BIO: DR. ASHLEY GEORGE HAMILTON-TAYLOR

Dr. Ashley George Hamilton-Taylor is lecturer of Computer Science at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. His research interests include Educational Technology, Cultural Computing, Multimedia, Computer Science Education, Software Visualization, Human-Computer Interaction, Information Technology and Development, and the role of modern Media and the Internet in Social Development. His wider interests include Sustainable Development, African Diaspora development issues, and Green Technologies.

Dr. Hamilton-Taylor attended Knox Junior School, Hope Valley Experimental School, Execlsior High and St. Jago High. Key to his educational development were the various points at which he was home schooled at by his mother Nana Farika Berhane, a journalist,writer, Rastafarian,Pan-African activist, and Montessori-trained educator. From home school, he won six medals in Jamaica National Festival Junior Literary competition and awards in the USA Tinkertoy competition for developing innovative models. 

Dr. Hamilton-Taylor is a graduate of the UWI, with a B.Sc. Computer Science and a minor in Social Sciences. He holds a MAsters degree in Computer Science with a minor in Education from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was a LASPAU-Fulbright scholar, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Georgia.

In Jamaica, Dr. Hamilton-Taylor has been involved in the development of Computing and IT in education, government, and industry. He has taught at UWI for over twenty years, and is presently the curriculum coordinator for the Computer Science section, spearheading efforts to continuously develop programs that are on par internationally while addressing national and Caribbean needs. 

In his dissertation research, Dr. Hamilton-Taylor developed a holistic approach to the development of algorithm animation for computer science education. This included the ethnographic study of instructor teaching methods, the design of the SKA software visualization system to support the needs of learners and instructors, and the development of software to conduct evaluation at the perceptual, cognitive and conceptual levels. His research was supported by the National Science Foundation in a collaborative project with the Univ. of Georgia and Georgia Tech. At Georgia Tech, he designed a study and co-authored a journal publication that has become one of the most widely cited in the effective use of animation in computer science education.   

Dr. Hamilton-Taylor was consultant-evaluator on the first comprehensive study of educational technology conducted in Jamaica, the UNDP/Government of Jamaica Computer-Assisted Instruction in Secondary Schools Pilot Project of 1992. He participated in the development of curricula for information Technology for Jamaican Teachers Colleges, and in the Jamaica Computer Society project to establish computer laboratories and train IT in all Jamaican high schools.

As Senior Research Scientists with Isadra International of Palo Alto, Ca., he helped to establish the first freezone software development enterprise in Jamaica in 1995. Isadra developed products used by Fortune 500 companies.

Dr. Hamilton-Taylor was also Computer Specialist at the Planning Institute of Jamaica in 1989/87 with the UNDP-sponsored BACHUE-Jamaica project, which developed a simulation of the Jamaican economy and the socio-demographic effects of government policies.