CV (pdf) CV (Word) Home page Wikipedia page email: Jeffrey@Ventrella.com Jeffrey Ventrella got his first degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, in Art Education with a minor in Art History. In his mid-20's, he was shown a short fractal program in BASIC. Not knowing anything about programming, he only knew that changing a few letters in what looked like alphabet soup made the picture change in interesting ways. He had an epiphany, and discovered a new visual language, with strong biological metaphors. This new journey in algorithmic art led him to Syracuse University, where he earned an MFA in Computer Graphics, under Ed Zajec. After graduating, he worked at SU for four years as Computer Graphics Specialist, working with researchers and faculty on Data Visualization, and teaching programming to Art students and CAD to Industrial Design students. Jeffrey moved on to UC San Diego, where he served as Visiting Professor for one semester, under Harold Cohen, teaching artificial life, software programming, and CAD to Art students. Jeffrey then bounced back East to Cambridge, where he got his third degree: a Masters from the MIT Media Lab's Visible Language Workshop. There he met Nuala Creed, who later became his wife. They moved to San Francisco, and Jeffrey began working at Rocket Science Games, prototyping simulation-type games. After that he became Principle Inventor and second co-founder of There.com. He wrote the first line of code in 1997, and went on to invent a virtual dog, vehicle physics, and many other aspects of the virtual world. He co-designed 'Avatar-Centric Communication'. While working at There.com, he adapted the artificial life simulation Darwin Pond to become GenePool. This work resulted in a handful of papers and presentations at artificial life conferences in the US and Europe. After briefly working at Adobe on the Acrobat3D platform, Jeffrey joined Linden Lab, makers of Second Life, where he invented Flexies, FollowCam, and Puppeteering. He then joined Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive, and developed the home page for NASA Images.org, and also consulted on user interaction. In 2008 Jeffrey worked in Vancouver, BC as a visiting professor at the Centre for Digital Media. The following year he worked as a researcher at the School of Interactive Art and Technology, and taught a class in Advanced Game Design. Jeffrey recently finished a book called Virtual Body Language, which is slated for publication by ETC Press. (It is currently available from Lulu.com). In October 2010, Jeffrey worked with internet visionary Ted Nelson on an experimental project to implement the ZigZag Database/Visualization scheme as a front-end to the Open Library. The interface may be published soon (TBD). In the Spring of 2011, Jeffrey gave the first keynote at Laval Virtual in France. He recently joined the new startup company, Visual Music Systems, lead by Bill Sebastian.