John Charles Thomas

John Charles Thomas graduated summa cum laude from Case-Western Reserve, majoring in psychology, minoring in mathematics and drama. He received a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Michigan and managed a research project at Harvard Med School on the Psychology of Aging. He then joined IBM Research where he worked in Human Computer Interaction for the next dozen years including a two year stint at IBM CHQ where he spearheaded efforts to improve IBM’s user experience. He left IBM to start the Artificial Intelligence Lab at NYNEX where he served as Executive Director for another dozen years. In 1998, he rejoined IBM Research to work in knowledge management and human computer interaction. For several years, he managed a group on the business uses of stories and storytelling. John was instrumental in the formation of ACM’s Special Interest Group in Human Computer Interaction and has served on numerous organizing committees and program committees over the last 35 years. Most recently, he was on the program committee for ACM’s Turing Centenary Celebration and currently is Adjunct Chair for Mentoring on the SIGCHI Executive Committee. He has over 250 invited presentations and publications in the fields of AI, HCI, and psychology. He is also inventor or co-inventor of patents in the areas of business process, mobile interfaces, creativity aids, software as a service, and information retrieval. He has worked on the user experience for tools/services for consultants, software developers, and consumers. John has taught courses and led workshops in such diverse topics as creativity, storytelling, the psychology of aging, statistics, cognitive psychology and human computer interaction. He now works as an independent author, consultants, and professional speaker.