Mary C. Whitton is a research associate professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She co-leads the Effective Virtual Environments research group that investigates what makes virtual environment systems effective and develops techniques to make them more effective for applications such as simulation, training, and rehabilitation.  Before joining UNC in 1994, she was co-founder of two companies that produced high-end hardware for graphics, imaging, and visualization.  Ms. Whitton has held leadership roles in ACM SIGGRAPH including serving as President 1993-1995.  She is a member of ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE, and the IEEE Computer Society.