The size of the core Archimedes team has fluctuated over the years in step with available funding and the scope to the research being undertaken at the particular time.
Archimedes has a small core group, based in Hawaii, with contractors and collaborating researchers in California, Carolina, New York, the Netherlands, Japan, and New Zealand.
This section contains the following subsections
Core Group
Volunteers with Archimedes Hawaii
Archimedes Stanford Alumni
Visiting Researchers
Part Time Stanford Employees
Outside Supporters
Stanford Supporters
Stanford Volunteers
Important Visitors
Core Group
Neil Scott, Director, Archimedes Hawaii
Neil Scott is an electrical engineer with almost thirty years experience in rehabilitation engineering and user interfaces for people with special needs. His current duties have included: providing direction for Archimedes Hawaii, liaising with other parts of the U.H. system, particularly COE and CRDG; coordinating design and testing of new technologies; preparing patent applications and technical reports; outreach; identifying potential licensees; technology transfer; finding funding opportunities; writing grant proposals; maintaining connections with organizations such as the National Science Foundation; dissemination of information through conferences and personal interactions; building relationships with Hawaiian organizations.
Sandy Gabrielli, Senior Researcher, Archimedes Hawaii
Sandy Gabrielli is an electrical engineer with a background in rehabilitation engineering. Her current duties have included: outreach, grant writing, project development and engineering. She has worked with CDRG in developing technology supplements to their science curriculum. As a women engineer, she has been active in projects that encourage young people, especially girls, to pursue careers in engineering. She developed two projects designed specifically to support the needs of Hawaiians; the Archimedes Toy Adaptation Workshops are meant to train teachers, parents, students and those who work with people with disabilities in simple electronics for assistive technology, and the Ho'alauna Tablet Project which brings Hawaiian elders and youth together to create a personalized health and independent living aide. She has been the contact person for the Linux FSG Accessibility Project.
Kevin Gill, System Administrator, Archimedes Hawaii
Kevin Gill looks after all of the computer hardware and software that is used by the Archimedes Project. His current duties have included: setting up computers, software, development systems, workshop equipment, and demonstration systems that were transferred from Stanford to UH; setting up a new web site; researching and purchasing new software, hardware and office equipment; interfacing with RCUH, UH, and HCC staff to track requisitions, paperwork and reimbursements; and assisting with the organizing and running of special events.
Joop Verbaken, Software Developer, Cupertino, California.
Usability of systems and adapting them to the user has always been very important to me.
I saw firsthand how my aging father was confused by the complexity of trying to accomplish simple tasks with Information Systems, as they seemed to not focus on his intended outcome.
When I was consulting and teaching in Neural Networks I got in contact with the work that Neil Scott was leading at the institute of CSLI at Stanford University. As an industry consultant working in Neural Networks and System Software design, I and 3 other consultants worked over the summer of 2001 with 20-25 students on the "Accessor Factory" The initial design and implementation of the wireless Total Access System. It did demonstrate the basic implementation developed during that summer of multi model intent driven accessor(s). Over the last years I spend time designing the hardware and software development environment to get the second generation of the iTASK to work. Lots of work went into documenting the patents and the overall specification of the system. We developed an elegant design of the iTASK that makes it easily adaptable to the many user applications.
I am motivated by the fact that this work will have a major impact on how the elderly and handicapped can make their actions indent driven. Now that the proof of concept is done I am very excited to work with the focused team (and appropriated financial support) to deliver a working iTASK system on which all the different applications can be tested.
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Gerco Bosma, Software Developer, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Programming and design for the ITASK.
Olga Smyslova, Psychologist, Stanford, California.
Olga has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Moscow State University, Russia. Her research interests lie at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive and Personality Psychology, Accessibility and Usability. Since her undergraduate years, she has been intrigued by the question how the usage of complicated computer technologies and communication tools changes the human mind, and how the technology can be improved to better serve the needs of users.
Her current studies focus on developing and testing the most usable and accessible design of applications and tools to facilitate the interaction between technology and users, to enhance the education, communication, and work processes.
Before joining The Archimedes Project team, Olga's research projects were focused on the problem of computer hacking; She investigated personality traits, IQ, and motivation of hackers and geeks. Before coming to US she studied research about the flow experience of computer hackers for her Ph.D. dissertation thesis.
Nina Paley, artist, illustrator and animator
Nina Paley is probably best known for her alternative comic strip, "Nina's Adventures." Begun in 1988, it enjoyed 7 years of legitimate publication in several American news weeklies, and copyright infringement around the world. Next came a 2-year stint creating the mainstream daily newspaper strip "Fluff" for Universal Press Syndicate, an artistic crisis which drove her to animation in 1998.
Since then, she has forgone a steady income in favor of hemorrhaging money into personal animated "festival films." These include "Luv Is", a clay-animated meditation on romance, betrayal, and revenge, which screened in Germany, Switzerland, New York, Oregon, and California, in spite of being shot on Super-8. "I Heart My Cat" (also clay, but moving up to 16mm, albeit with a glaring light leak which generous viewers seem to think is an intentional special effect) won the Audience Choice Golden Oly award at the 1999 Olympia Film Festival, where it screened as part of Nik Phelps' live "Ideas In Animation" music tour. Nina drew her next film, "Cancer," directly on 35mm clear leader and found footage. Extending her trajectory of doubling film gauges with every project, she then made "Pandorama" by drawing, painting, scratching, and rubber-stamping directly on 15-perf/70mm (also known as "IMAX") leader and junk stock. This was her greatest achievement as a producer, as she finagled donations of film, processing, and services, and even managed to get a large-format distributor, XLargo in Paris, France. With no larger film gauges to try, her next project, "Fetch!" was created in the gaugeless realm of digital animation. With an original score by Nik Phelps, and sound design by J. Raoul Brody, it should be completed by January 2001.
For work, Nina enjoys the occasional freelance illustration and Flash animation gig. Her current clients include CERN (the European Center for Particle Physics Research) and the Archimedes Project at Stanford University.
Volunteers with Archimedes Hawaii
Volunteers are an important resource for the Archimedes Hawaii Project.
Archimedes Stanford Alumni
This section is in roughly chronological order and lists the particular skills and interests the person brought to the project.
Part-time Stanford Employees
Visiting Researchers
Outside Supporters
Stanford Volunteers
Stanford Supporters
Important Visitors
Nina drawing Pandorama in Veyrier, Switzerland, September 1999. Photo by Dan McHale
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