Katherine Isbister

Dr. Katherine Isbister is a social scientist and Associate Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, who researches and designs human-computer interfaces to enhance social and emotional engagement. Isbister joined the Rensselaer faculty after two years as a consulting faculty member at Stanford University, where she developed and taught a course on the design of characters for computer games in the Human Computer Interface program. Isbister’s research training is in the area of social psychological approaches to interface design. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1998, and following a post-doctoral year at Japan’s NTT Open Laboratory, worked in industry and research settings on social interface design and embodied conversational characters, presenting her work in venues around the world.

For more information about Katherine Isbister
Friendly Media
The Katherine Interface

Rainey Straus

Rainey Straus is installation artist and web designer, whose work focuses on the body and technology. Her recent solo show at Gallery 364 in San Francisco, CA explored the territory between tactile perception and digital technology filtered through the interplay of hand held soft plastic sculpted objects in dialogue with live video projection. Straus received her M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts and a B.F.A. in painting from the State University of New York at Purchase. She also maintains an active design practice whose clients include: ITVS (the independent Television Service, PBS (The corporation for Public Broadcasting) and the interactive agency Groove Eleven.

For more information about Rainey Straus:
RaineyStraus
Whirligirl Studio