Poppy Crum works to bridge the gap between technology and insightful, effective human interaction. As a multi-dimensional advocate of empathetic technology, she builds technologies that best leverage human physiology to enhance our experiences and how we interact with the world.
Poppy serves as the Chief Scientist at Dolby Laboratories and as an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and Program in Symbolic Systems.
Poppy is dedicated to the development of immersive technologies that leverage human physiology and perceptual realities to enhance our experiences and interactions in the world. She has advanced a mission to democratize the way people of all abilities benefit from sensory technologies – and how effectively technology communicates back to each of us. She believes the power of intelligent technologies is only realized with dynamic optimization and learning of as much of our personal and contextual data as possible.
At Dolby, Poppy directs the growth of internal science. She is responsible for integrating neuroscience and sensory data science into algorithm design, technological development, and technology strategy. At Stanford, her work focuses on the impact and feedback potential of new technologies including gaming and immersive environments such as Augmented and Virtual Reality on neuroplasticity and learning.
Poppy is a U.S. representative and vice-chair to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and a member of the Stanford Research Institute Technical Council. Prior to joining Dolby Laboratories, Poppy was Research Faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where her neurophysiological research focused on understanding the neural correlates of how we hear in a complex acoustic environment and the functional circuitry of the auditory cortex.
Poppy is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. She is a 2018 recipient of the Advanced Imaging Society’s Distinguished Leadership Award, a 2017 recipient of the Consumer Technology Association’s Technology and Standards Achievement Award for work towards the introduction of over-the-counter hearing-aid devices, and has been named to Billboard Magazine’s 100 most influential female executives in the music industry. Prior to academic study as a neuroscientist and work in industry, Poppy was a performance violinist.
She is a frequent speaker on topics related to the intersection of human experience, artificial intelligence, sensory data-science, and immersive technologies.
CIO Peer Forum 2019, Day 2: Keynote speaker
Optimizing Human Performance Through Technology.
In a stunning presentation packed with visuals and interactive exercises, Dr. Poppy Crum explores the human and consumer applications of rapidly-advancing technology. Ticking through the many ways smart technology will improve our lives in years to come, Dr. Crum paints a picture of a future society where companies better understand how customers experience their individual worlds to provide them with products that match their specific needs, where doctors more quickly diagnose and treat patients, where our brains evolve to see at the same resolution as computers, and where the human capacity for knowledge is expanded exponentially. An optimistic and inspiring overview of a technology-enabled future where human capacity and performance is turbo-charged, as well as the ways organizations can embrace this change now, Dr. Crum argues that technology will not replace human interactions and experiences—but rather make them better than we could ever imagine.
Check out the agenda.