ICT is proud to announce that Dr. Randall W. Hill, Vice Dean, Viterbi School of Engineering; Executive Director, USC Institute for Creative Technologies, has been recognized for his research and leadership with the Omar B. Milligan Professor in Computer Science – Games and Interactive Media, an endowed chair established in 2022 by The Robert Glenn Rapp Foundation.
Endowed chairs and professorships represent a most important recognition of faculty scholarly thought leadership, achievement and impact. These endowments link in perpetuity donors and their legacy with USC Viterbi. The USC Viterbi School of Engineering is grateful to the donors for their generosity and to our faculty for their outstanding talent and accomplishments.
Randall W. Hill, Jr. became the Executive Director of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies in 2006. A leader in understanding how classic storytelling and high-tech tools can create meaningful learning experiences, Hill steers the institute’s exploration of how virtual humans, mixed reality worlds, advanced computer graphics, dramatic films, social simulations and educational video games can augment more traditional methods for imparting lessons.
He oversees a diverse team of scientists, storytellers, artists and educators as they pioneer and evaluate new ways to deliver effective teaching and training in areas including leadership, cultural awareness, negotiation and mental health treatment and assessment. Hill is also a research professor of computer science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. His research focus is on using intelligent tutoring systems and virtual humans to create immersive learning environments.
Dr. Hill’s career at USC began in 1995 at the USC Information Sciences Institute where he worked on the development of models of human behavior and decision-making for real-time simulation environments. He joined the USC Institute for Creative Technologies in 2000 as a senior scientist. Prior to his work at USC, Hill served as a group supervisor and the work area manager for network automation in the Deep Space Network Advanced Technology Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
He graduated with a bachelor of science degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point and subsequently served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army for six years with assignments in field artillery and military intelligence. Dr. Hill earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the University of Southern California. He is a member of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and has written over 50 technical publications, including a co-authored article, “Toward Virtual Humans” featured in AI Magazine in the summer of 2006.
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Established in 1999, the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) is a Department of Defense (DoD) University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), sponsored by the US Army. Harnessing Hollywood-derived creativity with academic innovation and military-domain expertise, ICT conducts award-winning R&D in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Graphics, Geospatial Sciences, Human Performance, Learning Sciences, Modeling, Simulation & Gaming, Mixed Reality (MxR), Medical VR, Narrative, and Virtual Humans. ICT accomplishments include: 2,000 Peer-Reviewed Publications with 100,000+ Citations; 140+ Honors and Awards Highlighting Faculty and Staff; 50+ Hollywood Movies/Series use ICT Technologies; 278 Intellectual Property Disclosures; 29 Patents; 3 AAAI Fellows and 2 Academy Awards (Science & Technology).
The project or effort depicted was or is sponsored by the U.S. Government and that the content of the information does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
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