Jean-Marc Gauthier

Jean-Marc is an award-winning interactive media artist designing virtual worlds. His artwork has been presented at domestic and international venues. He has written books on creating real-time interactive experiences in virtual worlds and the production of real-time 3D animations and games.

He is involved with research on visualization and interaction design in virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (XR). He currently designs interactive three-dimensional structures of proteins that students and researchers can manipulate in real-time in VR. His projects include mobility and entertainment in VR and human machine interface design. For the Amazon Catalyst project, he developed a machine learning system evaluating the experience of someone visiting a virtual world for the engineering community.

When Jean-Marc Gauthier is not observing - he is conceptualizing and creating. He starts with sketches - be it traditional (pencil, charcoal, marker) or digital. Often his drawings turn into animations, 3D designs, 3D animations, videos, and VR projects. His background as an architect and animator has taken him in directions that have combined many disciplines and fascinating challenges - going as far back as teaming up with a neurosurgeon for interactive navigation inside the brain, working on the visualization of the genotypes of the world’s bird species or creating ‘digital twins’ that serve as real-time VR counterparts of wildlife environments of the Pacific Northwest.

In summary, Jean-Marc leads research projects through both academic and start-up environments, working in close collaboration with project teams and partners. Developing and sharing working prototypes, keeping a team motivated, and presenting solutions and products that generate world-wide interest are his priorities.