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Principal Researchers

The Lead Contractor is McGill University. The partner organizations are the University of British Columbia and BCnet. Both universities have many years of experience as major international research organizations and all of the expertise required to complete the proposed research successfully. The senior researchers have international reputations and many years of experience in their fields.

The project is coordinated by John Roston, Director of the Instructional Multimedia Services, McGill’s centralized professional facility for video production and videoconferencing services, the production of interactive teaching materials and graphic design. He has 30 years experience in media production and use including 12 years in the design and programming of interactive video programs. Roston has an M.A. in Communications as well as formal training in both media production and management. He is on the Board of Directors of the Association of Biomedical Communication Directors, a North American organization representing the Directors of major university medical multimedia production facilities. He is a member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology at McGill and has given many papers on interactive multimedia at international conferences as well as invited university presentations in both the U.S. and Canada.

Roston has previously coordinated and provided control for major research projects funded by Industry Canada and Canarie including the ANAST projects McGill Advanced Learnware Network and Remote Video Interpreting using CA*net3: Health Access for Deaf People. For the latter project, Roston designed a unique system of video displays which is the subject of a pending U.S. patent, Remote Language Interpretation System and Method.

The project’s engineering tasks are the responsibility of Jeremy Cooperstock, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, member of the Centre for Intelligent Machines, and founding member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology at McGill. Cooperstock's research interests focus on augmenting technology to make complex systems more usable and applying computer mediation to facilitate human communication. His Ph.D. thesis investigated the use of computer control over a state of the art videoconference environment, resulting in a reactive room that responds to the activity of users. Cooperstock’s accomplishments include the Intelligent Classroom and an automated speech-based virtual secretary.

In 1999, he led the software development for the world's first demonstration of Dolby Digital 5.1 multi-channel audio streaming over the Internet. In 2000, he followed this with reliable 12-channel, high-resolution audio streaming from Montreal to the AES 109th convention in Los Angeles, where it was mixed live as a demonstration of the "recording studio that spans a continent." Most recently, Cooperstock has been leading the technical development of McGill's ultra-videoconferencing system and developing the Shared Reality Environment, a space that provides distributed individuals the experience of being in the same room at the same time. Cooperstock's work has been recognized with the ITRC (now CITO) award for Increasing Awareness in Leading Edge Technology and a Distinction Award from the Audio Engineering Society. His research has been featured in various television programs and newspaper articles.

The project’s audio tasks are the responsibility of Wieslaw Woszczyk , an internationally recognized researcher with a leading reputation in emerging trends in audio technology. He is the Chairman of the Technical Council of the Audio Engineering Society, coordinating activities of 17 expert Technical Committees representing key disciplines in audio engineering, and is a Member of the Technical Review Board of the Journal of the AES. For his achievements, he was awarded McGill Board of Governors and Fellowship Awards, as well as sharing in a Citation Award from the AES awarded to a group of CIRMMT researchers for “pioneering the technology enabling collaborative multichannel performance over the broadband internet.” Dr. Woszczyk has delivered numerous invited lectures, guest-taught at universities in Canada, USA, Europe and Japan, published over 50 papers, edited conference proceedings, and organized and chaired prestigious international conferences, technical programs at conventions, as well as technical paper sessions and workshops on many key topics in audio engineering and auditory perception.

In 1994 he was a Visiting Professor at Bang & Olufsen A/S, Research and Development Department, in Denmark, the first foreign scientist invited to join the R&D department. In 1995, he received the Hoso Bunka Foundation award to consult with the HDTV Multichannel Sound Study Group and lecture in Japan. As a recording producer and/or engineer he contributed to over 50 Compact Discs and LP records (with such artists as Philip Glass, Brian Eno, Harry Belafonte) and designed Acoustic Pressure Equalizers (APE) microphone attachments manufactured by several microphone companies and nominated for Technical Excellence and Creativity Award by the audio industry magazine "Mix" (San Francisco, USA).

Mark Zuberbuhler is the Executive Producer/Director for UBC Telestudios with responsibilities for Executive Management, Strategic Planning and Producing/Directing. He has 20 years of Television Broadcast experience in long-form programming, documentary, commercial and promotional projects. Telestudios is integrated within UBC ITServices who provide information technology services, support and leadership to the University of British Columbia.  Telestudios is the premier new media production facility at UBC, utilizing technologies for the creation and development of E-Learning initiatives. Its creative environment specializes in webcasting, broadcast video, interactive multimedia, videoconferencing, photography and digital imaging with emphasis on quality production.

Michael Hrybyk is the current President and CEO for BCNET. He actively oversees and manages the operations of the society and is responsible for implementing the overall mission and vision of BCNET. He has managed BCNET since 1994. Mr. Hrybyk has been an active member of the technology community in the U.S. and Canada and has been recognized for his outstanding efforts in helping to develop the Canadian Internet. In 1997, he was recognized as a builder of Canada's information society by CANARIE and Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Mr. Hrybyk also serves on the technical committee for CA*net4, the next generation Canadian high-speed research and education advanced network sponsored by CANARIE.

He is currently on leave from the BCIT Technology Centre, where he serves as the Director of Group for Advanced Information Technology R&D (GAIT). He received nearly $1M in funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the BC Knowledge Fund to establish the BCIT Internet Engineering Lab. The lab, which opened in the spring of 2001, specializes in network performance and testing. GAIT also conducts research in the areas of software design, instructional multi-media, geographical information systems, and bioinformatics. Mr. Hrybyk has twenty years of experience with Internet networks, Unix systems, and software development. He has an M.Sc. in Computer Science from The Johns Hopkins University, and held the position of Manager of Computing Systems and Networks there. While at Hopkins, he helped create the first campus-wide ethernet network in 1986, and connected it to SURANet and NSFNET.