Robert Taylor is a senior research software engineer in the IntelliMedia group at North Carolina State University. Mr. Taylor is responsible for leading the design, development, and project management of various game-based learning environment and intelligent cyberlearning software projects. This work includes balancing the priorities of the computer science and education stakeholders while building software systems of commercial-quality and scalability.
The majority of Mr. Taylor’s 19-year career has been focused on building and deploying software solutions across a wide range of domains, platforms, and locales. This includes designing and implementing 3D game engine features that supported the PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii platforms. He has also built solutions that range in scale from mobile apps to enterprise-class software. This work also included deploying and supporting software at customer sites during field tests.
Mr. Taylor joined the IntelliMedia group in 2010 and has thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of learning how to use artificial intelligence techniques to build intelligent tutoring systems while leveraging his video game development skills. Not only is his work at North Carolina State University intellectually challenging, it is also very rewarding since the adaptive learning environments he has built have been used by thousands of students to learn STEM subjects in K-12 classrooms across the United States.
Education
M.Eng., Engineering Mathematics and Computer Science (1997)
University of Louisville
B.S., Engineering Mathematics and Computer Science (1994)
University of Louisville
Book Chapters
James Lester, Bradford Mott, Jonathan Rowe, and Robert Taylor. Design Principles for Pedagogical Agent Authoring Tools. Design Recommendations for Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Volume 3 – Authoring Tools & Expert Modeling Techniques, Sottilare, R., Graesser, A., Hu, X., and Brawner, K. (Eds.), pp. 151-160, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Orlando, Florida, 2015. [pdf]
Conference Papers
Bradford Mott, Jonathan Rowe, Wookhee Min, Robert Taylor, and James Lester. Flare: An Open Source Toolkit for Creating Expressive User Interfaces for Serious Games. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 2014. [pdf]
Workshop Papers
Robert Taylor, Andy Smith, Samuel Leeman-Munk, Bradford Mott, and James Lester. Towards ITS Authoring Tools for Domain Experts. Proceedings of the ITS’14 Workshop on Intelligent Tutoring System Authoring Tools, Honolulu, HI, 2014. [pdf]
Presentations
Eric Wiebe, Jennifer London, John Bedward, Marc Russo, Bradford Mott, Robert Taylor, and James Lester. Understanding Visual Characteristics in Virtual Digital Assistants that Support Positive Affect in Learning Elementary Science. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2012. [pdf]
Projects
Leonardo
Intelligent virtual science notebooks that enable 4th and 5th students to create graphical representations to model physical phenomena.
Crystal Island – Uncharted Discovery
An intelligent game-based learning environment for 5th grade science education.
Crystal Island – Lost Investigation
An intelligent game-based learning environment for 8th grade science and literacy education.