Mark Billinghurst


Mark Nathan Billinghurst is a professor in computer interface technologies. His work focuses on applications of virtual reality and augmented reality technology. Billinghurst has been a Fellow of the IEEE since 2023.

Education

Billinghurst completed his school education at the New Plymouth Boys' High School. He received Bachelor of Computing and Mathematical Science and Master of Philosophy degrees in 1990 and 1992 respectively. Both degrees are from Waikato University. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington's Human Interface Technology Laboratory in 2002. His dissertation was Shared Space: Explorations in Collaborative Augmented Reality. Billinghurst's doctoral advisors were Linda Shapiro and Thomas A. Furness III. For his PhD course, Billinghurst created the Magic Book, a children's book animated through augmented reality produced by a head-mounted display. Billinghurst describes the Magic Book as technology "that allows you to overlay computer graphics onto the real world, in real time".

Career

Billinghurst is professor of Human Computer Interaction at the University of South Australia, professor at the University of Auckland's Bioengineering Institute and director of the Empathic Computing Laboratory. He is the founder and formerly the director of the University of Canterbury's HIT Lab NZ for 13 years; he was also an associate professor at the University of Canterbury. In 2001, Billinghurst co-founded ARToolworks and helped to create ARToolKit, an open source AR development platform. He is a founder of the SuperVentures AR/VR fund. Billinghurst is part of the New Zealand Government’s Growth and Innovation Advisory Board, being appointed in 2005. Billinghurst's previous work includes jobs with ATR Research Labs in Japan, British Telecom's Advanced Perception Unit, an internship with Hit Lab US, Nokia, Google, Amazon and the MIT Media Laboratory. During his career, Billinghurst has published over 650 research papers; he is one of the most cited AR researchers.

Personal life

Billinghurst was born in New Plymouth, New Zealand. He is a member of the Riccarton Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Awards and honors