Dr. Jayfus Doswell is an accomplished entrepreneur and engineer. As the founder of Juxtopia, LLC, he and his company have manufactured robotics and context-aware augmented reality products. He is also the Chair of The Juxtopia Group, a nonprofit which host several interesting endeavors. One of which is occurring next week on December 8th, The Juxtopia Urban Learning Technology Conference. For more information and to register for this conference, please visit http://www.juxtopia.org/jult2010.

Early Life

Dr. Jayfus T. Doswell was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland and attended Baltimore City public schools. Dr. Doswell was trained early in music (i.e., classical piano and violin) and studied martial arts (i.e., Tae-Kwon-Do, Kung-Fu, and Akido). Dr. Doswell competed in both and achieved concert master in a local Baltimore youth orchestra, and often won first place in martial art tournaments.

Education

After graduating from Baltimore City College High School, Dr. Doswell was accepted to Oberlin College on an academic scholarship to study Neuroscience and Pre-Med. After taking a few courses towards pre-med, Dr. Doswell graduated with degrees in computer science and cognitive neuropsychology. Dr. Doswell then enrolled in Howard University’s System and Computer Science program where he received his best education in software engineering where his knowledge secured him positions as a young senior software engineer at Lockheed Martin, Bearing Point, and SAIC.

While working, Dr. Doswell entered a Ph.D. program at age 26. Dr. Doswell also decided while working and earning a Ph.D. to start Juxtopia (juxtapositions among utopias) to improve human learning, life, and leisure performance.

Entreprenuer

Dr. Doswell took the Ph.D. in Information Technology from George Mason University in 2005 and immediately afterwards in 2005 secured Juxtopia’s first Small Business and Innovative Research Grant (SBIR) from the National Science Foundation that launched the R&D funding for Juxtopia’s flagship product, the Context-Aware Augmented Reality goggles and software. Furthermore, at the point of Dr. Doswell’s graduation, he contributed his 399 page dissertation on the architecture of developing a software based virtual instructor to the research community on learning technology, and he subsequently created the IEEE Virtual Instructor Pilot Research Group (VIPRG) that immediately attracted multidisciplinary researchers around the world to collaborate on building an international working standard on the virtual instructor architecture. Dr. currently directs this group under The Juxtopia Group, described in this bio.

Career

Dr. Jayfus T. Doswell is currently founder, president, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Juxtopia®, LLC, a privately held biomedical and information technology company with a mission to improve human performance. At Juxtopia, LLC, Dr. Doswell initiated the alliance of colleges and universities that collaborate effectively on developing various subsystems for Juxtopia products for which colleges and universities may achieve technology transfer based license royalty. Additionally, Dr. Doswell initiated the commercial product based learning methodology for which college students starting at the community college level contribute to building innovative products for Juxtopia. Moreover, 100% of Juxtopia’s product development is supported by federal and state based grants including National Science Foundation SBIRs, U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command funding, Maryland TEDCO, and MIPS funding.

Dr. Doswell also chairs the Juxtopia Group, Inc., a not for profit, 501c3 organization with a mission to improve the performance of underserved and disadvantaged populations in both learning and health. One of The Juxtopia Group’s program is the Juxtopia® Urban Robotics Brilliant Application Network (JURBAN) that entered into the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition, and is the only team in Baltimore, Maryland, and one of the only space robotics teams on the east coast to compete in this challenge. Moreover, it is the only team in the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition significantly comprised of team members from underserved and disadvantaged groups and HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions. The Juxtopia Group also organizes conferences including the International Virtual Instructor, Juxtopia Urban Learning Technology, and Space Entrepreneurship Forum conferences. Furthermore, The Juxtopia Group publishes the International Journal for Urban Learning Technology (iJULT).

The Juxtopia Group is also the proud sponsor of the Annual Juxtopia Urban Learning Technology (JULT) Conference happening next week on December 8, 2010 as a part of Computer Science Education Week. For more information and to register, please visit http://www.juxtopia.org/jult2010.

Service

Dr. Doswell also serves as the chair of Biotechnology at Sojourner Douglass College in Baltimore, Maryland and currently building the program from the ground up. To create a biotechnology entrepreneurship pipeline, Dr. Doswell was contracted by Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) to create the Biotechnology Curriculum for BCPS to create a four year biotechnology curriculum with a capstone course to train inner city Baltimore students on creating biotechnology and biomedical innovations with commercial potential. Dr. Doswell also facilitated alliances with local Biotechnology Companies where graduating students at high school or college can secure internships or high paying employment opportunities.

Dr. Doswell also sits on several not for profit boards and is an active member of the American Public Health Association (APHA) Health Informatics and Information Technology (HIIT) Section, American Telemedicine Association (ATA), Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).

Research

Dr. Doswell actively conducts research on how to improve human performance and focuses on research including cognitive science for human performance systems; wearable devices and operating systems; virtual instructor development; consumer telehealth and remote monitoring; personalized medicine; biomedical device design; public health informatics; and nanoinformatics.

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“Chad’s promotion recognizes his outstanding research work, innovative teaching, and exemplary service,” said Department Chair Roberto Tamassia.

Education

Dr. Jenkins earned his B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics at Alma College (1996), M.S. in Computer Science at Georgia Tech (1998), and Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Southern California (2003). Prof. Jenkins was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow in 2009.

Awards

Dr. Jenkins was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow in 2009. He is a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for his work in physics-based human tracking and of a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his work on robot learning from multivalued human demonstrations. He also received Young Investigator awards from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for his research in learning dynamical primitives from human motion and from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for his work in manifold learning and multi-robot coordination.

Research

Dr. Jenkin’s research addresses problems in robot learning and human-robot interaction, primarily focused on robot learning from demonstration, as well as topics in computer vision, machine learning, and computer animation. Videos of Chad’s current research work can be found on the YouTube channel of the Brown Robotics Group. Visit http://brown-robotics.org to learn more about Dr. Jenkin’s Robotics Lab at Brown University.

Prof. Jenkins’ work strives to address three basic questions. First, how can we capture data from the world that is representative of human performance? Second, how can machine learning and data analysis be used to extract dynamical structure from performance data? Lastly, how can we utilize learned dynamics for building autonomous robot controllers and perception mechanisms?

His previous efforts were mostly geared towards humanoid robotics with respect to learning primitive behaviors for robot control through imitation. More generally, he addresses perception, control, and learning issues at the intersection of robotics, computer vision, computer animation, machine learning and interactive systems.

Author

In 2009, Chad co-authored Creating Games: Mechanics, Content, and Technology with Brown CS alum Morgan McGuire. He has also authored chapters for several other books, including Data-Driven 3D Facial Animation, Human-Robot Interaction and From Motor to Interaction Learning in Robots.

“I consider myself very fortunate to be a part of the Computer Science Department at Brown,” said Chad. “My promotion is both a reflection of the supportive culture and community spirit of the department as well as the hard work of the students and post-docs who have been in my group. I look forward to continued success at Brown, especially with our new robotics lab space in the CIT building.”

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Education

A magna cum laude graduate of Howard University, Dr. Jones received two master’s degrees in Engineering and Applied Science from Johns Hopkins University, one in Numerical Science and the other in Technical Management. She holds a doctoral degree in Computer Science from the George Washington University. Dr. Jones has published numerous articles and book chapters, including over 40 technical reports. In addition, she has delivered international scholarly presentations.

Career

Dr. Jones has led many interesting and exciting information technology initiatives at Benedict, including the college’s first campus-wide infrastructure to perform research and develop applications via a high speed wireless network. Her current portfolio at Benedict includes oversight of the Business Development Center, Sponsored Programs and Research, and Government and External Relations. Previously, she served as Dean for the School of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Prior to her leadership role at Benedict, Dr. Jones taught computer science courses and was a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technology university in the U.S., she worked with distinguished President Shirley Ann Jackson.

At Bowie State

Dr. Jones has an excellent reputation for being able to work with people and to move aggressively to achieve priorities and agendas.

Her appointment was the result of a highly competitive national search that garnered an outstanding pool of candidates. Dean Antionette Coleman, chairperson, and the Provost Search Committee led the process in selecting the university’s new academic officer.

Jones’ appointment follows a period of transition since the announcement last December that Bowie State’s Vice President and General Counsel, Karen Johnson Shaheed, would serve as Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. The campus community thanks Attorney Shaheed for her willingness to take on this tremendous responsibility and appreciate her strong leadership during this transition.

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Feature influenced by Dr. Quincy Brown. Information from Bowie State’s website.

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Most recently, he has built (designed, programmed, launched) a white label social networking platform called Connect Platform (www.connectplatform.com). The service targets Black entrepreneurs, organizations, and businesses to help them create their very own revenue-generating social networks.

In partnership with Diversity City Media, his company has already launched over 15 different sites. The big ones are BlackHistory.com – an online encyclopedia and social network for Black history and culture, BlackWomenConnect.com – the first ever social network for professional Black women, BlackInAmerica.com – the first ever social network for socially-conscious African Americans, and BlackCEOs.com – a social network for Black Business owners. All of the sites are growing exponentially with thousands of active members signing up daily.

Early Life

William R. Moss III was born in Columbus, Ohio. From an early age he loved computers, going online, and learning new things. At the age of 10, Moss wrote his very first computer program in Basic for the Commodore 64 computer. The program Moss wrote allowed him to use his computer and a modem to go “online” and connect to other computer “BBS” or Bulletin Board Systems over the family phone lines. Moss was fascinated with the computer to computer communications and how easy it was to write and download software for fun.

Education

William went on to obtain a B.S. degree in Computer Science degree from Hampton University in 1995 and graduate as the top Computer Scholar in his class. He also studied towards an MBA in Marketing from Keller School of Business Management.

Career

After college Mr. Moss was recruited by AT&T/ Bell Labs to work as a lead software developer for complex network management systems. He developed software for proprietary network communications for customers such as Nippon Telephone in Japan. Wrote software in Java, C, C++, Perl and several unix scripting languages.

In 1999 he left AT&T to become a software development consultant for a small company in central Ohio. At that time, he created a website for the students and graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities called HBCUConnect.com.

HBCUConnect.com grew quickly by allowing students and graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities to connect online. HBCUConnect.com also boasted the first complete directory of HBCUs online, inventing the HBCU sub category on Yahoo.com. The website started serving the needs of advertisers and employers looking to reach the HBCU audience in 2002, at which time the website became his major focus. Don’t forget to check out the site’s Facebook Fan Page with over 25,000 fans.

Now serving many organizations in their needs to advertise, and recruit from this growing audience of over 900,000 HBCU students, graduates and recruits Mr. Moss has taken more of a consulting role for the corporations and organizations he serves. He is considered a ‘subject matter expert’ on black colleges, their students, and graduates and how to reach them.

Moss gives presentations to college students on entrepreneurship, career preparation, and the relevancy of technology to African Americans. Moss’ experience in corporate America as an intern, employee, and consultant lead to the development of HBCU Connect as an answer to the lack of an existing platform for HBCU students and graduates to communicate, network and take advantage of related opportunities.

More information about his services can be found on the following websites:

www.HBCUconnect.com
www.LeeMossMedia.com
www.WillMoss.com

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However, recently, we learned that the Atlanta Hawks paid tribute to them as Trailblazers during Black History Month.

Check out the video by clicking the link above.

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