Paul Dietz

Current

Senior Researcher at Microsoft

Past

Senior Research Scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories
Senior Technical Staff at Walt Disney Imagineering R&D Inc

Education

Carnegie Mellon University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wellesley College

Garden City Senior High School

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Connections

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Industry

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Paul Dietz’s Summary

Just trying to do things which bring a smile, and make the world a slightly better place...

Some examples:

Pal Mickey - This was the plush Mickey Mouse tour guide available in Walt Disney World. I lead this project through its early days, conceptualizing the functionality and creating the original prototypes and transmitter infrastructure.

DiamondTouch - The world's first and still only multi-user touch screen technology that can tell who is touching where. DiamondTouch is a popular platform for colaboration research throughout the world.

iGlassware - The infamous RFID-based sensing glass which automatically calls for refills when needed. I briefly became relatively famous for this one.

Submerging Technologies - A set of three interactive water pieces including: the Tantalus Fountain (it withdraws from an attempted touch), the AquaHarp (a musical harp with water strings), and the TouchPond (a liquid touch screen).

The Animatronics Workshop - An extracurricular activity for middle schoolers which I developed, and ran in Hopkinton, MA. Kids build complete animatronic shows including building the mechanisms, defining the character personalities, performing the voices, and programming all of the motions.

Paul Dietz’s Specialties:

Although my Ph.D. is in analog IC design, my main value is an ability to be pragmatically creative across many disciplines.

Paul Dietz’s Experience

Senior Researcher

Microsoft

(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

July 2007 — Present (2 years 6 months)

I am a researcher in the Applied Sciences Group. Although the group is part of Microsoft Hardware, we also contribute to hardware efforts throughout the company, particularly Microsoft Surface and Xbox. My projects run the gamut from incremental improvements on existing interface products to more speculative efforts to create entirely new industries.
Senior Research Scientist

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories

(Public Company; Research industry)

September 2000 — July 2007 (6 years 11 months)

MERL is the North American research arm of Mitsubishi Electric. During the years I was there, MERL was a recognized world leader in computer graphics, computer vision, and human-computer interaction research. My work was largely centered on creating novel user interfaces, a number of which are cited elsewhere in this profile.
Senior Technical Staff

Walt Disney Imagineering R&D Inc

(Entertainment industry)

June 1997 — August 2000 (3 years 3 months)

Technical lead on a wide variety of projects with a particular emphasis on creating novel and unobtrusive user interface systems. Responsibilities included initial creative concept development, system architecture, prototype implementation, guest testing, business planning and productization. I was the project lead and the principal inventor of the technology behind the location sensitive devices at Walt Disney World, including the Magical Moments Pins and Pal Mickey.

Paul Dietz’s Education

Carnegie Mellon University

M.S. and Ph.D. , Electrical Engineering , 1986 — 1995
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

SB , Electrical Engineering , 1980 — 1984
Wellesley College

1982 — 1982

Wellesley College had an exchange program with MIT. I participated in this program and was one of 14 MIT students that lived at Wellesley College for the Fall semester, 1982.
Garden City Senior High School