University of Southern California University of Southern California

Senior Management Team

  • Randall Hill

    Randall Hill, Jr.

    Executive Director

    Randall (Randy) Hill, Jr., Executive Director graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1978 and subsequently served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army for six years.

    View Profile »

  • Cheryl Birch

    Cheryl Birch

    Director of Finance, Administration, and Human Resources

    After Graduating in 1980 from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Cheryl returned to her hometown of Sacramento, California to practice public accounting at the then “Big-8” firm, Ernst & Whinney. 

    View Profile »

  • Kim LeMasters

    Kim LeMasters

    Creative Director

    Mr. LeMasters started in the television business in 1972 with ABC Television where he was Supervisor of Primetime Development. In a three-person department he oversaw the development of such series as Happy Days, Kung Fu and the Six Million Dollar Man. 

    View Profile »

  • William Swartout

    William Swartout

    Director of Technology

    William Swartout is Director of Technology for USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) and a research professor of computer science at USC. From 1989 to 1999 he was Director of the Intelligent Systems Division at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI). He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science from MIT and his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University.

    View Profile »

  • Lori Weiss

    Lori Weiss

    Director of Strategy, Operations and External Relations

    Lori Weiss is a native of Los Angeles, California and graduated from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Lori later attended graduate school at Pepperdine University where she graduated with a degree of Master of Business Administration in 1992.

    View Profile »


Associate Directors

  • Mark Bolas

    Mark Bolas

    Associate Director for Mixed Reality R&D;

    Mark Bolas is the Associate Director for Mixed Reality R&D;, a research scientist, an artist, and a designer exploring perception, agency, and intelligence. His work focuses on creating virtual environments and transducers that fully engage one’s perception and cognition, and create a visceral memory of the experience. Amongst his courses at the undergraduate and graduate level are the design for interactive media and the business of interactive media.

    View Profile »

  • Paul Debevec

    Paul Debevec

    Associate Director for Graphics Research

    Paul Debevec leads the Graphics Laboratory at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies and is a Research Associate Professor in the USC Computer Science Department.

    View Profile »

  • Jonathan Gratch

    Jonathan Gratch

    Associate Director for Virtual Humans Research

    Dr. Jonathan Gratch is an Associate Director for Virtual Humans Research at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies, Research Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and co-director of USC’s Computational Emotion Group. 

    View Profile »

  • Stacy Marsella

    Stacy Marsella

    Associate Director for Social Simulation

    Stacy Marsella is the Associate Director for Social Simulation at ICT.  He earned his B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Rutgers University with a focus on AI planning, human problem solving and cognitive science. He was at Bell Labs before joining the Information Sciences Institute and the Institute for Creative Technologies.

    View Profile »

  • Albert Rizzo

    Albert "Skip" Rizzo

    Associate Director for Medical Virtual Reality

    Albert ‘Skip’ Rizzo conducts research on the design, development and evaluation of Virtual Reality systems targeting the assessment and training/rehabilitation of spatial abilities, attention, memory, executive function and motor abilities. 

    View Profile »