Brian D. Jones is a senior research engineer at Georgia Tech, where since 1993, he has developed interactive applications for use in informal learning environments, on smartphones, and in the home. In 2008, Mr. Jones was named director of the Aware Home Research Initiative (AHRI), a group of Georgia Tech faculty and students researching the next generation of technologies and applications to support residents in their homes. In this capacity, Mr. Jones is working to build new research and industry partnerships as well as enable faculty and students to innovate new technologies for the home that will improve the lives of residents. As part of this effort, he oversees the Aware Home Living Lab, a facility on campus designed to provide an authentic home environment and supporting technology infrastructure for Georgia Tech faculty and students interested in researching a variety of applications in the home.  

Mr. Jones’ primary research interests are in the area of design and development of technologies to improve health and well-being and enable healthy aging and increased independence. His current research projects are considering the role of the connected home as a support in the lives of older adults and people with disabilities; exploring options for measuring gait speed in various clinic and home settings as a proxy for frailty, and designing a SmartBathroom for understanding bathroom transfers of people with lower-body functional limitations.

As a logical extension of the Aware Home as a resource for technology development, Mr. Jones collaborated with researchers in the Georgia Tech Research Institute, to establish Georgia Tech HomeLab to provide a pool of over 600 individuals age 50 and older willing to participate in research projects and evaluate industry products in their homes.

In 2007, Mr. Jones joined with other research faculty at Georgia Tech to form the Design and Technology for Healthy Aging (DATHA) initiative. This effort is aimed at bringing together researchers, students, state and local organizations, and industry with a common interest of providing our older adult population with the communities and technologies they need to successfully age in place.

Mr. Jones serves on the staff of the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) at Georgia Tech, strategizing how Georgia Tech research in empowered personal health can align with industry interests to provide more significant societal impact.

Mr. Jones holds both a Bachelor's degree (BEE `93) and a Master's of Science degree (MSEE `96) from Georgia Tech in Electrical Engineering.

Jeremy Johnson is a research scientist with IPaT where he has been working since 1999. Jeremy’s interests include ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, human-computer interaction, computer audio, sound design and creative applications of computing to the arts. At IMTC he contributes his skill as a software engineer to guide software development projects through the full software life cycle, from requirements gathering to deployment.

I am currently Professor and KUKA Chair for Robotics in the School of Interactive Computing. I am also Emeritus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Professor Hays's research interests span computer vision, graphics, robotics, and machine learning. Before joining Georgia Tech, he was the Manning assistant professor of computer science at Brown University. James was a post-doc at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009. James received his B.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 2003.

Rebecca "Beki" Grinter is a Professor of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing & (by courtesy) the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on improving the experience of computing by understanding the human experience in the building and using of technologies. Her work contributes to the fields of human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, and computer supported cooperative work. She has also worked in the areas of robotics, networking, security, and software engineering. She has published over 80 scholarly articles, served as Papers Chair (2006) & Best Papers Chair (2010) for the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), the premier conference for human-computer interaction. In 2013 she was elected to the CHI Academy. In 2010 she was recognized as a Distinguished Alumna of the University of California, Irvine. Before joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, she was a Member of Research Staff in the Computer Science Laboratory of Xerox PARC and a Member of Technical Staff in the Software Production Research Department of Bell Laboratories. She was also a visiting scholar at Rank Xerox EuroPARC. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Information and Computer Science both from the University of California, Irvine, and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Leeds. Affiliations GVU Center

Dr. Matthew Gombolay is the Anne and Alan Taetle Assistant Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 2011, a S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Autonomous Systems from MIT in 2017. Gombolay's research interests span robotics, AI/ML, human-robot interaction, and operations research. Between defending his dissertation and joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, Gombolay served as a technical staff member at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory transitioning his research for the U.S. Navy, earning him an R&D 100 Award for his development of "Human-Machine Collaborative Optimization via Apprenticeship Scheduling" (COVAS). His publication record includes a best paper award from American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, and he was selected as a DARPA Riser in 2018. Dr. Gombolay's research has been highlighted in media outlets such as CNN, PBS, NBC, CBS, Harvard Business Review, Gizmodo, and national public radio

Ashok Goel is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA. He obtained his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. At Georgia Tech, he is also the Director of the Ph.D. Program in Human-Centered Computing, a Co-Director of the Center for Biologically Inspired Design, and a Fellow of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems. For more than thirty years, Ashok has conducted research into artificial intelligence, cognitive science and human-centered computing, with a focus on computational design, modeling and creativity. His recent work has explored design thinking, analogical thinking and systems thinking in biological inspired design (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiRDQ4hr9i8), and his research is now developing virtual research assistants for modeling biological systems. Ashok teaches a popular course on knowledge-based AI as part of Georgia Tech's program on Online Masters of Science in Computer Science. He has pioneered the development of virtual teaching assistants, such as Jill Watson, for answering questions in online discussion forums (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbCguICyfTA). Chronicle of Higher Education recently called virtual assistants exemplified by Jill Watson as one of the most transformative educational technologies in the digital era. Ashok is the Editor-in-Chief of AAAI's AI Magazine.