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Stefan Agamanolis
My name is Stefan Agamanolis. I work mainly in the area of digital media and communication technologies. I am not sure how to describe myself, but I am probably a combination of researcher, designer, scientist, artist, engineer, hacker, inventor, dreamer, or none of the above. Please feel free to make up your own mind about me... I am currently Associate Director of the Rebecca D. Considine Research Institute at Akron Children's Hospital. I am involved in planning and leading technology- and design-based research projects that have the potential to transform patient experience and redefine the operation of hospitals and health care systems. I am particularly interested in "experience design" for pediatric health care scenarios, telemedicine and expanding access to health care services in rural areas and other environments, information design and visualization on both fixed and mobile devices to support patient care, and data capture techniques to support clinical research. Akron Children's is the largest free-standing pediatric health care system in northeast Ohio, providing services at over 80 locations to more than half a million patients each year, including children, teens and adults from all over the USA and the world. Earlier I was Chief Executive and Research Director of Distance Lab, a creative research initiative for digital media technology and design innovation that I developed with Highlands & Islands Enterprise. Based in the beautiful highlands of Scotland, Distance Lab focused on addressing problems and opportunities found in rural and remote areas of the world, with a goal of overcoming the disadvantages of distance in learning, health care, relationships, culture and other domains. In addition to conducting academic research, the Lab worked with briefs from industry and governmental partners, providing advice, generating ideas and building prototypes that inspired and led to new innovative products and services. The Lab spun off a company, Lost Values, that markets unique fashion/technology products. I have over 10 years of experience inside the MIT Media Lab, first as a student and later as one of the founding research directors at Media Lab Europe, its former sister lab in Dublin, Ireland. There I led the Human Connectedness group, an interdisciplinary team of Masters-level researchers that explored the future of human relationships as mediated by technology. This group was the birthplace of several award-winning inventions, such as: Breakout for Two, an interactive installation for playing sports over a distance; the Iso-phone, an experimental communication device combining a telephone and a flotation tank; and tunA, a mobile music player that allows you to tune into what other people are listening to nearby. I have led or participated in projects that touch on a variety of themes: media spaces, remote collaboration and awareness, wearable computing, eHealth and telehealth, interactive television, automated video editing, immersive media recording, keepsakes of the future, social networking, sports over a distance, smart textiles, interactive storytelling, distance learning, tourism, and cultural exchange. I created a programming language called Isis that has been used to rapidly prototype high-performance multimedia applications, including several from my own portfolio. My work and that of my researchers has been exhibited in diverse venues including Ars Electronica (Austria), the Osaka National Museum of Art (Japan), the Victoria and Albert Museum (UK), the E-culture fair (Netherlands), and the Wired NextFest (USA). In addition to various academic and private seminars, I have delivered presentations in several international forums including Prix Italia, eComm, PICNIC, Mastermundo, NEXT, TEDx London, Futuresonic, EuroITV. I have participated on program and review committees for a number of scientific conferences including Ubicomp and ACM CHI. I hold MS and PhD degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I also hold a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honors in computer science from Oberlin College, with minors in film studies and philosophy. I was born and raised in the state of Ohio in the United States.
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