Abstract:

Multimedia Communications, involving traditional “media” such as audio, video, text, 2D graphics, have become parts of everyday e-life. New digital media, such as Virtual Reality and Haptics, have now added new dimensions to multimedia tele-collaboration. This presentation will introduce basic issues on Distributed and Collaborative Virtual Environments, where the feeling of “touch” (haptics) and its transmission over networks is becoming essential. Various applications will be described ranging from industrial training to e-commerce to medical education, and the current research at the DISCOVER research lab, Univ. of Ottawa will be outlined.

Who is Nicolas D. Georganas?

Nicolas Georganas received the Dip. Ing. (Diplom-Ingenieur – German equivalent of M.Sc. degree) in Electrical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (Athens, Greece) in 1966. He went on to achieve his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (Summa cum Laude) in 1970 from the University of Ottawa (Ottawa, Canada). In 2004, he was conferred a Dr-Ing. (Doktor Ingenieur) (honoris causa) in Electrical Engineering by the Technische Universität Darmstadt (Darmstadt, Germany). In 2007, he was awarded his second Ph.D. (honoris causa) in Electrical and Computer Engineering by the National Technical University of Athens.

He currently holds the position of Distinguished University Professor in the School of Information Technology and Engineering (SITE) of the University of Ottawa. In addition to this, he is also a Visiting Researcher at IMDEA Networks and a Cátedra de Excelencia at University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M). In 1986 he became the Founding Dean of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Engineering, and from 2005-08 served as Associate Vice-President, Research (External).

As well as in academia, he has wide experience working both with government and industry. In the late nineties he worked with the Communications Research Centre (CRC) of Industry Canada focusing on Advanced Distributed Simulation and Distributed Virtual Environments, with applications to defense, telemedicine, training and telecollaboration. He was earlier with IBM, BULL, INRIA and NORTEL, on sabbatical leaves.

Nicolas Georganas is a Fellow of the IEEE , of the Academy of Science, of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC). He has been the General Chair of three major international conferences – ACM Multimedia 2001, IEEE Multimedia Systems’97 and the IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1990. He has published over 440 papers and supervised 38 PhD and 74 MSc theses. His work is widely recognized and in 2007 alone he received 5 professional awards, including the Order of Canada and the IEEE Canada Computer Medal.

The conference will be conducted in English