January 12, 2005 —
Adam Clayton Powell III, a longtime champion of new media who helped start and
then ran Internet and technology programs for the Freedom Forum (formerly the
Gannett Foundation) for seven years, will be the new director of the Integrated
Media Systems Center (IMSC), in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. The appointment
is effective immediately.
"Adam is a creative technologist, outstanding leader and the ideal person to
take IMSC through its next phase. He has been a member of the IMSC Board of Councilors
since its inception and he will hit the ground running," said C. L. Max Nikias,
dean of the USC Viterbi School. "USC's new strategic plan calls for research
addressing societal needs and in its next phase at IMSC we will be doing just
that."
In 1996, the National Science Foundation selected USC's proposal over 117 others
for the exclusive NSF Engineering Research Center for multimedia and Internet
research. Nikias, IMSC's founding director, worked with faculty to establish
the center and its ambitious interdisciplinary research agenda for Internet multimedia
communication involving immersive sights, sounds and touch. When Nikias became
the USC Viterbi School's dean in 2001, Professor Ulrich Neumann of the Viterbi
School's computer science department was named IMSC director.
"Ulrich has been with IMSC from the very beginning and I'm deeply grateful for
his loyalty and research leadership. He more than anyone is responsible for turning
the initial vision of Internet immersipresence into real technologies," said Nikias.
"I'm very happy to have laid the groundwork for this next phase," said Neumann
who will continue at the IMSC as associate director for research. "And I am excited
about being able to focus on the research fulltime."
Nikias said that IMSC would be emphasizing cross-disciplinary research, including
both basic and applied research. Video game technology, particularly educational
applications, will be the focus of a major push. "We're going to step up cross
disciplinary collaborations with other USC schools such as the Thornton School
of Music," said Nikias, noting that IMSC
already has productive collaborations with USC schools such as the School of
Cinema-Television and the Annenberg School for Communication and with the Institute
for Creative Technologies and the Viterbi School's own Information Sciences Institute.
"IMSC has created absolutely dazzling technologies at the intersection of engineering
and the creative content media, and we will continue to build our research base,"
said Powell. "Now it is time to roll those technologies out more broadly through
partnerships with relevant industries, the arts and K-12 schools. We also plan
some non-traditional programs to connect with underserved communities around the
United States and in other parts of the world."
In addition to serving on the IMSC Board of Councilors Powell has been a visiting
professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. He was the winner of
the 1999 World Technology Award for Media and Technology sponsored by the Economist
magazine and recently was named one of the Digital Media 100 by Digital Media
magazine. Powell was the general manager from 2001 to 2003 of WHUT-TV in Washington,
the nation's first African American-owned PBS station where he quadrupled local
television production. He won the 2004 award for network and major market TV
commentary from the National Association of Black Journalists for his weekly commentaries.
He was also an executive producer at Quincy Jones Entertainment where he produced
Jesse Jackson's weekly television series and served as vice president for news
and information programming at National Public Radio. He was also a manager and
producer at CBS News and news director of ABC News' 24-hour cable news service.
He has written extensively about technology, media and international issues for
a wide range of publications including the New York Times, Wired and USC's Online
Journalism Review. He received the Overseas Press Club Award for international
reporting for a series of broadcasts he produced on Iran. Powell is married to
Irene Solet and has two grown sons, one serving on the faculty at MIT and the
other an army officer who returns this month for his
second tour of duty in Iraq.