Research Vision:

Education:

• Doctor of Philosophy, Computer Science and Applications
• September 2001
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
• Blacksburg, VA
• Master of Science, Computer Science and Applications
• December 1995
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
• Blacksburg, VA
• Bachelor of Science, Computer Science, Magna Cum Laude with Math Minor
• May 1994
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
• Blacksburg, VA

Experience:

• Senior Technical Specialist, AT&T Labs - Research, May 1996 to present
• SCANMail - Developed and evaluated a service that uses Automatic Speech Recognition and other information analysis techiniques to help users browse and search for voicemail messages based on content.
• CHIScan - Refining graph based interfaces that help visualize human-human and human-machine dialog trajectories.
• Association Engine - Designing a contextual recommender system that suggests relevant documents both personal and public in the context of the users current task.
• Control Shadows - Graphical technique that supports users in the task of specifying preferences relative to their personal history on desktop and mobile devices. Evaluated the design implications of moving complex interfaces to smaller more limited platforms.
• FGI - Developed a wristband mounted bio-acoustic finger gesture interface based on acoustic signals captured from gentle fingertip gestures through a contact microphone
• CarThing - Wireless audio system for the car that automatically updates music selections based on past listening history, social filtering, and user preferences. The system takes advantage of high bandwidth (802.11) when available to move large audio files to and from the system and transmits control data only when bandwidth is limited (cell link).
• WARR - Collaborative music listening environment supporting rich user interaction while listening to shared music lists.
• Implemented PHOAKS People Helping One Another Know Stuff.
• Designed TopicShop Explorer - interface for managing collections of topical resources.
• Developed FanCentral to help users explore, organize, and share a collection of Web sites on entertainment topics.
• Research Professor, Information Science DepartmentNew Jersey Institute of Technology, Sep 2004 to present
• Investigating Geo Temporal Social Matching by building a campus wide framework for testing location aware community systems.
• Adjunct Faculty, Computer Science DepartmentNew York University, Jan 2004 to present
• Teaching Special Topics Course in Rapid Visualization
• Owner/President, Avatar Multimedia: Blacksburg, VA July 1992 to Present
• Sell and assemble computer hardware and software for clients
• Design and develop customized software and integrated systems to fit the needs of the customer
• Develop custom Multimedia CD-ROM applications
• Develop Interactive Web Pages for Clients
• Research, Action-Centered Task Video System, Jan 1997 to Dec 1998
• Developed ACTV System to provide more flexible and appropriate visual access to remote environments.
• Performed empirical evaluation to validate usefulness of system in remote collaborative situations.
• Research, MOOsburg, Sep 1995 to Dec 1998
• Implemented a Text-Based Virtual Environment to support enhanced social interaction over the internet in the form of a MOO (Object Oriented Multi-User environment) named MOOsburg. based on the physcial town of Blacksburg, VA.
• Graduate Research Assistant, Naval Research Labs: Alexandria, VA Jan 1995 to Oct 1998
• Development and evaluation of a new interaction method called pre-screen projection, which is a method of panning and zooming in a virtual world, where the viewing transformation is updated with respect to head position read from a virtual reality head tracker
• Presented work at CHI '95, Denver, May 1995.
• Graduate Research Assistant, HCI Research Group, Virginia Tech: Blacksburg, VA Aug 1994 to Dec 1994
• Continued development of IDEAL, -- Interface Design Environment and Analysis Lattice -- an integrated tool environment that supports user-centered design and the process of formative evaluation of user interfaces
• Incorporated real time VCR and camera control into IDEAL using the Sony's VISCA command language.
• Presented paper & demo of IDEAL at the Mid-Atlantic Human Factors Conference, March 1995.
• Systems Analyst/Programmer, Consumer Products Group MIS, Sony: Park Ridge, NJ May 1994 to Mar 1996
• Updated and managed an automated software upgrade system to install new software on a user's machine over the network.
• Developed database system to keep track of users and equipment in windows, and linked it to an SQL server running in OS/2
• Assisted in administration of several OS/2 servers, and also developed and performed automated remote server updates.
• Lab Manager/Programmer, PIP Software Support, Sony: Montvale,NJ May 1993 to Dec 1993
• Developed Multimedia CD-Rom and CD-RomXA titles for the MMCD Player
• Evaluated and enhanced user interfaces of existing CD-Rom titles
• Designed Windows Application for Bitmap conversion, sizing, and maintenance
• Implemented Unix commands in DOS for employees using both operating systems
• Produced Electronic Data Discman titles for specialized clients using a markup language
• Programmer/Network Administrator, Security Systems,Sony: Montvale, NJ May 1992 to April 1993
• Wrote a marketing report system on mainframe including Analysis of Commissionables, Backorder, Future Order, Salesman Order Detail, etc.
• Set up and maintained network of PCs and Macs for all employees of Security Systems Division
• Trained employees on the use of the network, packaged software, etc.
• Controlled purchasing of equipment for Security Systems
• Head Programmer/Network Manager, DJR Enterprises: Radford, VA January 1992 to October 1999
• Programming application software in Dataflex Language (Both procedural and Object Oriented styles)
• Consult with company employees and maintain network and hardware
• Computer Lab Consultant, Virginia Tech, Dept. of CS: Blacksburg, VA January 1992 to May 1994
• Assist students working on programming projects
• Maintain computer systems in lab
• Software Developer, H & H Production and Machining: Sparta, NJ May 1992 to August 1992
• Developed integrated system for invoicing, inventory, and tracking of all orders
• Personal Applications Programmer, MIS, Sony: Park Ridge, NJ May 1991 to August 1991
• Designed schedule rotation system, integrated with a color plotter, for tracking data to be sent off-site
• Performed major updates to MORS (MIS Operations Reporting System)
• Worked in large data center in Networking, Operations, and Tape Library
• Computer Operator/Programmer, TRW Inc.: Fairfield, NJ July 1990 to August 1990
• Designed and maintained system to manage new account records consisting of sales, pricing, and payments between PCs and mainframe
• Undergraduate Research in Human Computer Interaction
• Development of an array of tools to aid in the evaluation of user interfaces
• Integration of Audio & Video into interpreted language Tcl/Tk, developed at UC Berkeley
• Continued Development of QUANTUM -- Quick User Action Notation Tool for User-interface Management - which facilitates and automates the use of the UAN in GUI evaluation
• Development of a world wide web server for Virginia Tech HCI Research
• Undergraduate Research in C++
• Developed Object Oriented Graphic Windowing System in an X Windows environment
• Designed Interfaces to enable Pascal students to use Graphics Windowing in class
• Presented at the Virginia Computer Users Conference 1993

Computer Skills:

• Computer Languages:
• C, C++, MFC, Java, J2EE, Tcl/Tk, Perl, TeX/LaTeX, JavaScript, SQL, Pascal, X Windows, HTML, 68000&80x86 Assembly, DataFlex, Lisp, Basic,REXX, FORTRAN, COBOL, FOCUS, JCL.
• Operating Systems/Hardware:
• Unix (Solaris,Ultrix,BSD,Minix,Linux), Windows, MSDOS, OS/2, TSO, Macintosh.

Publications:

• Amento, Brian; Harrison, Chris; Nathan, Mukesh; Terveen, Loren. "Asynchronous Communication - Fostering Social Interaction with CollaboraTV" Social Interactive Television: Immersive Shared Experiences and Perspectives. 2009. IDEA Group Publishing.
• Harrison, Chris; Amento, Brian; Stead, Larry. "iEPG: An Ego-Centric Electronic Program Guide and Recommendation Interface". Proceedings of UXTV 2008.
• Zeljkovic, Ilija; Haffner, Patrick; Amento, Brian; Wilpon, Jay. "GMM/SVM N-Best Speaker Identification Under Mismatch Channel Conditions". Proceedings of ICASSP 2008.
• Nathan, Mukesh; Harrison, Chris; Yarosh, Svetlana; Terveen, Loren; Stead, Larry; Amento, Brian. "CollaboraTV: Making Television Viewing Social Again". Proceedings of UXTV 2008.
• Harrison, Chris; Amento, Brian. "CollaboraTV: Using Asynchronous Communication to Make TV Social Again". Proceedings of EuroITV 2007.
• Harrison, Chris; Amento, Brian; Kuznetsov, Stacey; Bell, Robert. "Rethinking the Progress Bar". Proceedings of UIST 2007.
• Burke, Moira; Amento, Brian; Isenhour, Philip. "SCANMail: Error Correction in Voicemail Transcripts" in Proceedings of CHI 2006 (Quebec, Canada).
• Amento, Brian; Whittaker, Steve. "Semantic Speech Editing." in Proceedings of CHI 2004 (Vienna, Austria).
• Terveen, Loren; Amento, Brian; Isbell, Charles. "Multi-Device Interfaces for Ubiquitous Peripheral Interaction", in Proceedings of UbiComp 2003 (Seattle, WA).
• Whittaker, Steve; Amento, Brian. "Seeing what you are hearing: Co-ordinating responses to trouble reports in network troubleshooting.", Proceedings of ECSCW 2003 (Helsinki, Finland).
• Amento, Brian; Isbell, Charles; Whittaker, Steve; Bell, Gavin. "Ishmail: Designing Advanced Email Systems". CSCW 2002 (New Orleans, LA)
• Amento, Brian; Terveen, Loren; Hill, Will; Hix, Deborah; Schulman, Robert. "Experiments in Social Data Mining: The TopicShop System", in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (2003).
• Isbell, Charles; Amento, Brian; Whittaker, Steve; Bell, Gavin; Helfman, Jonathan. "Ishmail: Managing Massive Amounts of Mail", Proceedings of UIST 2002 (Paris, France).
• Amento, Brian; Terveen, Loren; Hill, Will. "From PHOAKS to TopicShop: Experiments in Social Data Mining", Interacting With Social Information Spaces, Springer-Verlag, October 2002.
• Amento, Brian; Hill, Will; Terveen, Loren. "The Sound of One Hand: A Wrist-mounted Bio-acoustic Fingertip Gesture Interface", Proceedings of CHI 2002 (Minneapolis, MN).
• Terveen, Loren; McMackin, Jessica; Amento, Brian; Hill, Will. "Specifying Preferences Based on User History", Proceedings of CHI 2002 (Minneapolis, MN).
• Whittaker, Steve; Hirschberg, Julia; Amento, Brian; Stead, Larry; Zamchick, Gary; Rosenberg, Aaron; Bacchiani, Michiel; Stark, Litza; Isenhour, Phillip. "SCANMail: A Voicemail Interface That Makes Speech Browsable, Readable, and Searchable", Proceedings of CHI 2002 (Minneapolis, MN).
• Amento, B., Terveen, L.G., Hill, W.C., Hix, Deborah. "TopicShop: Enhanced Support for Evaluating and Organizing Collections of Web Sites", Proceedings of UIST 2000 (San Diego, CA)
• Amento, B., Terveen, L.G., and Hill, W.C. "Does 'Authority' Mean Quailty? Predicting Expert Quality Ratings of Web Sites". Proceedings of SIGIR 2000(Athens, Greece)
• Terveen, L.G., Hill, W.C., and Amento, B. Constructing, Organizing, and Visualizing Collections of Topically Related Web Resources. in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (1999). 6, 1 (Mar. 1999), Pages 67 - 94
• Amento, B., Hill, W., Terveen, L., Hix, D., and Ju, P. An Empirical Evaluation of User Interfaces for Topic Management of Web Sites, in Proceedings of CHI'99 (Pittsburgh, PA, May 1999), ACM Press, 552-559.
• Neale, D. C, Amento, B. S., and McGee, M.K. "Telepresence in ACTV Media Spaces". Proceedings of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 1998.
• Amento, Brian.; Hix, Deborah; Templeman, James; Schmidt-Nielsen, Astrid and Sibert, Linda. "An Empirical Comparison of Interaction Techniques for Panning and Zooming in a Desktop Virtual Environment". Proceedings of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 1998.
• Terveen, Loren; Hill, Will; Amento, Brian. "Collaborative Filtering to Locate, Comprehend, and Organize Collections of Web Sites." SIGART Bulletin, Volume 9, Issue 3-4 (December 1998).
• Neale, D. C., McGee, M. K., Amento, B. S., and Brooks, P. C. "Making media spaces useful: Video support and telepresence". (Tech. Report HCIL-98-01). Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory.
• Terveen, Loren; Hill, Will and Amento, Brian, "PHOAKS: A System for Sharing Recommendations" CACM March 1997 Vol 40, No 3
• Terveen, Loren; Hill, Will and Amento, Brian, "Building Task-Specific Interfaces to High Volume Conversational Data", in Proceedings of CHI'97 (Atlanta GA, March 1997), ACM Press, 226-233.
• McGee, M. K., Amento, B., Brooks, P., Harley, H. D. (1997). "Fitts and Virtual Reality: Evaluating Display and Input Devices with Fitts' Law." In Proceedings of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 1997. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
• Amento, Brian; Hix, Deborah; Templeman, James. "Pre-screen Projection". HCIC 1996.
• Kies, Jon; Amento, Brian and Struble, Craig, "MOOsburg: Experiences with a Community-based MOO" (Tech Report HCIL-96-03) Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory.
• Amento, Brian and Struble Craig, "IDEAL: User Interface Analysis" Mid-Atlantic Human Factors 95

Patents

• Novel Service Based On Direct User Preference Data-Payment, Advertisement, Metering And Recommendation
• Control Shadows
• System and Method For Tracking Media Usage And Providing Related Information Based On The Media Usage
• System and Method For Administering a Payment Policy Based On Actual Media Usage
• Wireless Adaptive Finger Gesture Interface (WAFGI) For Controlling Wearable Communication Devices And Other Nearby Digital Devices
• Bioacoustic Control System, Method and Apparatus
• System And Method for Improving Multimedia Continuity Among Various Devices
• An Empirical Evaluation of User Interfaces for Topic Management of Web Sites
• Latency Reduction for Automatic Speech Recognition using Partial Multi-Pass Results

Honors and Activities:

• Technology Chair, CSCW 2004, Chicago, IL
• Technology Chair, CHI 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Technology Chair, CHI 2002, Minneapolis, MN
• Mentor, AT&T Labs Fellowship Program, 2002-present
• Mentor, Young Science Achievers Program, 2004-present
• Student Volunteer Co-Chair, CSCW 2000, Philadelphia, PA
• President, Upsilon Pi Epsilon, National Computer Science Honorary Society
• Vice President, Graduate Student Association
• Graduate Representative to Faculty, Virginia Tech
• Member, Computer Resource Committee, Virginia Tech
• Member, Phi Kappa Phi, National Honor Society
• Instructor, Governor's School of Virginia
• Member, Golden Key National Honor Society
• Member, Gamma Beta Phi Society, Honorary Community Service Organization
• Member, University Honors Program, Virginia Tech
• Member, Computer Network Access Committee, Virginia Tech
• Member, ACM, Association of Computing Machinery, Local and National Chapters
• Member, National Eagle Scout Association, Boy Scouts of America
• Dean's List, Virginia Tech
• Investment in Excellence Scholarship, Virginia Tech