Michael J Zyda
Director: GamePipe Laboratory
Office Location: Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH) 303
Email: zyda at usc dot edu
Michael Zyda is Director of the USC GamePipe Laboratory, and a Professor of Engineering Practice in the USC Department of Computer Science. At USC, he created the BS in Computer Science (Games) and MS in Computer Science (Game Development) cross-disciplinary degree programs. From Fall 2000 to Fall 2004, he was the Founding Director of the MOVES Institute located at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey and a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at NPS as well. From 1986 until the formation of the MOVES Institute, he was the Director of the NPSNET Research Group.
Scott Easley
Assistant Director, USC GamePipe Laboratory
Office Location: Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH) 321
Email: seasley at usc dot edu
Scott Easley has won two Emmys and a Telly for producing and animating a series of television commercials, but his mainstay of work is in video games. He was one of the eight original members of Oddworld Inhabitants, where as Senior Animator, he most notably contributed his talent to Abe's Oddysee (1997), Abe's Exoddus (1998) and Munch's Oddysee (1999). He then joined Electronic Arts where he contributed to both the Medal of Honor and Goldeneye series. He is now Principal Animator at Heavy Iron Studios, working closely with Pixar projects -- and teaches in the Gampipe program at the University of Southern California.
Victor Lacour
Lecturer/Computer Science
Office Location: Henry Salvatory Building (SAL) 232
Email: vlacour at usc dot edu
Website: www.victorlacour.com
Victor Lacour currently serves as Assistant Director (with a focus on Creative Design and Serious Games) for GamePipe Labs and is a full time lecturer at USC. Victor teaches courses in Serious Games, History of Games and thier Technologies, and the Final Advanced Project course for the program. With over 9 years of experience in the field of game development and interactive design, he currently owns and operates Chizuru Interactive, a multimedia company focusing on Serious Games development and consultation.
Jose Villeta
Faculty: GamePipe Labs
Office Location: Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH) 321
Email: villeta at usc dot edu
Jose Villeta graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering. He then received a Master of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from George Washington University, based at NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia. In August of 1994, he helped secure a game development contract with Virgin Interactive and co-founded Black Ops Entertainment. Today Jose Villeta works as a Technical Director at Heavy Iron Studios, a division of THQ, Inc. on the studio next-generation video games based on Disneys’ Pixar animated films intellectual properties.
Ulrich Neuman
Faculty: Computer Science Department
Office Location: IMSC, Suite 131
Email: uneumann at usc dot edu
Dr. Ulrich Neumann is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Southern California. He earned an MSEE from SUNY at Buffalo in 1980 and his computer science Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993 where his focus was on parallel algorithms for interactive volume-visualization. His research relates to video visualization, interactive media, tracking for augmented reality, and human facial modeling, rendering, and animation.
Anthony Borquez
Faculty: GamePipe Labs, ITP Department
Email: anthonyb at usc dot edu
Anthony Borquez is the Vice President for Online and Mobile Business Development at Konami Digital Entertainment. His responsibilities include identifying new business opportunities across multiple platforms, content strategy, technology innovation, and digital distribution. He is currently developing a strategy to leverage Konami’s back catalog of products for the online market. Prior to joining Konami, Anthony was Founder/CEO of Blue Label Games, a Los Angeles based online and mobile game developer acquired by Konami in 2006. Anthony has been teaching at the University of Southern California since 1994.
Sven Koenig
Faculty: Computer Science Department
Email: skoenig at usc dot edu
Sven Koenig is an associate professor in computer science at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. He also holds M.S. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University and is the recipient of an ACM Recognition of Service Award, an NSF CAREER award, an IBM Faculty Partnership Award, a Charles Lee Powell Foundation Award, a Raytheon Faculty Fellowship Award, a Fulbright Fellowship and the Tong Leong Lim Pre-Doctoral Prize from the University of California at Berkeley. Several of his students won awards for their research as well and took their first jobs in academia.
Gerard Medioni
Faculty and Ex-Department Chair: Computer Science Dept.
Email: medioni at usc dot edu
Gérard Medioni received the Diplôme d’Ingenieur from ENST, Paris in 1977 and an MS and PhD from the University of Southern California in 1980 and 1983, respectively. He has been at USC since then, and is currently professor of computer science and electrical engineering, chair of the Computer Science Department, codirector of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems, and codirector of the USC Games Institute.