SPEAKER BIOS

Katy Borner
	Dr. Borner is an Assistant Professor School of Library and Information Science, Core Faculty in Cognitive Science, and Affiliated Faculty, School of Informatics at Indiana University. Trained as an engineer, Dr. Borner's major interest has always been a concern with how existing technology can be applied to enhance and extend human capabilities. In particular, her focus is on information visualization, data mining, and virtual reality technology to facilitate efficient collaborative information access and management. Dr. Borner designed diverse 3-dimensional virtual environments such as AkuVis, VegoWelt, LVis-Digital Library Visualizer, as well as several 3-D desktop worlds. She is a co-organizer of international workshops on 'Visual Interfaces to Digital Libraries' and co-organizes a symposium on 'Collaborative Information Visualizations'. Recently, she joined the VLearn3D Advisory Committee (http://www.vlearn3d.org/). Project descriptions and publications are accessible from her home page http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~katy/.
Margaret Corbit
	Margaret Corbit leads the outreach efforts for the Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University’s high-performance computing and interdisciplinary research center on the Ithaca campus and co-teaches a course in telepresence at the university. She has been a science communicator for 20 years, as a writer, illustrator, and now Web and virtual world developer. Corbit heads up teams of Cornell undergraduates and high school students who are creating an online science museum, SciCentr, and running science fair programs for teens, SciFair. Her most recent project is a world (funded through a small grant for exploratory research from the National Science Foundation) that features transposable elements, or jumping genes. Corbit wishes the conference organizers the best of luck and hopes to join the festivities from the 2002 conference on the Public Communication of Science and Technology in Cape Town, South Africa, where she is presenting a paper on her experience with teen after-school programs for rural youth. www.tc.cornell.edu/~corbitm
Bonnie DeVarco
	Bonnie is a researcher, writer, educator and virtual world developer. As a member of the Board of Directors of CCon.org, she founded the VLearn3D intiative in 1998. Bonnie produces local and global events that feature innovation and emerging technologies in education (VLearn, Tech Innovation, QuantumVIZ, Telascience and others) and lectures on the culture of cyberspace. She holds a BA in cultural anthropology and carried out her graduate studies in dance ethnology at UCLA and archive management at UC Berkeley. She develops virtual worlds (VHS, UCCP, V-UCSC cluster, Linkwrld, Biolearn, vlearn), works with universities and K-12 programs around the world and served as research and development consultant for the UC College Prep Initiative since 1998. From 1989 to 1995 she was chief archivist for the Buckminster Fuller Archives, recently acquired by Stanford University. www.cruzio.com/~devarco/portfolio.htm
Cinzia Gandini
	Cinzia Gandini DVM, specialist in Small Animal Practice, interested in new computer-based technologies applied to the scientific field. She is the creator of various 3D environments and related websites. At present she's developing a new 3D work in distance Chemistry Education through CHEMEET world and is innovative in creating a new form of interactive avatars for science learning. Her past project Vetunimi, which is specifically dedicated to the Veterinary Medical field, is showing the many possibilities of application and usefulness of 3D collaborative environments.
Yael Kali
	Yael Kali is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Visualization and Modeling (VisMod) theme team at the Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT). She graduated from the Department of Science Teaching in the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Yael's work centers on cognitive aspects of learning Earth sciences, and the design and development of computer-based tools and curricula that deal with these aspects. She addressed these issues in two areas. In one area, she studied students' spatial perception of three-dimensional geological structures, and developed software to assist students in developing the spatial skills needed for such perception. In another area, she studied students' systems thinking in the context of the rock-cycle, and developed a curriculum and software to assist students in the perception of the Earth's crust as a cyclic system. Yael's current interest is in design principles of computer-based learning environments. She is leading, together with Marcia Linn, a project to forge the existing knowledge and experience of software-designers and educational researchers into a coherent set of design principles and guidelines for the design of such learning environments.
Carol Kerney
	Carol Kerney is Co-coordinator of the BorderLink Project, a Technology Innovation Challenge Grant. She has 30 years of experience in education including teaching at elementary, high school and college levels. While working in local San Diego schools, she became interested in the potential of "virtual reality" in education, and has been a presenter in multimedia and virtual reality at educational conferences. Her publications include articles on educational technology, multimedia, and virtual reality in such magazines as International Spectrum and T.H.E. Journal. She works at the Regional Technology Center at the San Diego County Office of Education. The Borderlink Project includes such activities as staff development, development of courses delivered through videoconferencing, SAT and CAHSEE Prep training for teachers and courses for students, mentoring with students, support for students in on-line courses, and the design and implementation of LinkWorld, a virtual counseling and student support center in the AW education universe.
Mark Arnold
	Mark Arnold is a teacher and ICT Specialist at Kaleva Norman Dickson Schools, Manistee, MI and an education technology instructor at the University Center in Traverse City, MI. Mark is involved in researching the capacity to pursue social constructivist learning theories and educational concepts such as Bloom's Taxonomy within an environment that seems inherently rich in opportunities to do so. He is also keenly interested in pursuing the development of international learning collaborations between students and educators.
Jake Bowman
	Jake Bowman is a market/research professional. He works with Biota.org and Bruce Damer in the convergence of virtual worlds and artificial life. He is the market architect for the Intercommons project that is being launched by DigitalSpace in collaboration with Larry Lessig's Creative Commons project. As a private scholar, Jake has invented the discipline of "intellectual property development," and has nurtured his own discovery of "cyber-ecosystems" to generate free exchanges based on reproductive contractual agreements. Jake speaks many languages, including French, Spanish, Estonian, Russian, German, Javascript, Perl, ASP/VBscript.
Richard Giles
	Richard Giles is a part-time language teacher but his main area of speciality is the Active Worlds technology. He has setup a company dedicated to the increase of exposure for the technology and to provide training and support services in world. He has a history of technical support and Internet orientated technology. With 3 years experience in the Active worlds environment and world management, he is focussing his efforts on the AWEDU and working with educators to strengthen and expand the online community. He also does a lot of work with 'bots', specially created applications designed to enhance the Active worlds experience and provide a greater level of interactivity.
Chad Rooney
	Chad holds a B.A. in Fine Art & Community Studies from UC Santa Cruz. He has been working in virtual worlds development for over five years, from the VUCSC projects, EcollgE, the CILT Research Project, and the Border Link CollegeQuest Gaming model. Several other interests include: Computer Graphics Design, Photography, Social Documentation, Film & Video Production, Community Building, Field Research and Analysis, Technology Innovation, Education, Writing, Gaming & Immersive Environments. Chad works with graphic production and technology development as well as innovative and challenging multimedia work. In addition, he is also working on several ongoing photography projects that involve documenting people and their co-evolution with technology. chaderik@cruzio.com
David Peth
	David Peth is currently an undergrad at Cornell University in the Dual Degree program pusuing a BA in Psychology and a BFA in Fine Arts Dept/Coll.: Arts and Sciences, Architecture Art. http://www.salientcosmos.com. Graphic and Web Design, conceptual design. Designer of Modeling Malaria and the SciCentr sites, landscape and architectural design for Gene Island,
TacoGuy (Jeff Bobicki)
	Tacoguy is a recently retired 48 year old Electronic Engineer and Physicist. TG began working in Industry in 1976 and was involved in many projects including hard drive development and classified work on military aircraft. TG holds six patents. TG moved to Colorado in 1981 to start a retail Satellite TV business which thrived until the "small dishes" decimated the industry. The last six years he has been working as a Technical Consultant for the Colorado State Library.
Elijah Wright
	Elijah Wright is a doctoral student in Information Science at the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science (SLIS). He is interested in collaborative learning, computer-mediated communication, and the application of alternate media to pedagogy. Elijah is currently part of the "Building Blocks" Project research team.