Gary Geisler ∴ Curriculum Vitae

Research Areas

Web-Based Digital Libraries: I design and develop attractive, easy-to-use web-based multimedia digital libraries and collections. My skills and experience encompass all project phases, from user needs research and information architecture to programming and end-user evaluation.

Digital Multimedia: I have specialized in digital video since the 1990's, with additional experience in still images. My skills and knowledge include video transcoding, formats, and codecs; metadata and indexing strategies; interfaces and tools for generating video previews.

User Experience Design: All of my work is ultimately concerned with designing interfaces that provide people with access to data in a simple, clear, and satisfying way. I have a strong record of designing great user experiences through user research, interface and interaction design, and testing.

Research and Technical Skills

Ruby / Ruby on Rails	SQL / MySQL / database design	Field-based user research methods
HTML5 / CSS / jQuery	IA prototyping & wireframing	Lab-based user studies
PHP / scripting / data manipulation	Visual design tools	Qualitative / quantitative data analysis
Git / Subversion / OSS development	Statistics / Information visualization	Technical documentation / presentations

Professional Experience

University of Texas at Austin: Assistant Professor, School of Information 2006 - present; Managed multiple research projects, conducted user research, published and presented on research findings. Developed and taught six courses, supervised and advised doctoral and master's program students, served on academic committees, peer reviewed academic journals and conferences. Courses included: Database Management, Research Methods, Digital Libraries, Digital Media Collections, Doctoral Research & Theory, Digital Library Research.

Simmons College: Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Library & Information Science, Boston, MA 2003 - 2005; Wrote grant proposals, managed research group, and conducted user research on digital video. Developed and taught three courses in the Graduate School of Library & Information Science, advised students, served on academic committees, peer reviewed academic journals and conferences. Courses included: Database Management, Research Methods, Introduction to Information Technology.

Sony Computer Science Laboratory: Research Fellow, Tokyo, Japan Summer 1999; Conducted research in Sony’s CSL Interaction Laboratory, sponsored by a National Science Foundation fellowship. Collaborated with Sony researchers on a Web-based visualization project.

International Business Machines (IBM): Software Engineer, Research Triangle Park, NC 1990 - 1999; Developed applications and documentation for several networking software products. Collaborated with small project teams to produce the first versions of IBM's WebSphere application server product. Wrote Java, JSP code; designed and developed sample applications that shipped with WebSphere.

Research & Consulting Experience

Cultivating Digital Librarianship Faculty: Co-Primary Investigator 2009 - present; Co-authored successful $978,617 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant proposal and co-managed four-year program to educate four full-time doctoral students to become leaders in digital librarianship. Developed program-specific graduate course, mentored doctoral students, documented and publicized program progress and activities.

eMicrobes: A Digital Library for Learning Infectious Diseases: Co-Investigator 2007 - present; Led conceptual design, feature specification, information architecture, database design, and user experience design for a three-year NIH grant project to create a digital library for learning infectious diseases. Contributed to technical development, interaction design, and visual design of digital library. Co-authored NIH grant proposal to fund project.

Austin Historic Survey Web Tool: Co-Primary Investigator 2008 - present; Collaborated with the UT School of Architecture on technical design, information architecture, and grant writing for an innovative web application that will increase accuracy and comprehensiveness of historic resource surveys, to be operated by City of Austin upon completion. Co-authored several successful grant proposals to fund project.

The Central Lunatic Asylum for Colored Insane: Co-Investigator 2009 - present; Worked with the UT School of Social Work to advise on digitization and access issues in the development of a digital library for the large collection of historic organizational records of the first public mental hospital in the U.S. for persons of African descent.

The Open Video Digital Library Toolkit: Primary Investigator 2004 - present; Managed small project team for an open source software development project. Managed budgets, hired staff, wrote progress reports for funding agency, delivered presentations to communicate project goals and results. Conducted user needs analyses, developed conceptual design, led feature specification, information architecture, user experience design; contributed to programming and user interface design. Conducted lab- and classroom-based user research studies on completed product. Authored $272,179 grant proposal to fund project.

Archive of American Television: Technical Consultant 2008 - 2009; Co-conceptualized project to index, at a detailed level, a 600+ collection of multi-hour video interviews. Developed metadata schema, controlled vocabularies, and information architecture for wiki-based indexing system. Designed user experience for and coordinated development of customized project software.

Emerson College: User Experience Design Consultant 2006 - 2007; Co-conceptualized "Comedy Gateway Project," a collection of video interviews with American comedians indexed at a detailed level to provide broad range of access points to end users. Developed information architecture and user experience design documents, including sitemap, wireframes, click-through prototype, and functional web prototype.

VidArch: Preserving Video Objects and Context: Technical Consultant 2005 - 2008; Consulted on metadata schema development, cataloging, and digital video issues for National Science Foundation/Library of Congress grant project based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

iLumina Digital Library: User Experience Design Consultant 2000 - 2002; Designed and developed the information architecture, user experience, and visual design of NSF funded digital library, part of the larger National Science Digital Library (NSDL). Conceptualized ideas for user services, such as browsing, recommendations, and personalization. Wrote publications and presented on project at conferences.

The Open Video Project: Lead Developer/Designer 1999 - 2006; Led user experience design and technical development of the Open Video Project, an early web-based digital video library. Designed and developed several iterations of website and database. Managed contributions and video metadata. Conducted user studies, wrote publications, delivered conference presentations.

Federal Grant Funding

National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior: $87,278 · Preserve America program 2011 - 2012; Co-Primary Investigator on grant: Austin Historical Survey Web Tool.

National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior: $25,000 · National Center for Preservation Technology and Training program 2011 - 2012; Co-Primary Investigator on grant: Austin Historical Survey MOBILE: Optimizing a Survey Web Tool for Data Collection in the Field.

Institute of Museum and Library Services: $978,617 · Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian program 2009 - 2012; Co-Primary Investigator on grant: Cultivating Digital Librarianship Faculty: Tomorrow’s Leaders in Research and Curriculum Development.

National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine: $413,087 · Knowledge Management & Applied Informatics program 2007 - 2011; Co-Investigator on grant: eMicrobes: A Digital Library for Learning Infectious Diseases.

Institute of Museum and Library Services: $272,179 · National Leadership program 2004 - 2009; Primary Investigator on grant: Digital Video Library Toolkit for Museums and Libraries with Limited Resources.

Other Grant Funding

Texas Historical Commission (via City of Austin): $15,000 2010 - 2011; Co-Primary Investigator on grant: Austin Historical Survey Web Tool.

School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin: $9,000 · J.P. Commons Teaching Fellowship 2010 - 2011; Co-Primary Investigator on grant: Facilitating the Development of User-Generated Expressive Bibliographies.

Mike Hogg Urban Scholars Grant: $11,500 2009; Co-Primary Investigator on grant: Wiki Participation in Preservation Planning.

School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin: $7,2000 · J.P. Commons Teaching Fellowship 2009 -2010; Primary Investigator on grant: Development of Prototype Film Digital Library.

The University of Texas at Austin: Summer Research Assignment 2008; Primary Investigator on grant: Understanding the Information Seeking Behavior of Intended Users of a Film Digital Library.

Education

Ph.D. in Information Science: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2003; Dissertation: AgileViews: A Framework For Creating More Effective Information Seeking Interfaces

Master of Science in Information Science: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1998; Thesis: Using New Technology to Teach Art History: The Celtic Art & Cultures Project

Bachelor of Arts in Literature/Writing, cum laude: University of California, San Diego 1986; Minors: Biology and Psychology

Awards

Writers Guild of America, Evelyn F. Burkey Award: Awarded to the Archive of American Television project [consultant]. 2011

Interactive Media Council's Outstanding Achievement in Website Development Award: Awarded to the Archive of American Television project [consultant]. 2010

Texas Exes Teaching Award: Awarded to an outstanding professor in each University of Texas at Austin school and college. 2006 - 2007

Vannevar Bush Best Paper Award: Awarded to best long format paper at the annual ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries [co-author]. 2003

EDUCAUSE Medal Award: Awarded to the Celtic Art & Cultures Project. 1999

Summer Institute in Japan Fellowship: National Science Foundation Fellowship. 1999

Selected Publications

Geisler, G., Willard, G. & Ovalle, C. (2011). “A crowdsourcing framework for the production and use of film and television data.” New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 17(1), 73-97.
Geisler, G. & Burns, S. (2007). Tagging Video: Conventions and Strategies of the YouTube Community [poster]. In Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2007), 480.
Marchionini, G., Wildemuth, B. M., & Geisler, G. (2006). “The Open Video Digital Library: A Mobius Strip of Research and Practice.” Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology, 57(12), 1629-1643.
Wildemuth, B.M., Marchionini, G., Yang, M., Geisler, G., Wilkens, T., Hughes, A., & Gruss, R. (2003). How Fast Is Too Fast? Evaluating Fast Forward Surrogates for Digital Video. In Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2003), 221-230.
Geisler, G., Giersch, S., McArthur, D., McClelland, M. (2002). Creating Virtual Collections in Digital Libraries: Benefits and Implementation Issues. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2002).