Shaping the Future

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Paul Dietz, Ph.D.

Dr. Paul Dietz is a prolific inventor who strives to make the world a slightly better place via technologies that surprise, empower and delight. His seminal work with long-time colleague Dr. Darren Leigh on multitouch, the interface for billions of smartphones and tablets, earned Paul and Darren the ACM UIST 2012 Lasting Impact Award. Prior to Tactual, Paul worked in research groups at Microsoft, Walt Disney Imagineering, and Mitsubishi Electric. More recently, he served in various executive roles at Misapplied Sciences (“Misapplied”) – a company he co-founded to commercialize his invention of public displays that can simultaneously show different content to each viewer without the need for special glasses. During his time at Misapplied, the company raised over US$10M in funding, and he was the Principle Investigator on a number of successful National Science Foundation grants totaling over $1M. Paul is an active volunteer and is best known for his work bringing animatronics programs to schools. Paul is currently serving as the SIGGRAPH 2021 Emerging Technologies Chair.

Darren Leigh, Ph.D.

Dr. Darren Leigh is an expert in applied physics, human-computer interaction, radiofrequency systems, and electronic design. His dissertation on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) was the world’s first on that topic. He is a broadly-based technologist and veteran innovator with over thirty years of experience in human-computer interaction. Dr. Leigh was a Senior Research Scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories where he spent a decade and co-invented DiamondTouch with Dr. Paul Dietz, the multi-user touch surface which pioneered and popularized multitouch. He has previously worked for IBM, Wang Laboratories, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories and the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics. Darren is one of the founders of Tactual Labs, and has been granted over 35 US patents, with more pending.

James Holbery, Ph.D.

Dr. James Holbery is a pioneer in advanced materials, textiles, and mechanics. Previously, his research focused on polymer science, advanced fiber composites and energy-related materials. Prior to joining Tactual, he served as the Microsoft Group Leader of the Advanced Materials & Mechanics Team, developing human-computer interface technologies and shipped hardware. He has founded two companies, the first a sporting goods company acquired by K2 Sports, most recently GridMobility, an IoT energy sustainability company, winner of the 2011 Global CleanTech Open and other national awards. Earlier in his career, he spent four years as a Mechanical Engineer within Spacecraft Engineering at Ford Aerospace Space Systems; three years as Senior Scientist at the Swiss Center for Electronics & Microdevices in Neuchatel, Switzerland; and five years as Staff Scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – U.S. Department of Energy. Jim has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and M.S./Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of Washington.

Steven Sanders

Steven Sanders founded sensing innovator Tactual Labs Co. (“Tactual”) in 2012, the platform that powers BendShape™. Mr. Sanders serves as Tactual’s CEO & Chairman. Steven grew Tactual from joint human-computer interaction (HCI) research conducted alongside University of Toronto scientists into a leading human-sensing provider with $5MM+ in revenue and a patent portfolio spanning over 190 international counterpart cases. He is an inventor on 32 US patents spanning capacitive, optical, and RF sensing hardware and software. He is a frequent publisher of academic research in human interaction technologies and a founder of the TUX HCI speaker series. From 2009-16, he helped to found and served as a Senior Research Analyst & Principal at Sanders Capital, a value-oriented institutional asset manager with over $25B in assets under management as a senior semiconductor and software analyst. From 2006-09, Mr. Sanders worked as a principal banker and strategist for Merrill Lynch Global Wealth management and Bank of America.

Mark Bisbee

Mark Bisbee is Tactual’s VP Product Marketing. From 2015-2017, Mark served as Qualcomm's Senior Product Manager of Touch Interface Technologies after the Maxim acquisition. From 2005-2015, Mark was the Senior Business Manager of Human Interface Products and a Senior Account Executive at Maxim Integrated. From 2002-2005, Mark was a Texas Instruments Tech Sales Rep.