Academic Technology Specialists in Academic Computing

Peter Chen ATS Program Manager
Peter began his career as one of the first ATS at Stanford in 1996. Working with the department of Biological sciences, he worked with faculty on early efforts to use the web for delivery of classroom study materials and distribution of classroom slides and overhead materials. He also joined in early developments of Coursework with the Human Biology program and expanded use of databases for collaborative teaching and molecular modeling software in laboratory class. Since then, he has worked on efforts to develop on-line advising tools for science requirements and continued to consult for the design and implementation of Coursework.

Vijoy Abraham ATS Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS)
Vijoy Abraham is the Academic Technology Specialist for the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRiSS) here at Stanford University. Vijoy has been with the ATS Program since spring of 1999 coming to IRiSS after five years of work fostering technology use in teaching and research with the Department of Psychology. Projects Vijoy has worked on include the specification of laboratory testing room computing, audio, and video hardware, creating a department-wide survey development service for survey data collection via the Web, helping to create a multi-media lab where audio, video, and images can be edited and mastered onto CD or DVD, and implementing a web-based scheduling system for the participant pool used in the Introduction to Psychology Course (Psych1).

Nicole Coleman ATS Stanford Humanities Center
Nicole Coleman is the Academic Technology Specialist for the Stanford Humanities Center. Her work at the research institute focuses on the use of technology and group interaction to support humanities scholars in collaborative interdisciplinary research at a distance. The core project is the Stanford Humanities Research Network, a virtual environment designed to extend the reach and scope of the Research Workshop Program. Nicole's background is in print and electronic publishing, user interface design and content management systems.

Claudia Engel ATS Anthropological Sciences and Cultural and Social Anthropology
Claudia Engel is Academic Technology Specialist (ATS) and Lecturer at the Departments of Anthropological Sciences and Cultural and Social Anthropology. She holds a PhD in Anthropology and has dedicated the last 15 years to exploring how to apply online technologies for teaching, research, and learning. Her particular interest lies in the design of environments and practices to support collaboration in globally distributed, cross-cultural teams.

Michael Gonzalez ATS Art and Drama
Michael's first ATS position was with the History department after a decade of work as an editorial manager in the then-emerging web industry. Prior to being a Stanford technologist, he taught courses in Southeast Asian cultures, Asian civilizations, and music. He has taught in Sydney, Australia, CSU-Hayward, Manila, Philippines, and in Stanford. Currently, Michael supports the Art/Art History and Drama Departments where he conducts twice-weekly Brown Bags that introduce new software and technology, as well as, digital workflow tips. With grants from the Center for Teaching and Learning, Michael is developing training programs for TA's that will prepare them for teaching with digital technology. To further both department's migration to digital workflows, Michael has put together a image lab for art historians and a digital archive of theater history images. He is also a contributor to SUL's "Parker Library on the Web" prototype and "Medieval Spains", a Stanford Humanities Lab project. For analog amusements, Michael plays classic guitar music, photographs places, and writes a history column for a San Francisco magazine.

Shelley Haven ATS Office of Accessible Education
Rachael M. Haven, known as Shelley to friends and colleagues, coordinates assistive technology (AT) resources and services for Stanford University's Office of Accessible Education. Ms. Haven has a degree in mechanical engineering and is a licensed professional engineer. Her 20 years experience in AT for physical, sensory, cognitive, and learning disabilities encompass a wide range of activities: performing assessments, custom designing and fabricating technology accommodations, conducting workshops, and writing and publishing training materials. Prior to her current position, she provided AT training and technical assistance to approximately 100 school districts as a private consultant and as part of a state-funded program.

Matthew Jockers ATS Department of English
Matthew Jockers focuses specifically on uses of technology for the study and teaching of literature. He has a background in humanites computing and a doctorate degree in English with an emphasis in Irish-American literature. Jockers is also the Director of an electronic resource titled The Irish-American West: A Hypertext Corpus of Texts and Research. This project, funded by a grant from the Stanford Humanities Lab, brings entire texts to the Internet in a searchable format. In addition to serving as a fully searchable text archive, the site offers author biographies, research bibliographies, and scholarly essays. Taking advantage of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) the archive allows visitors to move seamlessly from primary text to scholarly commentary and back.

Joseph Kautz ATS Languages
Joseph Kautz came to Stanford from the University of Washington where he received advanced degrees in Slavic Linguistics and Foreign Language Pedagogy. His interests include Computer Assisted Language Learning, Russian Sign Language, and Vietnamese phonology. Joseph is also an avid birder with a particular fondness for shore birds and owls.

Bob Muller ATS Political Science
Bob Muller got his PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. He then joined Oracle Corporation and began a 20-year career of software development and database engineering. Bob has worked at a variety of software companies: Oracle, KOCH Systems Corp., Interactive Development Environments, Objectivity, Symantec, Blyth Software, SmartPatents, ValueStar, Cytokinetics, and Data Advantage Group before joining Stanford in 2004. Database project areas include portfolio management, CASE modeling, project management, intellectual property tracking and analysis, cellular bioinformatics, and meta data management. Bob specializes in using object-oriented design in data modeling and in object-oriented software project management as well as in database management applied to social scientific data analysis. He has published several books with Morgan Kaufmann and Oracle Press. He is an IEEE Certified Software Development Professional and a member of IEEE since 1989.