting point for entering the M & M lab. I'm not entirely sure what I'll end up spending the lion's share of my time with the lab doing, because most everything we do down there seems interesting, and I'd like to help out however I can!Outside of the lab, I'd like to learn more about the behavior of people in groups and societies, lots of subareas of philosophy (like science, mind, medicine, and law--there are more), the idea of memes, ancient and Greek/Roman history, music theory, computers (both programming/using and fixing), game theory, the history of soccer, and a whole lot of other stuff. This is probably causally related to the fact that my career aspirations are still rather nebulous. Some outside interests of mine are speculative fiction, watching my brother Vinnie (a freshman at Siena, a starting central midfielder) play soccer, visiting friends who seem to have experienced something of a diaspora since college, and maintaining my web page.
Marc EE Marc, as he is so often called, likes to think he's a member of the "inner sanctum" of the lab, which has an unspoken requirement of being there more than 60 hours a week. He received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Psychology from RPI in 1998. In his senior year, he worked on his undergraduate thesis with Professor Noel on Context Dependent Facial Expressions. He liked working in the lab, and hasn't left since. Marc's interests and projects are diverse and highly interdisciplinary. His Master's project is a team effort with Tom Poltrino to make an immobot for the lab to control security and environmental conditions. He is a TA for both Professor Bringsjord and Professor Noel, a Research Assistant for Professor Noel, and is known for programming experimental software for other students' projects. Marc plans on finishing his degree by the end of Summer 2000.
I'm the student in the Minds and Machines Lab that is most often mistaken as a teacher. That's because after 20-some years of dual=tasking as a mason and a musician, I decided to return to school and get a good job. So ... being a dismal high school student back in the 60's, I started trying to make up for lost time. This included:and now working on a MS in Minds and Machines (Cognitive Systems Engineering/Human Factors). This lab is like a storybook come true for me, because it is allowing me to continue my studies and research into many of the topics that I find interesting.
- Doing the College Prep program at the Educational Opportunity Center;
- Getting an AA from Hudson Valley Community College;
- Doing my BS at Rensselaer,
For instance, during the stint as an undergrad, I did several independent study projects in both psychology and computer music (with the help of some great professors) and some delving into the psychological uses of music in a clinical setting at Russell Sage. All laid the ground work for projects in the M&M Lab. With Ron and Selmers's assistance, we will be pursuing a multitude of projects that will entail applications of all of these disciplines.
LIKE WHAT???
Well, we'll be looking at auditory and visual factors that contribute and/or cause emotions, particularly arousal. The mediums that we hope to examine are movies, computer games and music. Measurement of these emotions will be done scientifically... through both subjective and objective measurement. (Yes! -- we have the instuments to measure EEG, GSR, EMG and heartrate.) The big question to address is what causes arousal. Of course, there are about a gazillion other questions that need to be answered, too, and we don't even know what they are, yet. THAT'S what makes this project so exciting!
Another major project has to do with telepresence. This entails extensive work in the Super-Teaching project -- work involving telebots, immobots, and almost all of the other BOTS that will be found in the Lab. What we're striving for is total immersion of all parties, with a natural interaction of participants within a virtual environment. It's a handfull, and we believe that it's DO-ABLE!!!
So, stop by the lab and check it out. My guess is that by Oct 1, lots of things will be happening there! Later on, after the physical construction of the lab is finished, I'll set up a web page that will keep you up to date on what's happening in the lab from my end.