Ian Burnett received the Ph.D. degree in 1992 from the University of Bath, Bath, UK. He is currently Professor and Head of School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include speech processing, 3D audio reproduction, recording and transmission, semantic media content description, 3D video processing and quality of multimedia experience. He is a member of the editorial board of IEEE Multimedia, was Chair of MDS at ISO/IEC SC29WG11 MPEG from 2004-2007, Australian Head of Delegation at MPEG from 2002-2007 and currently chairs IT29 the Australian mirror committee to ISO/IEC SC29. He is currently a non-COST member of Qualinet (IC1003), a EU network concentrating on quality of experience. He has published more than 160 refereed papers.

Selected Topic: Connecting the virtual and real worlds. Over the last few years, Ian has had a theme running through much of his research which explores the connection between the real and virtual (or Internet) worlds. One example of his team’s work around this theme was the Airlink technology deployed by Fairfax newspapers in Australia. This technology, integrated into iphone newspaper apps allows users to scan pictures on printed content and then be’ transported’ to virtual/Internet content such as video, audio and extra web material. This is just one example in the media of how the virtual and real worlds are becoming mixed and traditional barriers are disappearing. A fundamental part of the development of Airlink was understanding how users interact with and network content in the real world and then on the Internet. The shift from shared newspapers to social networking of rich multimedia is clearly highlighted by such technologies.