Russell M. Taylor II

University of North Carolina
Department of Computer Science
taylorr(at)cs(dot)unc(dot)edu

No, I am not currently hiring students as research interns. There is an ongoing phishing campaign claiming that I am. The email address associated with the scam is not mine. Please disregard any such emails as you would any other phishing scheme. Thank you two students for bringing this to my attention recently!

Russell is currently an Adjunct Research Professor of Computer Science and an independent consultant at ReliaSolve; he can be contacted at russ(at)reliaSolve(dot)com or on LinkedIn or Facebook.

He is a co-founder of Redbud Labs, a microfluidic chip manufacturer. The company recently released MXR, a microfluidic mixer capable of accelerating molecular assays by 10x. He was a founding member of the board of directors for Pharaoh's Daughter, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit seeking to provide child care, training, and transitional housing for women who have children while in prison. He a founder and served as president of OutLove Racism, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provided a guide to immediate and effective responses to racism so we can work together to make a difference.

He is the original developer and principal maintainer of the Virtual Reality Peripheral Network (VRPN) library. This public-domain software system provides local or networked access to various tracking, button, joystick, sound and other devices used in virtual-reality systems. He also worked with Yuval Boger and the Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) team at Sensics to develop this open-source framework for VR.

He was a Research Professor of Computer Science, Physics & Astronomy, and Applied Physical Sciences at the University of North, Carolina at Chapel Hill through January 2015, where he was named UNC Inventor of the Year in 2014.  During this time, he was the co-director of the UNC NIH National Research Resource for Computer Integrated Systems for Microscopy and Manipulation. His research interests include Scientific Visualization, Distributed Virtual Worlds, Haptic Display, and Interactive 3D Computer Graphics. All of these came together in his role as the director of the computer science team in the UNC Nanoscale Science Research Group, which is a team of Physicists, Chemists, Gene Therapists, Biologists, Library Scientists, Perceptual Psychologists, and Computer Scientists working together to develop improved interfaces for scanned-probe and other microscopes. These tools enable scientists to see, touch and manipulate nanometer-scale objects like viruses and carbon nanotubes, either from within the laboratory or across a computer network.

Russell taught a course on Visualization in the Sciences each spring, aimed at both computer scientists and natural scientists. It was last offered as Comp 715, Physics 715, and Materials Science 715 in the spring of 2014; YouTube videos of the lectures are available online here. (It was also taught in the springs of 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.) It was cross-listed as Comp 215, Physics 215, and Materials Science 215 in the spring of 2006 (co-taught by David Borland as the cross-listed CSE 704 at NC A&T) and 2005. It was taught as Comp 290-069 in the fall semesters of 2003, 2002, and 2001. If you are interested in teaching this course, contact him for copies of the lecture materials and videos of the lecture.

Along with Amit Chourasia, Russell was co-chair for the 2008 IEEE Visualization Design Contest and the 2006 IEEE Visualization Design Contest. He was the chair of the 2012 IEEE Scientific Visualization Conference.

Other information:

Short takes on the Life, the Universe, and Everything: