Professor Robert J. Stone BSc (Hons), MSc, C.Psychol, AFBPsS, FErgS, Eur.Erg, FIoN, FVRS

Bob Stone holds a Chair in Interactive Multimedia Systems at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he is Director of the Human Interface Technologies Team within the Department of Electronic, Electrical & Computer Engineering (www.iecs.bham.ac.uk/hit/). He graduated from University College London in 1979 with a BSc in Psychology, and in 1981 with an MSc in Ergonomics (Human Factors), and currently holds the position of Royal Academy of Engineering Integrated Professor (Systems Engineering) at the University of Plymouth. Bob’s career has taken him from Ergonomics Group Leader at British Aerospace in Bristol, through Project Manager at the UK’s National Advanced Robotics Research Centre to become a Director for one of Europe’s original Virtual Reality companies. In 1996, he became an Academician of the Russian International Higher Education Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and an Honorary Cossack in 2003. Bob’s applied R&D efforts since 1998 have concentrated on human-centred training/task analyses and VR content definition for the Royal Navy and Air Force (close-range naval weapons, submarine training, the new NATO Submarine Rescue System and helicopter voice marshalling), the automotive industry, ear/nose/throat and military surgery, endoscopic robots and unmanned vehicles. He is also on the Advisory Group and Evaluation Metrics Team for the US serious gaming project Pulse!! – an Office of Naval Research-funded serious gaming initiative led by Texas A&M University Corpus Christi which aims to develop a sophisticated medical trainer for battlefield scenario and terrorist incident management. In 2003, Bob became the first ever non-US citizen to be invited to join one of the sub-committees (training) supporting the annual I/ITSEC conference and exhibition. Bob is one of the world’s longest-standing pioneers in the field of Virtual Environments, having in 1987 become one of the first Europeans to experience the NASA Ames VIEW VR System. His work in telerobotics, VR and human factors has received a variety of awards and he is regularly invited to keynote at major international events. Bob is a member of a number of NATO specialist groups concerned with human factors, unmanned systems, VR and serious applications of gaming technologies. He is also a member of the UK’s Simulation & Synthetic Environments National Advisory Committee (SSENAC), the recently-established UK Serious Games COTS Evaluation Unit, run by QinetiQ and the UK Serious Games Alliance.

Personal URL: http://hometown.aol.co.uk/profbobstone/myhomepage/aboutme.html