Jefferson Y. Han is a research scientist for New York University's (NYU) Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and one of the main developers of "multi-touch sensing," which unlike older touch-screen interfaces was able to recognize multiple points of contact.
Jeff Han also works on other projects in the fields of autonomous robot navigation, motion capture, real-time computer graphics, and human-computer interaction.
He presented his multi-touch sensing work in February 2006 at the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Conference in Monterey, California. TED released the video online 6 months later and it spread quickly on YouTube.[1]
Han has founded a company called Perceptive Pixel to develop his touch screen technology further, and he has already shipped touch screens to parts of the military.[2] Han's technology has been featured most notably as the "Magic Wall" on CNN's Election Center coverage [3]
Han graduated from The Dalton School in New York in 1993 and studied computer science and electrical engineering for three years at Cornell University before leaving to join a start-up company to commercialize the CU-SeeMe video-conferencing software that he helped develop while an undergraduate at Cornell.[2]
Han was named to Time Magazine's 2008 listing of the 100 Most Influential People in The World.[4]