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Sean Kelly

Sean Uberoi Kelly is a software architect at eTonal media in New York City, and a part-time Research Software Developer in the Social Computing Group at Microsoft Research (MSR), in Redmond, Washington, where he is currently the lead developer for Wallop, a social communications application for sharing personal media within social networks. He was previously a researcher and developer for MSR's Virtual Worlds Group, developing immersive content, user authoring tools, audio, and multi-user interfaces. He graduated from Princeton University in 1992 with a BA in English Literature and Visual Arts, afterwards working in architecture and design in New York City, and as a songwriter, guitarist, and producer for Atlantic Records in Los Angeles, where he specialized in production on emergent digital audio systems. In 1995, he attended the University of Vermont for Computer Science, before completing a Master of Professional Studies at ITP, NYU in 1998. Prior to MSR, he worked extensively in immersive and projected real-time virtual environments with Jaron Lanier, as a web-developer creating on-line university and educational community sites and user-generated knowledge databases, and in designing sensor-based interfaces to interactive displays. While at NYU, he co-founded eTonal Media, a multimedia music education web network and on-line retailer, with eTonal CEO Christopher Sung, and consulted to the Virtual Worlds Group at MSR. He relocated to Seattle and joined MSR full time in 1998. He was the Lead Developer for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's HutchWorld, a network community for Seattle-based post-operative transplant recipients and care-givers, and developed synchronized and persistent 3D animation systems across multiple desktops on the latest Virtual Worlds Platform source release. From 2000-2001, he was an adjunct professor at NYU/ITP, teaching a design and prototyping class with Lili Cheng entitled "The Multi-User Experience."