John J. Barton
Research Staff Member, IBM

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John J. Barton is the manager of Interaction Science, an IBM Almaden Research group specializing in fundamentals of human-computer interaction (HCI) technologies, especially multi-device interaction. Interaction Science studies users, invents new techniques and technology, then validates progress by scientific tests with real users. Current projects in my group include text input on handheld devices, integration of information across devices via instant messaging, adapting web pages for mobile devices, and extending web debugging to support more dynamic applications and environments.

John has 21 years of experience in industrial research with over 60 publications in the diverse fields of ubiquitious and mobile computing, compiler technology and programming languages, physics of electron scattering, and chemistry on surfaces. After early work in quantum chemistry at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena CA, he got his MS in Applied Physics at Caltech and moved to Berkeley. There he worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and got his PhD at UC Berkeley. John joined the Physics department at IBM Watson to work on Photoelectron Holography, moving to Computer Science in 1991 to work on C++ compilers and co-author a book, “Advanced C++”, with Lee Nackman. John managed the Jikes Java Research Virtual Machine team until 1998 when he moved to HP Labs Palo Alto where he was part of the Cooltown web-based ubiquitious computing project. When he isn’t playing computer games with his sons or working on his deck, he contributes to the Firebug open-source Javascript debugger.