Scott Fisher (technologist)

Scott S. Fisher

Scott Fisher holding plastic apple
Spouse(s) Mizuko Ito
Children 2

Scott Fisher is the Professor and Founding Chair of the Interactive Media Division in the USC School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, and Director of the Mobile and Environmental Media Lab there. He is an artist and technologist who has worked extensively on virtual reality, including pioneering work at NASA, Atari Research Labs, MIT's Architecture Machine Group (now the MIT Media Lab) and Keio University.

Early life

Scott S. Fisher was born in 1951 at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. He was educated at MIT, receiving a Master of Science degree in Media Technology in 1981. His thesis advisor there was Nicholas Negroponte. There he participated in the creation of the Aspen Movie Map.

Career

Much of Fisher's career has focused on expanding the technologies and creative potentials of virtual reality. Between 1985 and 1990, he was founding Director of the Virtual Environment Workstation Project (VIEW) at NASA's Ames Research Center. They attempted to develop a simulator to enable space station maintenance rehearsal. The gloves and goggles often associated with virtual reality were developed there, along with the dataglove, head-coupled displays and 3D audio.

In 1990, with Brenda Laurel, Fisher founded Telepresence Research, a company specializing in first-person media, virtual reality and remote presence research and development.

Fisher was Project Professor in the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University. There he led a project to allow users to author and view location-based data superimposed over the physical world, a progenitor of what is now termed augmented reality.

In 2001, Fisher moved to the University of Southern California to spearhead their new Interactive Media Division within the School of Cinematic Arts. There, he established the division's research initiatives in the mediums of immersive, mobile and video games. He chaired the division from its founding through 2011.

Personal life

Fisher lives in Southern California with his wife, Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist studying media technology, and their two children.

In addition to his other interests, he harbors a fascination with stereoscopy and 3D imaging, as well as Jamaican music.

Selected publications

Papers and conference proceedings

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