Barbara Tversky is a Professor Emerita of Psychology at Stanford University and a Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Tversky specializes in cognitive psychology, and is a leading authority in the areas of visual-spatial reasoning and collaborative cognition. Tversky's additional research interests include language and communication, comprehension of events and narratives, and the mapping and modeling of cognitive processes. Tversky received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1963 and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1969. She has served on the faculty of Stanford University since 1977 and of Teachers College, Columbia University since 2005.

Tversky has led an esteemed career as a research psychologist. She has published in leading academic journals prolifically for almost four decades. Multiple of her studies are among the most significant in both cognitive psychology and experimental psychology generally. Tversky was named a Fellow of the American Psychological Society in 1995, the Cognitive Science Society in 2002, and the Society of Experimental Psychology in 2004. In 1999, she received the Phi Beta Kappa Excellence in Teaching Award. Tversky is an active and well-regarded teacher of psychology courses at both the introductory and advanced level. In addition, Tversky has served on the editorial boards of multiple prominent academic journals, including Psychological Research (1976-1984), the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition (1976-1982), the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (1982-1988), Memory and Cognition (1989-2001), and Cognitive Psychology (1995-2002).

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In 1978, Randall Davis joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT, where from 1979-1981 he held an Esther and Harold Edgerton Endowed Chair. He Later served for 5 years as Associate Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He is currently a Full Professor in the Department, and a Research Director of CSAIL, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory that resulted from the merger of the AI Lab and the Lab for Computer Science. He and his research group are developing advanced tools that permit natural, sketch-based interaction with software, particularly for computer-aided design and design rationale capture.

Dr. Davis has been one of the seminal contributors to the field of knowledge-based systems, publishing some 50 articles and playing a central role in the development of several systems. He serves on several editorial boards, including Artificial Intelligence, AI in Engineering, and the MIT series in AI, and was selected in 1984 as one of America’s top 100 scientists under the age of 40 by Science Digest. In 1986, he received the AI Award from the Boston Computer Society for his contributions to the field. In 1990, he was named a Founding fellow of the American Association for AI and in 1995 was elected to a two-year term as President of the Association. In 2003, he received MIT’s Frank E. Perkins Award for graduate advising. From 1995-1998, he served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the U.S. Air Force.

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Olya Veselova is a Senior Lead Program Manager on OneNote - Microsoft's primary note-taking and inking application delivered as part of the Microsoft Office suite. Olya has worked on note-taking, inking, sketching, and the tablet experience for over twelve years. She started out at the MIT AI Lab working with Randall Davis on sketch understanding and shape recognition, where she developed a system for perceptually based learning of shape descriptions. She carried her passion for tablets and ink into her work in the industry, when she joined the OneNote team and Microsoft. She has worked on OneNote for the past ten years, developing the design and experience for a large number of OneNote features, including touch and ink and optimizing OneNote for tablets. Olya is a passionate advocate for the potential of digital ink and natural expression in education, work, and personal life and is continually promoting ink related investments in OneNote and other Microsoft initiatives.

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