FACULTY

Ravin Balakrishnan (Ph.D)
Assistant Professor

Department of Computer Science
Dynamic Graphics Project Laboratory

Email: ravin@dgp.utoronto.ca
Web: http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~ravin/

Biography

Ravin Balakrishnan is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Canada Research Chair in Human-Centred Interfaces at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto where he co-directs the Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP) laboratory and serves as the department's Associate Chair for Research and Industrial Relations. His research interests are in Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Information and Communications Technology for Development, and Interactive Computer Graphics. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, working with Bill Buxton, while concurrently a part-time researcher at Alias|wavefront (now part of Autodesk). He is the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2007), an Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award (2003), the Bell University Laboratories Associate Chair in HCI at the University of Toronto (2002-2006), and best paper awards and honourable mentions at the CHI 2009, CHI 2008, CSCW 2006, UIST 2006, CHI 2005, Graphics Interface 2005 and UIST 2004 conferences. In addition to working with students and colleagues at Toronto, he collaborates with researchers at leading industrial laboratories and universities worldwide, including stints as a visiting researcher at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) (2005-2007), a visiting professor at the University of Paris & INRIA (2006), and a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research's Redmond, Beijing, Bangalore and Cambridge labs while on sabbatical from the University of Toronto during the 2007-2008 academic year. He is also involved in two startups that are commercializing research conducted in his lab: Sketch2 Corp. and Bump Technologies Inc. Further information, including publications and videos demonstrating some of his research, can be obtained from www.dgp.toronto.edu/~ravin

Keywords

Human-computer interaction, Interactive computer graphics.