Biography:

Bill Buxton is a relentless advocate for innovation, design, and - especially - the appropriate consideration of human values, capacity, and culture in the conception, implementation, and use of new products and technologies.  This is reflected in his research, teaching, talks, and writing - including his column on design and innovation for BusinessWeek.com, and his 2007 book, Sketching User Experiences.

In December 2005, he was appointed Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. Prior to that, he was Principal of his own Toronto-based boutique design and consulting firm, Buxton Design.

Buxton began his career as a composer and performer, having done a Bachelor of Music degree at Queen's University. He then studied and taught for two years at the Institute of Sonology, Utrecht, Holland.

In 1975 Bill started designing his own digital musical instruments.  This is what led him to the University of Toronto, where he completed an MSc in Computer Science, and subsequently jointed the faculty.  It is also the path that brought him into the field of human-computer interaction, which is his technical area of specialty.

From 1987-89, Buxton was in Cambridge England, helping establish a new satellite of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (EuroPARC).  From 1989-94 he split his time between Toronto, where he was Scientific Director of the Ontario Telepresence Project, and Palo Alto, California, where he was a consulting researcher at Xerox PARC.

From 1994 until December 2002, he was Chief Scientist of Alias|Wavefront, (now part of Autodesk) and from 1995, its parent company SGI Inc.  In the fall of 2004, he became a part-time instructor in the Department of Industrial Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design.  In 2004/05 he was also Visiting Professor at the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) at the University of Toronto.  He currently splits his time between Redmond and Toronto.

In 1995, Buxton became the third recipient of the Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society Award for contributions to research in computer graphics and human-computer interaction.  In 2000 he was given the New Media Visionary of the Year Award at the Canadian New Media Awards.  In 2001, The Hollywood Reporter named him one of the 10 most influential innovators in Hollywood.  In 2002, Time Magazine named him one of the top 5 designers in Canada.  Also in 2002, he was elected to the CHI Academy.  In October, 2005, he and Gord Kurtenbach received the "Lasting Impact Award", from ACM UIST 2005, which was awarded for their 1991 paper, Issues in Combining Marking and Direct Manipulation Techniques.  In 2008 he became the 10th recipient of the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award, "for fundamental contributions to the field of Computer Human Interaction."  In 2009 he was elected Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), for his contributions to the field of human-computer interaction.

Buxton has been awarded three doctorates Honoris Causa: Doctor of Design from the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Ontario (June, 2007), Doctor of Laws from hi his alma mater, Queen's University, Kingston Ontario (June, 2009), and Doctor of Industrial Design, from the Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands (Nov. 2009.

From 1998-2004, Buxton was on the board of the Canadian Film Centre, and in 1998-99 chaired a panel to advise the premier of Ontario on developing long term policy to foster innovation, through the Ontario Jobs and Investment Board. He is on a number of academic advisory boards, the Department of Industrial Design of the Technical University in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.  Buxton is a member of the Association of Computing Machinery and the Industrial Designers Society of America.

Outside of work, Buxton loves the outdoors. He is especially passionate about mountains, including skiing, climbing, and touring, both in summer and winter. This interest extends to the written word. He has contributed to the literature on mountain history and exploration, is an avid bibliophile, and was one of the three jury members of the 2005 Banff Mountain Book Festival.  He is an accomplished equestrian, and in 1996 was awarded the Veteran Rider of the Year award from the Ontario Horse Trials Association, and in 2000 was named to the Talent Squad of the National Eventing Team.  In addition, he is an avid cyclist, and active in kayaking, canoeing, SCUBA diving and windsurfing.  Finally, he has a life-long fascination with both art and his wife, Elizabeth - who owns and operates a contemporary art gallery, Gallery 888, in Toronto, Canada.

MIT Lincoln Lab History Project

I am interested in the contribution made to interactive computing and computer graphics by the researchers at MIT's Lincoln Lab in the 1950's and 60's. Consequently, I organized a panel including some of the key protagonists at the 2005 SIGCHI Conference in Portland Oregon, and I have started a web page which is intended to be a clearing house for some of the material on and by the researchers of the group, which was mainly centred around the TX-2 computer. The page now includes a video of the panel session, including the examples. See the following work in progress:

Resource Page on Early HCI Research of the Lincoln Lab TX-2 Group

NRC of Canada History Project in Computer Music & Animation

The work in computer music and animation in the early 1970's at the National Research Council of Canada was extremely important in the field of human-computer interaction - not just music and animation.  This is where I first saw and used a computer, and that experience had a huge impact on shaping my career.  The music work, in particular, is not well known.  Hence, I recently published a book chapter that gave a summary of it, and described its impact..  Through the cooperation of the NRC and especially my friend and mentor Marceli Wein, I am currently preparing some historic 16mm film footage of these systems to put up on the web.  Watch this site for details.

Personal Pages

• Books on History, Exploration and Mountaineering, with a focus on Central Asia and the Himalaya. This is material, including bibliography, essays, etc. pertaining to my books on Central Asia and mountaineering.
• Books on the early History of Canada, First Nations, the Fur Trade, and the Canoe.  This is material documenting this part of my library.
• Photos A mixture of personal photos. Some high res for PR purposes, some of historical interest, and some are just for fun.
• My Birch Bark/ Birchbark Canoe Project.
• Gallery 888: This is a Toronto art gallery devoted to the work of emerging artists that is owned and curated by my wife, the artist Liz Russ.
• Horse Stuff : This just reflects a past obsession. No excuses.