Edwin Joseph Selker, better known as Ted Selker, is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

known for his user interface inventions.

Biography

Selker graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in 1979 with a BS in Applied Mathematics, and from the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

with an MS in Computer and Information Sciences in 1981. From June 1981 to 1983 he worked as research assistant in the Stanford University, Robotics Laboratory. One of his projects was a collaborative display system for the

WAITS WAITS is a heavily modified variant of Digital Equipment Corporation's Monitor operating system (later renamed to, and better known as, " TOPS-10") for the PDP-6 and PDP-10 mainframe computers, used at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Labor ...

system of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). He worked for

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...

for a year, then returned to Stanford to teach for a year. Selker joined

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

in August 1985, first at the

Thomas J. Watson Research Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. Its main laboratory is in Yorktown Heights, New York, 38 miles (61 km) north of New York City. It also operates facilities in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Albany, ...

. He graduated with a PhD from

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

in 1992. His thesis was titled "A Framework for Proactive Interactive Adaptive Computer Help". He then moved to the

IBM Almaden Research Center IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company. IBM Research is headquartered at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, near IBM headquarters ...

where he founded and directed the User Systems Ergonomics Research lab. He was made an

IBM Fellow An IBM Fellow is a position at IBM appointed by the CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achieve. Over ...

in 1996. Selker holds 67 US patents. He developed the

pointing stick A pointing stick (or trackpoint, also referred to generically as a nub, nipple or clitmouse) is a small analog stick used as a pointing device typically mounted centrally in a computer keyboard. Like other pointing devices such as mice, touchp ...

(known as TrackPoint) technology which are the distinctive feature of the

ThinkPad ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop and Tablet computer, tablet computers produced since 1992. It was originally designed, created and manufactured by the American IBM, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. IBM Acquisit ...

line of

laptop computer A laptop computer or notebook computer, also known as a laptop or notebook, is a small, portable personal computer (PC). Laptops typically have a Clamshell design, clamshell form factor (design), form factor with a flat-panel computer scree ...

s (designed, developed and sold by

but produced by

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, trading as Lenovo ( , zh, c=联想, p=Liánxiǎng), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, servers, conv ...

since 2005). Selker joined the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

faculty in September 1999. He headed the Context Aware Computing group at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

and was the MIT director of The Voting Technology Project and Design Intelligence. He joined the faculty of

Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley is a degree-granting branch campus of Carnegie Mellon University located in Mountain View, California. It was established in 2002 at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field. The campus offers full-time an ...

In November 2008 to help create its PhD program and to head the Considerate Systems group. From June to August 2011 he was the Director of Research at start-u
Scanadu
Scanadu aims to turn smart phones into medical monitoring devices. He has taught at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Hampshire College Hampshire College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges ...

, and

and consulted at

Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...

. His work often takes the form of

bleeding edge Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new but also include old technologies finding new applications. Emerging technologies are o ...

prototype concept products, for example hybrid search engines, and is supported by cognitive science research into

human computer interaction Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are great apes characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and high intelligen ...

. He is regarded as a pioneer in the field of

context awareness Context awareness refers, in information and communication technologies, to a capability to take into account the ''situation'' of ''entities'', which may be users or devices, but are not limited to those. ''Location'' is only the most obvious el ...

and has been cited in the media. Selker's technologies have been featured on Good Morning America, ABC, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, NPR, and the Discovery channel among others. In recognition of his work in voting technology; he was co-recipient of computer science policy leader award for

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

50 in 2004, and in the American Association for People with Disabilities Thomas Paine award in 2006. He advocates a crowd model of innovation that he calls Excubation. He is married with two children.

References

External links

Context Aware Computing group homepage

Ted Selker election research papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Selker, Ted Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer scientists Human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction researchers IBM Fellows Brown University alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty Atari people