Dr. Cathy Ennis
cathy.ennis@tudublin.ie
Member of the Applied Social Computing Research group
Lecturer in Computer Science, TU Dublin
- Plausible Animation in Virtual Games, Perceptually-driven Computer Graphics
Dr. Cathy Ennis is a lecturer in the school of Computer Science in TU Dublin, with research interests in plausible animation and behaviour for virtual characters for games. She works primarily on applications in entertainment-based and serious games and has a background in perceptually-driven computer graphics.
Cathy obtained the following qualifications:
2010: PhD in Computer Science, University of Dublin, Trinity College. Thesis title: Plausible Crowd and Group Formations.
2007: M.Sc in Cognitive Science, University College Dublin. Final Grade: first class honors. Thesis title: Investigating Methods of Referencing in the Language of Autistic Children
2005: BEng in Electronic Engineering, NUI Maynooth. Final Grade: Second class honors, grade one
Cathy has worked in TU Dublin School of Computer Science for 5 years, lecturing students on a range of modules – undergraduate and postgraduate – and Supervising students undertaking final year projects. She has also undertaken Supervision of MSc final dissertations, and am currently supervising/co-supervising a number of PhD students.
Cathy’s main area of interest is in plausible animation and behaviour for virtual characters for games. Working with both entertainment-based and serious games, she also has a background in perceptually-driven computer graphics. Cathy has worked on a number of cross-disciplinary EU FP7 and SFI projects, collaborating with researchers from different backgrounds including engineers, neuroscientists and social scientists. She has served as a member of the program committee for Symposium on Applied Perception for a number of years.
Current:
GETM3 – Horizon 2020 – €950,000
Cathy have been awarded funding for a PhD student in the SFI Centre for Research Training in Digitally-Enhanced Reality (d-real) programme, and a student within the School of Computer Science in TU Dublin
Previous:
HubLinked Knowledge Alliance – Erasmus+ – €1,000,000
Quality Blended Learning – Erasmus+ – €200,000
Cathy frequently collaborates with GV2 – Trinity College Dublin, INRIA – Rennes, the Department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University, DREAL SFI CRT, ML LABs SFI CRT and the ADAPT Research Centre.
Peer-reviewed journal articles
TAP FrankenFolk: Distinctiveness and Attractiveness of Voice and Motion, Jan Ondřej, Cathy Ennis, Niamh Merriman, Tiarnan McNulty, Carol O’Sullivan, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, Volume 13, Number 4, Article 20, 2016
TOG Seeing is believing: Body motion dominates in multisensory conversations, Cathy Ennis, Rachel McDonnell, Carol O’Sullivan, ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2010), Volume 29, Number 4, pp. 99:1 – 99:9, 2010 (Impact Factor: 3.533)
TAP Perceptual Effects of Scene Context and Viewpoint for Virtual Pedestrian Crowds, Cathy Ennis, Christopher Peters and Carol O’Sullivan, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, Volume 8, Number 2, pp. 10:1 – 10:22, 2011 (Impact Factor: 1.447)
TAP Talking bodies: Sensitivity to de-synchronization of conversations, Rachel McDonnell, Cathy Ennis, Simon Dobbyn, Carol O’Sullivan, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, Volume 22, Number 1, pp. 22:1 – 22:8, 2009 (Impact Factor: 1.447)
CGA Modelling Groups of Plausible Virtual Pedestrians, Christopher Peters and Cathy Ennis, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Special Issue on Virtual Populace, Volume 29, Number 4, pp. 54 – 63, 2009 (Impact Factor: 0.875)
CAVW Perceptually plausible formations for virtual conversers, Cathy Ennis and Carol O’Sullivan, Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, Special Issue from CASA’12, Volume 23, Numbers 3 and 4, pp. 321–329, 2012 (Impact Factor: 0.394)
Peer-reviewed conference publications
MiG Examining the effects of a virtual character on learning and engagement in serious games, Vihanga Gamage and Cathy Ennis, Proceedings of Motion in Games, pp. 20:1 – 20:9, 2018
EG Eye-tracktive: Measuring attention to body parts when judging human motions, Cathy Ennis, Ludovic Hoyet, and Carol O’Sullivan, Eurographics Short Papers, 2015
MiG Emotion Capture: Emotionally Expressive Characters for Games, Cathy Ennis, Ludovic Hoyet, Arjan Egges and Rachel McDonnell, Proceedings of Motion in Games, pp. 53-60, 2013
Peer-reviewed book chapters
- IEEE Mass population: Plausible and practical crowd simulation, Sybren Stüvel, Cathy Ennis and Arjan Egges, in IEEE Handbook of digital games, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 146-174, 2014