Dr. Regan Mandryk pioneered the area of affective physiological evaluation for computer games in her Ph.D. research with support from Electronic Arts. With over 200 publications that have been cited over 10000 times (including one of Google Scholar’s 10 classic papers in HCI from 2006), she continues to investigate novel ways of understanding players and their experiences, but also develops and evaluates games for health and wellbeing, and games that foster interpersonal relationships. Regan has been the invited keynote speaker at several international game conferences, led Games research in the Canadian GRAND Network, organizes international conferences including the inaugural CHI PLAY, the inaugural CHI Games Subcommittee, and CHI 2018. She was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2014, received the University of Saskatchewan New Researcher Award in 2015, the Canadian Association for Computer Science’s Outstanding Young Canadian Computer Science Researcher Prize in 2016, and the prestigious E.W.R. Steacie Fellowship in 2018.

Dr. Melanie Tory is currently the Director of Data Visualization Research at the Roux Institute, Northeastern University. Her research focuses on empowering people to do more with data, through the design and evaluation of novel visualization techniques and human-data interactions. In her previous role at Tableau Software, she managed an applied user research team and conducted research in natural language interaction with visualizations, ultimately commercialized as Tableau’s Ask Data feature. Before that, she worked as a faculty member in visualization at the University of Victoria, where she explored topics such as collaborative visualization and personal visual analytics. Melanie earned her PhD in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University and BSc from the University of British Columbia. She is an Associate Editor of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, and Computer Graphics Forum, and has served as Papers Co-chair for the IEEE Information Visualization and ACM Interactive Surfaces and Spaces conferences. She also serves on the steering committee of IEEE VIS.

Dr. Paul G. Kry  is currently an associate professor at McGill University. His research interests are in physically based animation, including deformation, contact, motion editing, and simulated control of locomotion, grasping, and balance. He co-chaired ACM/EG Symposium on Computer Animation in 2012, Graphics Interface in 2014, and served on numerous program committees, including ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM/EG Symposium on Computer Animation, Pacific Graphics, and Graphics Interface. He is currently an associate editor for Computer Graphics Forum, and for Computers and Graphics. He heads the Computer Animation and Interaction Capture Laboratory at McGill University. Paul Kry is currently the president of the Canadian Human Computer Communications Society, the organization which sponsors the annual Graphics Interface conference. 

Dr. Sheelagh Carpendale is a Professor at Simon Fraser University (SFU). She directs the InnoVis (Innovations in Visualization) research group and the newly formed ixLab (Interactive Experiences Lab). Her NSERC/SMART Industrial Research Chair in Interactive Technologies is still current. She has been awarded the IEEE VGTC Visualization Career Award and is inducted into both the IEEE Visualization Academy and the ACM CHI Academy, which is an honorary group of individuals who are the principal leaders of the field having led the research and/or innovation in human-computer interaction. 

Dr. Tamara Munzner is a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia and holds a PhD from Stanford. Her book Visualization Analysis and Design appeared in 2014; she has been active in visualization research since 1991 with projects across a broad set of areas including genomics, evolutionary biology, geometric topology, computational linguistics, e-commerce, and journalism. 

Dr. Daniel Vogel's research area is Human Computer Interaction, focusing on fundamental characteristics of human input and novel forms of interaction for current and future computing form factors like touch, tangibles, mid-air gestures, and whole-body input, for everything from on-body wearable devices and mobile phones, to large displays and virtual reality. 

Dr. Karyn Moffatt is an associate professor in the McGill School of Information and Canada Research Chair in Inclusive Social Computing. Her research explores the ways in which technology can be employed to meet human needs and enable older individuals to overcome everyday challenges and obstacles.