Byron Reeves, Ph.D., is the Paul C. Edwards Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, and currently serves Co-Director of the Stanford H-STAR Institute (Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research), a Stanford laboratory working at the intersection of computing and social sciences. He is also Founder and Faculty Director of the Stanford Media X Program that organizes research and knowledge transfer between industry and Stanford researchers working on information technology.

Byron is an expert on the psychological processing of media in the areas of attention, emotions, and physiological responses, and is co-author of The Media Equation: How People Respond to Computer, Television and New Media Like Real People and Places. He has published over 100 research papers about media psychology and his research has been the basis for a number of products at companies such as Microsoft, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, in the areas of voice interfaces, automated dialogue systems, conversational agents, enterprise software and interaction design. He is currently working on applications of multi-player game technology to the conduct of serious work and is Co-Founder, with Leighton Read, of Seriosity, Inc.

Byron received his Ph.D. in Communication from Michigan State University, and his B.F.A. in Graphic Design and Journalism from Southern Methodist University. Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford in 1986, Byron was a professor for ten years in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication and Associate Director of the Mass Communication Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

J. Leighton Read is a successful entrepreneur, CEO, and high-tech investor. Some of the companies he has founded or co-founded include Affymax NV acquired by Glaxo; Aviron, the biotechnology company acquired by MedImmune that developed FluMist(tm); and Avidia, acquired by Amgen. He is a general partner in four funds at Alloy Ventures in Palo Alto, California. He has a long-standing interest in the psychological principles that underlie successful electronic games and is Chairman of Seriosity, Inc. (www.seriosity.com).

Leighton received a BS from Rice University in psychology and biology, an MD from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and internal medicine training at Duke and the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital,where he held appointments at the Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health. His publications cover decision theory in medicine, cost-effectiveness analysis, and medical innovation policy. He produced a successful interactive computer game in 1984 to promote healthy lifestyles based on text-based adventure games and behavior modification.

He is a frequent public speaker and serves as a director of six young companies in the fields of biotechnology, nanotechnology, cleantech, and software and serves as a trustee or director of BeneTech, BioVentures for Global Health, The UC Berkeley Foundation and School of Public Health Council and the Santa Fe Institute. His awards include several as coinventor of technology underlying the Affymetrix GeneChip(tm) and Ernst & Young's California Life Science Entrepreneur of the Year.