John F. Koegel Buford is Director of the Interactive Media Group, a multimedia research group active since 1990, and the developer of various multimedia applications and system services. Dr. Buford has authored more than twenty-five publications, has served as a consultant on multimedia technology, and is active in the multimedia standards community. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Technizche Universitaet Graz, Austira. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowll.