Dr. Steven M. LaValle is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, in Particular Robotics and Virtual Reality, at the University of Oulu. From 2001 to 2018, he was a professor in the Department of Computer
Science at the University of Illinois. He has also held positions at Stanford University and Iowa State University. His research interests include robotics, virtual and augmented reality, sensing, planning algorithms, computational geometry, and control theory. In research, he is mostly known for his introduction of the Rapidly exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm, which is widely used in robotics and other engineering fields. In industry, he was an early founder and chief scientist of Oculus VR, acquired by Facebook in 2014, where he developed patented tracking technology for consumer virtual reality and led a team of perceptual psychologists to provide principled approaches to virtual reality system calibration, health and safety, and the design of comfortable user experiences. From 2016 to 2017 he
was Vice President and Chief Scientist of VR/AR/MR at Huawei Technologies, Ltd. He has authored the books Planning Algorithms,
Sensing and Filtering, and Virtual Reality.
Dr. Jyrki Saarinen is Professor of Photonics Applications and Commercialization at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). He is the head of the Institute of Photonics and the Department of Physics and Mathematics at UEF. He received D.Sc. (Eng.) from Helsinki University of Technology (nowadays Aalto University) in 1995, where he is still Adjunct Professor on micro-optics. From 1998 to 2012 he worked in photonics industry (including seven years in Silicon Valley), where is followed closely the development of virtual reality and the born of augmented reality. In 2013 he returned back to academia and Finland. Currently, he is focuses on 3D printed photonics and, in general, micro-optics and its applications. He also plays active role in startups and growth companies. Prof. Saarinen is deputy director of the national Photonics Research and Innovation (PREIN) Flagship program.
Dr. Jukka Häkkinen is senior research fellow at Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki. He leads Visual cognition research group that focuses on vision science, image quality and experiential and ergonomics aspects of XR systems. Currently he focuses on the neuroscience and experience of reading with XR systems, and the determinants of sickness symptoms with XR systems. He has published over 100 scientific publications.
Dr. Roope Raisamo received the Ph.D. degree in computing science from the University of Tampere, Finland, in 1999. He is currently a Professor of computer science at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communica¬tion Sciences, Tampere University, Finland. He is the head of TAUCHI Research Center (Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction), leading the Multimodal Interaction Research Group. He has published over 250 refereed journal and conference papers. His 25-year research experience in human-technology interaction is focused on multimodal interaction, XR, haptics, gaze, gestures, interaction techniques, and software architectures. Prof. Raisamo has conducted active research collaboration with numerous companies since 2000, resulting in granted patents and joint publications.
Dr. Markku Turunen is Professor of Interactive Technology. He is leading a research group on Pervasive Interaction and a M.Sc. programme on Sustainable Digital Life. His background is on computer science and human-computer interaction. He has strong expertise on design, development, and evaluation of interactive systems for different user groups and settings. He has been involved in more than 60 externally funded research projects, including several projects on industrial systems and XR. This includes novel remote operation interfaces and XR solutions for industrial needs. Prof. Turunen has more than 200 publications on these subjects.
Dr. Ville Pulkki is Professor (Tenured Associate), Aalto University, Dept. of Signal Processing and Acoustics. He leads the communication acoustics research group, with 2 postdocs, 5 PhD students and 5 MSc students (April. 2017). The work of the group concentrates on methods to capture and reproduce sound in a way that humans will perceive the spatial characteristics in a desired manner, i.e., spatial audio. About 40 % of the research group is working on time-frequency-domain parametric spatial audio reproduction methods, 20 % on acoustical measurements of head-related acoustics and room acoustics, and about 40% of the group on psychophysical perception of spatial sound and corresponding functional signal-driven models of human auditory pathway in the brains.
Dr. Sebastian J. Schlecht is Professor of Practice for Sound in Virtual Reality at the Aalto University, Finland. This position is shared between the Aalto Media Lab and the Aalto Acoustics Lab. His research interests include spatial audio processing with an emphasis on artificial reverberation, synthesis, reproduction, and 6-degrees-of-freedom virtual and mixed reality applications. In particular, his research efforts have been directed towards the intersection of mathematical filter design, efficient algorithms, perceptual aspects, and sound design.