Margaret Minsky
23 Forestedge Rd.
Amherst, MA 01002
617-233-5292
e-mail: marg@media.mit.edu
Education
B.S. Mathematics, MIT, June 1978
Ph.D., MIT Media Arts and Sciences, June 1995
Advisor: Prof. Nicholas Negroponte
Experience
1995-present Consultant
Consult through lecturing, grant participation, and scientific paper/book reviews in the area of my doctoral research on haptic (touch) interaction with computers. Highlights: Hazbot (Robotics and Haptics) Grant Consultant, Dartmouth College; Invited Lectures at Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering, MIT Program on Media Studies; VRAIS Symposium Keynote, Tokyo.
2006-2008 StyleCart Inc COO, Amherst, MA and Santa Barbara, CA
Directed operations of a three-employee technology startup company that makes an innovative web-based visual shopping cart for retail merchants. At this size of company, almost all roles are collaborative. I led half of our Sales, Marketing, and Investor Relations contacts, organized software rollouts, designed web site elements, and invented user interaction techniques. I tracked the company’s development, sales, and marketing schedules.
1997-2003 Margaret Minsky dba MINSKY’s Founder
Founded a women’s specialty apparel design/manufacture company based on my invention of a new fabric processing technique: pleated Polarfleece(TM). Designed garments and sold 30,000 to J.Jill catalog. Was first-time supplier to J.Jill. Built web-based catalog. Managed co-designer and assistant. Managed suppliers and production chain across three states to schedule and budget.
1993-1995 Interval Research Corporation Technical Staff, Palo Alto, CA
Started Interval’s haptics research group. Coordinated existing interdisciplinary Interval staff, a consultant physicist, and a newly hired staff member to build a suite of haptics applications. Supervised graduate student intern in study of motor control in drawing. Contributed to Wearable Computing project and was an inventor on a patent in that domain.
1990-1995 MIT Media Lab Graduate Research Assistant
Seminal work in the field of force-feedback, which is now used in consumer entertainment devices, medical simulations, and theme parks. Created Lateral-Force Algorithm for Texture Simulation, Contributed to design of two generations of Force-Feedback joystick hardware.
1989-90 UNC-CH Department of Computer Science Visiting Scholar
In laboratory of Prof. Fred Brooks, developed texture simulation software for force-feedback haptic interfaces, supervised undergraduate. Awarded University Research Grant from Apple Computer.
1985-1988 MIT Media Lab Research Assistant
Graduate coursework, Vivarium project (project to create computational learning environments and simulations of animal behavior). Supervised undergraduate research student building radio control blimp peripheral connected to a visual programming system.
1982-1984 Atari Cambridge Research Lab Research Director
Directed project to create a visual programming language based on a version of Logo, including expressive media such as painting. Supervised senior staff, responsible for hiring PhD level staff. Contributed to animation, force-feedback, educational technology, and other projects. Consulted on research mission and physical architecture of lab.
1982 Centre Mondial Informatique Technical Staff, Paris, France
Summer staff, assisted in setup of mainframe and array of Lisp machines, ran workshops in Logo programming language, participated in design of inexpensive robust portable computer.
1980-1981 Logo Computer Systems, Staff, Boston office
Member of programming language design team for LCSI version of Logo programming language making decisions about syntax of language and functionality, on team writing Reference and Tutorial manuals, supervised two undergraduate interns, member of Board of Directors of this Canadian corporation.
Publications
Jacob C. Jurmain, Andrew J. Blancero, James A. Geiling, Andrew Bennett, Chris Jones, Jeff Berkle, Marc Vollenweider, Margaret Minsky, Jon C. Bowersox, Joseph M. Rosen, “HazBot: Development of a telemanipulator robot with haptics for emergency response” American Journal of Disaster Medicine, Mar/Apr. 2008; pp. 87-97
Minsky, Margaret, “Will Haptics Research Parallel Computer Graphics Research?” Proceedings ICAT ‘97 Conference, Tokyo, Nov. 1997
Minsky, Margaret, Lederman, Susan J. “Computational haptics of textured surfaces” Proceedings ASME, Nov. 1996
Minsky, Margaret, “Home Haptics” Proceedings of the Phantom User’s Group Meeting, MIT AI Lab Technical Report #1596, Oct. 1996
Minsky, Margaret, Computational Haptics: The Sandpaper System for Simulating Texture. MIT Doctoral Thesis, MIT Media Arts and Sciences, Jun. 1995
Minsky, Margaret; Ming, Ouh-young; Steele, Oliver; Brooks, Frederick P. Jr.; Behensky, Max, “Feeling and Seeing: Issues in Force Display”, Proceedings of 1990 Workshop on 3D Interactive Computer Graphics, March 1990, ACM Siggraph, also appears in MultiMedia Interactive Computing, Addison-Wesley, May 1992
Minsky, Margaret “Manipulating Simulated Objects with Real-World Gestures Using a Force and Position Sensitive Screen”, Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Aug. 1984
Books
LogoWorks, eds: Cynthia Solomon, Margaret Minsky, and Brian Harvey, McGraw-Hill, 1984
Patents
Wang, Wejia; Shurman, Daniel; Minsky, Margaret D.R. US Patents #5,563,951 and 5,757,929 “Audio Interface Garment and Communication System for Use therewith”
Professional Service
Past Program Committees/Reviewer: ACM/SIGGRAPH Symposium on Real-Time 3D Graphics, IEEE VRAIS, VRST, IEEE Haptics Symposium, ASME Haptics Workshop, IDC Conference
Reviewer: IEEE Haptics Symposium, ACM Siggraph, ACM Transactions on Computer Graphics and Visualization
Board of Directors, New England Center for Circus Arts
Selected Consulting and Invited Presentations
Vivarium Project, Apple Computer, CA
CYC Project, MCC, Austin, TX
ESL Corp, Sunnyvale, CA
“Future Scenarios”, 11th Science and Technology Forum, Japan Science Foundation, Kawasaki, Japan
Apple Computer University Research Symposium
New York University, New York, NY
Queens’ University, Kingston, Ontario
Nippon Electronics College, Tokyo, Japan
Dartmouth College, Thayer Engineering School