The Expanded Perception and Interaction Centre (EPICentre)
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Team

Director

Tomasz Bednarz

Tomasz Bednarz is an A/Professor and Director and Head of Visualisation at the Expanded Perception and Interaction Centre (EPICentre) UNSW Art & Design and Team Leader at CSIRO’s Data61 (Visual Analytics Team, Software & Computational Systems Program). He is also AI/CI at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS) and holds Adjunct positions at the QUT (School of Mathematical Sciences), University of Sydney (Design Lab) and University of South Australia (School of IT and Math Sciences). He has done his doctorate and masters in computational science area.
His appointment to UNSW Art & Design reflects his conviction to a holistic approach to the wicked problem facing the collation, analytics and display of big data. His approach is expansive and encompasses the use of novel technologies (AR,VR, CAVE, Dome, AVIE), often in combination. Over the last couple of years, he has been involved in wide range of projects in area of immersive visualisation, human-computer interaction, computational imaging and visualisation. He led cloud-based imaging project that received merit Queensland’s iAward in 2015 (http://cloudimaging.net.au). He has been leading project Platform for Big Data Analytics and Visual Analytics, connecting data analytics, statistical modelling, image analytics, machine learning, visualisation into one stack of reusable solutions.
His publications: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/A-7376-2011.
Personal website: http://tomaszbednarz.net.

DENNIS DEL FAVERO

Scientia Professor Dennis Del Favero is a Chair Professor of Innovation. He is currently Director of the iCinema Research Centre, Visiting Professorial Fellow at ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, and at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; Visiting Professor at City University of Hong Kong and at IUAV University of Venice; as well as Member of the Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research and editorial board of Studio Corpi (Rome). Previously he was Executive Director of the Australian Research Council | Humanities and Creative Arts.
Del Favero is internationally recognised as an artistic innovator in the fields of interdisciplinary digital media and visual arts research. His collaborative research program comprises work across the fields of art, humanities, engineering and science, resulting in innovations in the theorisation of interactive narrative, its application within immersive and intelligent systems and in the experimental design of visualisation systems.
His research has been widely exhibited in major group exhibitions including International Symposium of Electronic Art, Film Cologne, International Film Festival Amsterdam, Biennial of Seville, Battle of the Nations War Memorial Leipzig (joint project with Jenny Holzer) and Sydney Film Festival, and in solo exhibitions in museums and galleries such as Sprengel Museum Hannover, ViaFarini Milan, Neue Galerie Graz and ZKM Karlsruhe. His work is represented by Galerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne and Kronenberg Wright, Sydney.
Head of Infrastructure

LUC BETBEDER-MATIBET

Luc is Director of Research Technology Services for UNSW and Head of Infrastructure at the EPICentre.
He is involved in a number of national eResearch initiatives and is especially interested in helping researchers with big compute and large data needs.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Daniel Filonik

Daniel Filonik is a Postdoctoral Fellow in High Performance Visualisation at the EPICentre, UNSW Art and Design, Sydney, Australia. His research interests are in Information Visualisation, Computer Graphics and Human-Computer Interaction. In particular, his current work focuses on developing natural interfaces for interactive data exploration in immersive environments.
Previously, Daniel conducted his PhD research at the Urban Informatics Research Lab, QUT, Brisbane, Australia. He investigated challenges and opportunities of data visualisation and composition interfaces based on large-scale display walls. In particular, these technologies were applied to explore the notion of Participatory Data Analytics, a collaborative, community-led approach to the interpretation of data.
Before his PhD, Daniel completed a Master in Media Computer Science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany. He has also received an honours degree in Technology Management from the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM), Munich, Germany. Furthermore, he was a visiting scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA in 2009.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Lindsay Wells

Lindsay Wells is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the EPICentre, UNSW Art & Design, currently exploring novel solutions to complex AI and Visualization problems. Lindsay’s passion is a software designer and developer, with 15 years of experience in producing desktop, mobile, web, and game applications for a diverse range of clients for research and entertainment purposes. Awarded his PhD in 2018 from the University of Tasmania in the field of serious games and behaviour change, Lindsay lectures in games design, mobile development, and human computer interaction. As a co-founder of Giant Margarita, Lindsay has published several commercial video games on both console and mobile platforms, and strives to integrate this practical experience into his teaching. Lindsay has a strong track record in research collaboration, leading development on serious games and applications in a wide range of research domains, including energy conservation, dementia care, psychology, sedentary behaviour, and smoking cessation. Lindsay provides expertise on rapid prototyping and iteration, and consults on producing creative solutions to important problems. 
Lead IT System Engineer

Doug Kidd

Doug has over 30 years experience in IT software and hardware engineering in diverse industries such as process control, manufacturing, banking and web applications.
Doug was part of the team that built the EPICylinder with the responsibility of providing operating system builds and control software.
His hobbies include motorcycles, movies, making things and pulling things apart to see how they work.
Lead Software Developer

ROBERT LAWTHER

Rob Lawther is a computer engineer with a background in computer graphics and embedded systems. For the past 8 years he has worked in UNSW research centres on software development of interactive and immersive 3D environments, as well as installing and maintaining these environments in galleries and museums at various locations around the world.
Senior Software Developer

Dominic Branchaud

Dominic has been specialising in creating 3D graphics software solution over the past 16 years. After working in Medical 3D Imaging technologies for 9 years and designing new features for Light gauge Steel Framing 3D CAD software for another 7 years, his passion for 3D are being challenged by all new VR and AR emerging technologies.
Lead HEVs Developer

Conan Bourke

Conan comes from a game development and teaching background, having worked for Bluetongue Entertainment Pty Ltd THQ on numerous cross-platform commercial titles on Sony and Nintendo platforms. Most recently he was the Head of Curriculum in Programming for a school specialising in 3D film and game development after spending many years teaching C++, C#, Maths, Game A.I. and Computer Graphics to students of all levels.
Software Developer

Nick Oliver

Nick Oliver is a Software Developer at EPICentre, University of New South Wales. Curious about both the technical and creative sides of software, Nick first completed a degree in Computer Science at Murdoch University then a Master of Design from the University of New South Wales. Working in visualisation, Nick has been able to apply his programming and design skills to a variety of projects, from marine archaeology to visual arts.
PhD Student

Liz Gilleran

Liz began at NICTA in 2015 (later CSIRO Data61) as a UX designer with no real clue about what machine learning was and has been rapidly learning about ML and other data heavy technology ever since. Passionate about good design, she is also currently studying user evaluation methods of data visualisation as part of a PhD at UNSW EPICentre.
PhD Student

Oliver Lock

Oliver is a research student under the Scientia PhD Scholar scheme. Oliver’s research will focus on how citizens interact with ‘big’ data and how processes, platforms (web mapping, interactive models, virtual reality devices) and data used in ‘urban dashboards’ can be optimized for more engaged, informed and participatory decision-making in cities.
Previously Oliver has been a research student in ‘big’ data transport visualisation dashboards at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). He has also experience as a teaching and research assistant at UCL and University of Melbourne, and has worked in private sector at as an urban planner and spatial data visualisation consultant – most recently for the global design & engineering firm Arup. Oliver will be working closely with the team at EPICentre and UNSW City Futures to undertake his research.
MPhil Student

Ryan Anthony De Belen

Ryan has been granted a University International Postgraduate Award to undertake his postgraduate studies in UNSW Art & Design. His research will focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a collaborative visualisation platform where scientists can explore personalised health data sets to gain better insights without being overwhelmed by the complexity of the data. In particular, he will be using a combination of virtual and augmented reality for his research. Previously, Ryan has been a research associate in the field of computer graphics. He worked on automatic rigging of 3D humanoid characters and interactive mesh cutting. Additionally, his research interests include Digital Signal Processing and Machine Learning.
PhD Student

Nan Zheng

Nan is a Scientia PhD Scholar based at EPICentre, UNSW Art & Design. With a background of B.E. Computer Science and Technology (Shanghai University) and Master of Interaction Design (UQ), Nan’s research interests focus on Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design. He explores how to use Design Thinking methods to enable human to utilise advanced technologies to solve real-world problems.
Professional Experience Project Student

Daphne Pan

Yichong Pan is an emerging photographer in progress of completing a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in UNSW Art & Design in Sydney. Major in photography and digital media, Yichong is familiar with both Studio Photography, Outdoor Photography and Videography through the studies. Also, during her practice in the facility, she is experienced with analogue photography, black and white film printing, studio lighting technique, digital photography and digital imaging.
Professional Experience Project Student

Forough Najabehbahani

Forough is an Honours year student at UNSW Art and Design, who is focused on lighting and object design, with an extensive interest in designing installations for public places. My interests in designing complicated, smart and interactive structures, installations and surfaces have recently led me to collaborate with mechanic and mechatronic engineers. I have started my Honours projects as a site specific interactive design installation and I have previously collaborated with the UNSW CREATE team for VIVID, Sydney Dance Company and Amigo and Amigo studio. Combining high-tech manufacturing processes, 3D and surface design with data-driven interactive installations is a part of my initial research and concept development to produce my Honours projects.
Professional Experience Project Student

Darwin Esmero

Darwin is a 3D artist who studied a Bachelor of Media Arts (Honours) at UNSW A&D. He has a passion for computer graphics with particular interest in virtual characters and their use in engaging and manipulating viewers in different ways. He has worked on numerous game and animation projects that exercised his proficiencies spanning the entire 3D asset pipeline. While 3D is his specialty, he is also a generalist with abilities in video editing/compositing, animation, photo manipulation, and more.
He has joined the EPICentre SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 team as a motion graphics artist, creating fluid and exciting graphics for its online video content.
Professional Experience Project Student

Yussie Feng

Yussie is an illustrator and animator who studied a Bachelor of Media Arts (Honours) at UNSW Art & Design. She is interested in capturing the feelings embedded in places and characters through storytelling in both moving and static images. She has experience with 3D and 2D animation with an attention to background illustration with water, skies and plants.

Alumni

Tomasz Bednarz – Director

Tomasz is a Director and Head of Visualisation at the Expanded Perception & Interaction Centre (EPICentre), A/Professor at the UNSW Art & Design and UNSW Computer Science and Engineering. He is also Research Team Leader at CSIRO’s Data61 (leading Visual/Hybrid Analytics Team, in Software & Computational Systems research program). He also leads Simulation and Modelling Cross-Cutting Capability for CSIRO’s Future Science and Technology.

He holds Adjunct Associate Professor position at the University of South Australia (School of IT and Math Sciences). He is Board member of the ACU’s IT Industry Advisory Board (Chair), and Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments (IVE) University of South Australia.

Bednarz completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Physics and Applied Computer Science at the AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland. He completed his doctoral degree in Interdisciplinary Engineering Sciences at the Kyushu University, Japan; and received MBA (Technology) from the AGSM (UNSW), Australia.

His current roles reflect his conviction to a holistic approach to the wicked problems facing the collation, analytics and display of big data. His approach is expansive and encompasses the use of novel technologies (AR, VR, CAVE, Dome, AVIE), often in combination. Over the last couple of years, he has been involved in wide range of projects in area of immersive visualisation, human-computer interaction, computational imaging, image analysis and processing, visualisation, simulation, modelling, computer graphics, computer games, computational fluid dynamics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and multi-sensors assimilation.

He was Conference Chair of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 (SIGGRAPH conferences are the world’s largest, most influential annual meetings and exhibitions in computer graphics and interactive techniques). Over last ten years, selected volunteering roles include: Computer Animation Festival Jury (SA2004), Courses Chair (SA2017), Member of ACM SIGGRAPH International Resources Committee (2013-2017), Virtual Augmented and Mixed Reality Jury (S2018), Reviewer, Panellist, Unified Jury Committee (2017), BoF Sessions Organiser, Submitter and Presenter.

Luc Betbeder-Matibet – Director of Infrastructure

Luc is Director of Research Technology Services for UNSW and Head of Infrastructure at the EPICentre.He is involved in a number of national eResearch initiatives and is especially interested in helping researchers with big compute and large data needs.

Conan Bourke – Lead Software Engineer

Conan comes from a game development and teaching background, having worked for Bluetongue Entertainment Pty Ltd THQ on numerous cross-platform commercial titles on Sony and Nintendo platforms. Most recently he was the Head of Curriculum in Programming for a school specialising in 3D film and game development after spending many years teaching C++, C#, Maths, Game A.I. and Computer Graphics to students of all levels.