Chris Harrison is a British-born, American
computer scientist
A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science.
Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...
and
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
, working in the fields of
human–computer interaction
Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design tec ...
,
machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence.
Machine ...
and sensor-driven interactive systems. He is a professor at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
and director of the Future Interfaces Group
within the
Human–Computer Interaction Institute
The Human–Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) is a department within the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is considered one of the leading centers of human–computer interaction ...
. He has previously conducted research at
AT&T Labs
AT&T Labs is the research & development division of AT&T, the telecommunications company. It employs some 1,800 people in various locations, including: Bedminster NJ; Middletown, NJ; Manhattan, NY; Warrenville, IL; Austin, TX; Dallas, TX; Atlan ...
,
Microsoft Research
Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
,
IBM Research
IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...
and
Disney Research
Disney Research is a network of research labs supporting The Walt Disney Company. Its purpose is to pursue scientific and technological innovation to advance the company's broad media and entertainment efforts.
It has facilities in Los Angeles, Z ...
. He is also the CTO and co-founder of Qeexo,
a
machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence.
Machine ...
and
interaction technology startup.
Harrison has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and his work appears in more than 40 books.
For his contributions in human–computer interaction, Harrison was named a
top 35 innovator under 35 by
MIT Technology Review
''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...
(2012),
a top 30 scientist under 30 by Forbes (2012),
one of six innovators to watch by
Smithsonian (2013),
and a top Young Scientist by the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
(2014).
Over the course of his career, Harrison has been awarded fellowships by the
Packard Foundation
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private foundation that provides grants to not-for-profit organizations. It was created in 1964 by David Packard (co-founder of HP) and his wife Lucile Salter Packard. Following David Packard's death ...
,
Sloan Foundation
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of General Motors.
The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support or ...
,
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
,
Qualcomm
Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...
and
Microsoft Research
Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
. He currently holds the
A. Nico Habermann
Arie Nicolaas Habermann (26 June 1932 – 8 August 1993), often known as Nico Habermann, was a noted Dutch computer scientist.
Habermann was born in Groningen, Netherlands, and earned his B.S. in mathematics and physics and M.S. in mathematics f ...
Chair in Computer Science. More recently, NYU, Harrison's undergraduate alma mater named him as their 2014 Distinguished Young Alumnus, and the lab also won a
Fast Company
''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year.
History
''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...
Innovation by Design Award for their work on EM-Sense.
Biography
Harrison was born in 1984 in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, but emigrated with his family to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
at a young age. Harrison actively participated in the
ACM
ACM or A.C.M. may refer to:
Aviation
* AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile
* Air chief marshal
* Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting
* Air cycle machine
* Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia
Computing
* ...
programming competitions and engaged in a variety crafts. He also displayed an interest in
Slinging and was contacted for this hobby by
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
for an ancient weapons documentary. Consequently, Harrison created and launche
slinging.orgon March 20, 2003 as an online forum for sling enthusiasts, as is currently the largest website on the subject, with over 200,000 forum posts. Harrison obtained his citizenship in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
on May 13, 2002.
Harrison obtained both a
B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
(2002-2005) and
M.S.
A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...
(2006) in Computer Science from the
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...
at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
. His Master's thesis was advised by Dr.
Dennis Shasha
Dennis Elliot Shasha is an American professor of computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, a division of New York University. He is also an associate director of NYU WIRELESS. His current areas of research include work ...
, with whom he worked on a
relational file system
In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
built around the concept of temporal context. New York University honored Harrison as its 2014 Distinguished Young Alumnus.
During his master's studies, Harrison worked at
IBM Research - Almaden
IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...
on an early personal assistant application called Enki under
Mark Dean, then the director of the lab. After completing his master's degree, Harrison worked at
AT&T Labs
AT&T Labs is the research & development division of AT&T, the telecommunications company. It employs some 1,800 people in various locations, including: Bedminster NJ; Middletown, NJ; Manhattan, NY; Warrenville, IL; Austin, TX; Dallas, TX; Atlan ...
, developing among the first asynchronous social video platforms, dubbed CollaboraTV, with features now common in modern systems. Encouraged by colleagues, Harrison joined the
Ph.D. program in Human–Computer Interaction at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
in 2007, completing his dissertation on "The Human Body as an Interactive Computing Platform" in 2013 under the supervision of Dr.
Scott Hudson.
From 2009 to 2012, Harrison was the Editor-in-Chief of
ACM
ACM or A.C.M. may refer to:
Aviation
* AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile
* Air chief marshal
* Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting
* Air cycle machine
* Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia
Computing
* ...
's Crossroads magazine, which he relaunched as
XRDS
Background
The XML format used by XRDS was originally developed in 2004 by the OASIS XRI (extensible resource identifierTechnical Committeeas the resolution format for XRIs. The acronym XRDS was coined during subsequent discussions between XRI ...
, the flagship magazine for the over 30,000 student members of the ACM. Harrison has
spun-out several technologies from CMU and cofounded the machine learning startup Qeexo in 2012, which provides specialized machine-learning engines for mobile and embedded platforms, with a focus on interactive technologies. In 2019, the company won a CES Innovation Award for their EarSense solution, which was used in the bezel-less
Oppo Find X
The Oppo Find X is the 2018 flagship smartphone from the Oppo Find series and was launched on 19 June 2018 in Paris by Oppo. The Find X features a different design from traditional smartphones, as it has a mechanic pop-up camera. The phone has ...
, replacing the need for a physical proximity sensor with a virtual machine-learning-powered solution. In total, the company software is used on more than 100 million devices as of 2017.
In 2013, Harrison became faculty at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
, founding the Future Interfaces Group within the
Human–Computer Interaction Institute
The Human–Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) is a department within the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is considered one of the leading centers of human–computer interaction ...
.
Research
Harrison broadly investigates novel sensing and interface technologies, especially those "that empower people to interact with small devices in big ways". He is best known for his research into
ubiquitous
Omnipresence or ubiquity is the property of being present anywhere and everywhere. The term omnipresence is most often used in a religious context as an attribute of a deity or supreme being, while the term ubiquity is generally used to describe ...
and
wearable computing
A wearable computer, also known as a body-borne computer, is a computing device worn on the body. The definition of 'wearable computer' may be narrow or broad, extending to smartphones or even ordinary wristwatches.
Wearables may be for general ...
, where computation escapes the confines of today's small, rectangular screens, and spills interactivity out onto everyday surfaces, such as walls, countertops and furniture.
This research thread dates back to 2008, starting with
Scratch Input
In computing, scratch input is an acoustic-based method of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that takes advantage of the characteristic sound produced when a finger nail or other object is dragged over a surface, such as a table or wall. The tech ...
appropriating walls and tables as ad hoc input surfaces. Insights from this work, especially the vibroacoustic propagation of touch inputs, led to
Skinput
Skinput is an input technology that uses bio-acoustic sensing to localize finger taps on the skin. When augmented with a pico-projector, the device can provide a direct manipulation, graphical user interface on the body. The technology was develo ...
being developed while Harrison was interning at
Microsoft Research
Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
.
Skinput
Skinput is an input technology that uses bio-acoustic sensing to localize finger taps on the skin. When augmented with a pico-projector, the device can provide a direct manipulation, graphical user interface on the body. The technology was develo ...
was the first on-body system to demonstrate touch input and coordinated projected graphics without the need to instrument the hands. This research was followed shortly after by
OmniTouch, also at Microsoft Research.
More recently, Harrison has been conducting research at the Future Interfaces Group in the Human Computer Interaction department of
CMU. In 2016, Harrison presented 3 topics at the
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) through Future Interfaces Group. These topics were: using a high speed mode of a smartwatch's accelerometer to acquire and interpret acoustic samples at 4000 samples per second, using electrical impedance sensing to create a real-time hand gesture sensor, and using infrared sensors on a smartwatch to recognize and utilize hand gestures made on the skin directly around the smartwatch. In 2017, Robert Xiao, an
HCII PhD student, along with Harrison and
Scott Hudson, his advisors, created Desktopography, an interactive multi-touch interface that is projected onto a desktop surface. Inspired by the
Xerox PARC
PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
DigitalDesk, one of the first digitally
augmented desks of its time, Desktopography explores the possibilities of virtual-physical interactions and deals with how to best create a user-friendly interface which has to navigate around various, constantly moved objects, as commonly found on one's desktop surface.
Other activities
Harrison co-developed and co-wrote
Crash Course Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
, a
PBS Digital Studios
PBS Digital Studios is a non-profit organization that through which PBS distributes original educational web video content based in Arlington, Virginia. It comprises both original series and partnerships with existing YouTube channels. Most of t ...
-funded educational series hosted on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
, with his partner, Amy Ogan. This project was initiated following a discussion between Harrison and
John Green
John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author, YouTube Content creation, content creator, podcaster, and philanthropist. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including ''The Fault in Our Stars'' ( ...
at the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
in 2016, where both were guest speakers.
Along with Robert Xiao and
Scott Hudson, colleagues at CMU, he developed
Lumitrack Lumitrack is a motion capture technology developed by Robert Xiao, Chris Harrison and Scott Hudson at Carnegie Mellon University. It combines projectors and sensors to provide high-fidelity motion-tracking. These types of sensors are used in vide ...
, a motion tracking technology which is currently used in video game controllers and in the film industry.
Harrison was also one of the Program Committee Chairs for the 2017
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST).
Chris is also an amateur
digital artist
Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media.
Since the 1960s, various names ...
and sculptor. His artworks have appeared in over 40 books and more than a dozen international galleries. Notable among these appearances were showings at the
Triennale di Milano
The Triennale di Milano is a design and art museum in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the Palazzo dell'Arte, which was designed by Giovanni Muzio and built between 1931 and 1933; construction was fina ...
in
Milan, Italy
Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4  ...
(2014), and the
Biennale Internationale Design in
Saint-Étienne, France (2010).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Chris
American computer scientists
Human–computer interaction researchers
Living people
Human-Computer Interaction Institute faculty
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
Carnegie Mellon University alumni
New York University alumni
1984 births
Disney Research people