Conference Steering Committee

Crista Lopes | Avatar: Diva Canto
Steering Committee

Crista Lopes is a Professor in the School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Prior to being in Academia, she worked at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (1995-2001). She is co-inventor of AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming), a programming technology featured in the MIT Technology Review (2001) as “one of the 10 emergent technologies that will change the world.” She also serves on the board of the Overte Foundation and is the creator of the Hypergrid protocol, which allows avatars to travel between Hypergrid-enabled OpenSimulator grids.

Joyce Bettencourt | Avatar: Rhiannon Chatnoir
Steering Committee

Joyce Bettencourt is the Online Community Manager for TechSoup Global’s NonProfit Commons in Second Life community. In addition, she is Creative Director of The Vesuvius Group, a collaborative studio specializing in developing online immersive and social environments for community-building. She is also co-founder of the 501(c)(3) non-profit,AvaCon, Inc. dedicated to promoting the growth, enhancement, and development of the metaverse, virtual worlds, augmented reality and 3D immersive spaces.

Michael Cerquoni | Avatar: Nebadon Izumi
Steering Committee

Michael Cerquoni is a core developer for the OpenSimulator project and a board member on the Overte Foundation which governs the OpenSimulator project. Michael has been involved with the OpenSimulator project since July of 2007 and is one of the original founders of OSgrid. His primary interest in OpenSimulator has been to improve the software by providing technical support and to foster communication between the core development team to debug and provide the most stable platform possible.

Melanie Thielker | Avatar: Melanie Milland
Steering Committee

Melanie Thielker is the founder of Avination. As an OpenSimulator Core Developer, Melanie has been one of the most active contributors to virtual world software in general, and OpenSimulator in particular. A long term Second Life™ resident, she has gained much experience in using virtual worlds. Melanie has been involved in a number of virtual world projects and has created her own “spin” of the OpenSimulator software. Up to twelve developers have worked two years on creating the software which now powers Avination. Currently, Melanie holds the position of Director in Avination Virtual Limited, the UK based company which operates Avination. Melanie is known as “Melanie Milland” in both Avination and Second Life™.

Conference Organizing Committee

Joyce Bettencourt | Avatar: Rhiannon Chatnoir
Organizing Committee Chair / Sponsorship Coordinator

Joyce Bettencourt is the Online Community Manager for TechSoup Global’s NonProfit Commons in Second Life community. In addition, she is Creative Director of The Vesuvius Group, a collaborative studio specializing in developing online immersive and social environments for community-building. She is also co-founder of the 501(c)(3) non-profit AvaCon, Inc. dedicated to promoting the growth, enhancement, and development of the metaverse, virtual worlds, augmented reality and 3D immersive spaces.

Maria Korolov | Avatar: Maria Korolov

Maria Korolov has been covering revolutions for the past twenty years. Economic, political, military — and technological. She’s reported from Russia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, China, and more than a dozen other countries. For the past five years, she’s been the editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business, an online publication covering enterprise uses of virtual environment and the Hyperica directory of hypergrid destinations.

Cynthia Calongne | Avatar: Lyr Lobo

Cynthia Calongne, known as Lyr Lobo, joined CTU’s Computer Science Doctoral department in 1996, and prior to it, was a software engineer for 13 years for AF Space Command and for an environmental organization. She has hosted 125+ keynote addresses, research paper presentations and workshops. Her team won the $25,000 Grand Prize in the Federal Virtual World Challenge for the Mars Expedition Strategy Challenge, a space simulation, and in 2005, she completed an artificial intelligence grant for the National Science Foundation. Her research began in 1995 when she evaluated a user interface paradigm for using virtual environments on a personal computer.

Kay McLennan | Avatar: Kay McLennan

Kay McLennan, Ph.D. is a professor of practice at Tulane University. Kay has been creating and using virtual world learning simulations in her online economics and business studies courses since 2008. In particular, Kay uses student feedback to continually refine and expand the educational simulations she creates to use in her e-courses. Also, Kay’s Prisoners’ Dilemma simulation and Data Detectives Game won prizes in [previous] Federal Virtual World Challenge contests. In addition to more than ten years of experience developing and teaching online courses, Kay designed and directed an extensive 2-year online course quality improvement initiative at Tulane University’s School of Continuing Studies.

Volunteer Staff

Greeters & Moderators

Greeters and Moderators perform crucial functions in the success of the event.  Greeters assist audience members and visitors with technical support, viewer questions, wayfinding, and generally ensuring that attendees have a positive experience at the conference.  Moderators assist presenters and introduce each speaker and session topic, help with the smooth presentation and streaming experience, and close out each session by thanking the speaker and audience.  They are the MCs of each session and they do a fantastic job!

Greeters & Moderators:
Names to be added.

Streaming & Media Team

The Streaming Team records, live streams, and produces over 55 sessions of content, re-records sessions where there are issues, edits video, audio, and session channels, and produces archives so that the conference sessions can continue to benefit the OpenSimulator community for years to come.  They are grace under pressure and wonderful to work with!

Stream Team Coordinators:

• Mal Burns
• Michael Bailey
• James Attloud

Building Team

The builds of OSCC16 are the result of many collaborative partnerships, individual donations of new creations, and adaptations of existing open source content.   In many ways, the builds of OSCC16 showcase the creative talents of dozens and dozens of people and what’s possible when open source content can be reused and remixed.

Landing Zones – The Landing Zones were first built from scratch by the Air Force Research Laboratory Discovery Center Tec^Edge ”Summer at the Edge” Student Build Team and then modified, adapted, and re-textured by the OSCC13 Build Team,  especially Armenious Resident and Cheops Forlife7.  Special thanks to Frans Charming for the scripted map boards and rotating sponsor signs.

Breakout Zones – The Breakout Zones began from the open source Universal Campus, modified by Fleep Tuque to fit on a single region, modified and adapted and re-textured by the Air Force Research Laboratory Discovery Center Tec^Edge ”Summer at the Edge” Student Build Team, and then further modified by the OSCC13 Build Team, especially Buffy Beale and Cam Chevalier, Cheops Forlife7, Frans Charming, Joe Radik, and Jeff Cost.  Special thanks to Buffy Beale and Cam Chevalier for their heroic work creating customized booths for each speaker, Frans Charming for the scripted panel chairs, and Jeff Cost‘s tireless tweaking of the sit scripts in the auditorium chairs.

Keynote Regions – The Keynote Regions main build was donated by Nebadon Izumi.  Fleep Tuque textured and added modifications, and Eryn Galen and Chibo Ryder customized signage and speaker booths.

OSCC16 Build Team:

Names to be added.

Air Force Research Laboratory Discovery Center
Tec^Edge ”Summer at the Edge” Student Build Team:
Program Director:  Dr. Robert Williams
Build Team Managers:  Lydia Divine and Mark Siebert

Student Builders:

Landing Zone – Original Student Build

Daltin Loomis
Joseph Merrill
Spencer Lukowski
Jacob Slezak
Dalton Flanagan
Miranda McGrothers
Kristen Tate
Bryan Rich
Shea Tolson
Josh Crank
Matt Larson
Michael Erno
Abigail Riffle
Jonathan Sander
Jocelyn Meyer
Wilson Bailey
William Gross

Special thanks to Lydia Divine and Mark Siebert for overseeing and coordinating all of the student build teams!