Hi everyone,
Monday 19th June, 2006 @ 5pm (1700) Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre Goldsmiths University of London New Cross SE14 6NW
Hands and Brains: Haptic Science, Technology, and Cultural Applications
This Fellowship is hosted by the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Texiles and supported by Goldsmiths Digital Studios and BT.
The project, Intimate Technologies has focused on:
developing and improving the quality of human-computer ‘touch and feel’ interfaces
addressing the impact of haptic visuality on the interpretation of textile artefacts.
Dr. Srinivasan has caused paradigm shifts in multiple disciplines through his pioneering research on the science, technology and applications of human and machine touch over the past 20 years. In 1990, he started his lab at MIT (Laboratory for Human and Machine Haptics, informally known as The Touch Lab around the world) with a new broad vision of haptics that includes all aspects of information acquisition and object manipulation through touch by humans, machines, or a combination of the two; and the environments can be real, teleoperated or virtual. Multiple disciplines such as biomechanics, neuroscience, psychophysics, robot design and control, mathematical modeling and simulation, and software engineering for real-time human computer interactions converge to support it. Applications range from medical trainers and smart prostheses to wearable computers and tactile art. Through his research, papers, talks, and interviews to the news media, he has conveyed this vision, and has played a pivotal role in starting and establishing the multidisciplinary field of modern Haptics. In fact, the term Haptics as it is used today comes from several of his early papers, and the broad field it defines is being pursued all over the world as a hot area of research.
At MIT, Dr. Srinivasan has led many multi-year research projects on haptics and its applications, sponsored by a number of US federal agencies including DARPA (Tactile Displays Realized Using MEMS Actuator Arrays; Closed-loop Brain-Machine Interface for Augmenting Motor Performance), NIH (Role of Skin Biomechanics in Mechanoreceptor Response), and ONR (Virtual Environment Technology for Training) as well as Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital (Integration of Touch Feedback in Virtual Reality Based Training Systems). As a Principal Investigator, he has been successful in obtaining peer reviewed grants of about 15 million dollars over the past 10 years. He has supervised over 30 graduate theses and has more than 150 publications and several patents. He has given over 60 invited talks internationally. Dr. Srinivasan has been featured or quoted in print media such as the Scientific American, Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Pravda and the Smithsonian, as well as by worldwide radio and TV networks such as BBC and CNN in programs focused on cutting edge research in information technology and its future prospects. In the MIT Touch Lab, he currently leads a group of about 20 researchers composed of undergraduate and graduate students as well as post doctoral fellows, research scientists and visiting faculty from universities around the world.
For further details contact: j.davin-smith@xxxxxxxxxx 02070785142
Please disseminate!