PROFILE

• More than 8 years experience managing the design and development of large scale software systems, which are transitioned into currently operational Army units.
• Internationally respected software architect with strong scientific emphasis.
• Highly motivated and able to work independently to meet deadlines, while simultaneously supporting and guiding team-members.
• Confident and proven team leader, able to motivate and communicate under time-critical development conditions.
• Highly articulate in three languages and able to work in international teams.

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CAREER HISTORY

Senior Research Programmer at the Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern California, (2002-present)

 

• Lead engineer on a number of Army funded projects that aide and prepare troops going abroad for culturally sensitive duties.
• Lead authoring engineer in the ELECT ATO project. ELECT BiLAT is a computer-based game that teaches how to conduct a bi-lateral engagement in a culturally sensitive context.
• Designed an open architecture for scientific exploration of virtual environments and simulation technologies.
• Researched and developed spatial cognition models for virtual characters.

 

Senior Research Programmer at Carnegie Mellon University (1998 - 2002)

 

• Designed and developed the main visualization architecture for the multi-university DARPA CoAX and CoABS project.
• Project lead for the MOCHA initiative. MOCHA is a multi-agent system for "Anyware" communications and display, a mobile communications network that runs on any platform and reaches users anywhere.
• Designer of the AFC (Agent Foundation Classes). The Agent Foundations Classes are designed to make the construction of many types of agents and multi-agent systems a fully automated process.

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LEADERSHIP

QUALIFICATIONS

10+ years experience in managing software development for multi-million dollar research efforts. 10+ years experience leading software teams under time critical conditions with uncertain and ever changing software design goals.

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PUBLICATIONS

van Velsen, M., Williams J., Verhulsdonck G., Narrative Concepts for AI Driven Digital Interactive Story Telling, in proceedings of the 2009 ICIDS conference

 

van Velsen, M., Williams J., Verhulsdonck G., Concepts for Interactive Digital Storytelling: From Table-top to Game-AI, poster in proceedings of the 2009 AIIDE conference

 

Jhala, A., Velsen, M., Challenges in Development and Design of Interactive Narrative Authoring Systems, a Panel, in proceedings of the 2009 AAAI Spring Symposium

 

Van Velsen, M., Towards real-time authoring of believable agents in interactive narrative, in proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA-08), 2008

 

Van Velsen, M., Narratoria, an Authoring Suite for Digital Interactive Narrative, accepted as a poster in proceedings of the 21^st International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference, 2008

 

Kim, Y., van Velsen, M., Hill, R.W. Jr., Modeling Dynamic Perceptual Attention in a Complex Virtual Environment, 5th International Working Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, 2005

 

Mark A. Spicer, Ph.D., M.D Martin van Velsen, John P. Caffrey, Ph.D., and Michael L.J. Apuzzo, M.D. Virtual Reality Neurosurgery - A Roadmap, International Journal: 'Neurosurgery', April 2004
Read More »

 

Gordon, A., van Lent, M., van Velsen, M., Carpenter, M., and Jhala, A., Branching Storylines in Virtual Reality Environments for Leadership Development. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Innovative Applications of  Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI), 2004

 

Hill, R.W. Jr., Douglas, J., Gordon, A., Pighin, F.P., van Velsen, M. Guided Conversations about Leadership: Mentoring with Movies and Interactive Characters. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI), 2003

 

Sycara, K., Paolucci, M., van Velsen, M. and Giampapa, J., The RETSINA MAS Infrastructure. To appear in the special joint issue of the international journal: Autonomous Agents and MAS, Volume 7, Nos. 1 and 2, July, 2003.

 

Massimo Paolucci, Zhendong Niu, Katia Sycara, Constantine Domashnev, Sean Owens and Martin van Velsen "Matchmaking to Support Intelligent Agents for Portfolio Management". In Proceedings of Autonomous Agents 2000.

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EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION, 1997, HR&O Rotterdam & Omstreken, The Netherlands, B.Sc., Computer Science (Cum Laude)

UNIVERSITY OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION, 1992, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Studies in Electronic Engineering

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PATENTS

Critical Leadership Analysis System (CLAS). The CLAS system uses storytelling and interactive dialogue with virtual characters to support leadership development for US Army soldiers.

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ARCHITECTURES

Software Architect and lead developer for large scale software projects, including but not limited to the following:

 

• Narratoria[1], Interactive Narrative Authoring Suite. DARPA funded effort to streamline and optimize the production pipeline of Army training simulations.
• LEADERS, an interactive application for military leadership training, focusing on critical decision making under ambiguous circumstances.
• MOCHA, autonomous multi-agent system for workload reduction using personal-agents leveraging novel display and mobility technologies.
• RETSINA Agent Foundation Classes (AFC), an elaborate management and software development platform for the rapid generation of intelligent autonomous multi-agent systems.

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COMMUNICATION

SKILLS

Spoken languages: Fluent in: Dutch, English and German, knowledge of French and Italian. Written languages, including scientific: Dutch, English and German.