Resume

Education

  • 1981 - 1983

    University of California Santa Barbara
    MSEE

  • 1976 - 1980

    California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo
    BSEE

Experience

  • 2008 - Present

    Biopac Systems, Inc., Goleta, CA

    Director of R&D

    Direct and manage new product design efforts for BIOPAC’s Research and Development group. Responsible for coordinating technical certification efforts including: CE marking - Safety and EMC standards.

  • 1990 - 2008

    Biopac Systems, Inc., Goleta, CA

    President and CEO

    Directed general management for manufacturer of biomedical research and education data acquisition products. Developed department specific management structures. Evaluated and approved budgets and project timelines for administrative, marketing, sales, manufacturing and R&D product development departments. Responsible for coordinating technical certification efforts including: CE marking - Safety and EMC standards - and ISO 9001. Coordinated growth of company from 1M to 10M dollars gross sales.

  • 1984 - 1990

    Biopac Systems, Inc., Goleta, CA

    General Partner

    Coordinated growth of company from zero to 1M dollars in sales. Hardware design and prototype development of computer-based data acquisition products. Marketing material development. Technical manual development. Involved with product conceptualization, development, marketing, manufacturing and sales issues.

  • 1982 - 1990

    Pacific Design & Instrument, Santa Barbara, CA

    President

    Technical Consulting. Real-time video image inspection and defect mapping. Developed instrumentation for the characterization of physiological processes. Low noise amplifier and active filter design for acoustical signal measurements.

  • 1984 - 1990

    Applied Magnetics, Inc., Goleta, CA

    Member of Technical Staff

    R&D Electrical Engineering Group Supervisor. System development for magnetic recording head test station, automated manufacturing equipment, digital image processing workstation for parts inspection. Investigated signal to noise ratio constraints of magnetic recording head/amplifiers. High frequency, low noise amplifier design. Real-time FIR filter implementations. High frequency, passive and active filter design.

  • 1984 - 1985

    Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara, CA

    Instructor

    Directed and organized conceptual physics and electronics laboratory sections.

  • 1983 - 1984

    Applied Magnetics, Inc., Goleta, CA

    Design Engineer

    Magnetic recording disk head prototype design and production. Performed modeling for magnetic head flight characteristics. Developed analytical models for magnetic recording head noise and signal characterization.

  • 1981 - 1983

    University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA

    Teaching Assistant

    Responsible for organizing and instructing undergraduate laboratory sections in FORTRAN Programming, Amplifier Design and Transistor Circuit Design.

  • 1982

    Information Magnetics, Inc., Goleta, CA

    Engineering Intern

    Engineering Internship Work Cooperative supported by UCSB. Developed a series of low-noise, wide bandwidth, magnetic recording disk head amplifiers.

  • 1980 - 1981

    Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA

    Teaching Assistant

    Instructor of undergraduate electronic laboratories in Analog/Digital Circuit Design, Diode/Transistor Circuit Analysis, Control Systems, Network Analysis, RLC Circuits, Electric Machines and Power Systems.

  • 1978 - 1979

    International Business Machines, Inc., San Jose, CA

    Engineering Intern

    Engineering Internship Work Cooperative supported by Cal Poly, SLO. Assisted IBM engineers in design, fabrication and test of a magnetic storage disk drive system.

Professional / Community

Publications / Sessions

Abstracts at IEEE

  • 2001

    Students as Signal Sources in the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory

    Macy, A.

    Proceedings of the IEEE EMBS 23rd International Conference, Istanbul, Turkey

    Read Paper
  • 2003

    Inquiry-Based Biomedical Signal Processing Laboratory: From Practice to Simulation

    Macy, A.

    Proceedings of the IEEE EMBS 25th International Conference, Cancun, Mexico

    See Poster
  • 2005

    Physiological Signal Processing Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering Education

    Carmel, S., Macy, A.

    Proceedings of the IEEE EMBS 27th International Conference, Shanghai, China

    Read Paper
  • 2005

    Wireless Non-Invasive Cardiovascular Reactivity Measurement

    Macy, A.

    Proceedings of the IEEE EMBS 33rd International Conference, Boston, MA

    Read Paper
  • 2014

    Neuropsychophysiological mapping: Concommitant psychophysiological recording and submillimeter functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 7T. Psychophysiology, 51(S1), S78

    Robinson, J. L., Miller, M. W., Beyers, R., Grand, K., Kirby, L. A. J., Macy, A., & Graap, K.

    Presented at the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Atlanta, GA

    See Poster
  • 2014

    Simultaneous acquisition of functional magnetic resonance images and impedance cardiography. Psychophysiology. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12385

    Cieslak, M., Ryan, W. S., Macy, A., Kelsey, R. M., Cornick, J. E., Verket, M., Blascovich, J. & Grafton, S.

    ,

    Read Paper
  • June, 2015

    Neuropsychophysiological mapping: Concurrent psychophysiological recording and fMRI at 7T

    Robinson, J.L., Miller, M. W., Lohse, K., Beyers, R., Grand, K., Kirby, L. A. J., Hill, A. C., Murphy, J. E., Macy A. J., & Graap, K.

    To be presented at the annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Honolulu, HI

    See Poster
  • 2015

    Neuropsychophysiological mapping: Concurrent psychophysiological recording and fMRI at 7T

    Jennifer L. Robinson, Ph.D., Matthew Miller, Ph.D., Keith Lohse, Ph.D., Kirk Grand, Ashley C. Hill, Jerry E. Murphy, Lauren A. J. Kirby, Ken Graap, M.Ed., Alan Macy, M.S.E.E.

    To be presented at the Annual Meeting for the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Seattle, WA

    See Poster
  • 2015

    Neuropsychophysiological mapping following sleep restriction and extension: A 7T fMRI and peripheral psychophysiology study.

    Robinson, J. L., Murphy, J. E., Hill, A. C., Kirby, L. A. J., Graap, K., Macy, A., Erath, S., & El-Sheikh, M.

    Presented at the Annual Meeting for the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Seattle, WA

    See Poster
  • 2015

    Examining central and autonomic nervous system interaction with simultaneous fMRI and impedance cardiography

    Scott T. Grafton, Matt Cieslak, Will S. Ryan, Viktoriya Babenko, Alex Asturias, Alan Macy, Jim Blascovich

    Presented at the Annual Meeting for the Society for Neuroscience, Chicago, IL

    See Poster
  • 2019

    A Wearable Heart Monitor For Measuring Changes Of The Sympathetic Nervous System

    Viktoriya Babenko, Neil Dundon, Matthew Cieslak, Alan Macy, Richard Scott, Alexandra Stump, Morgan Fitzgerald, Shefali Verma, Cepideh Razavi, Scott T. Grafton

    26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA

    See Poster
  • 2019

    Performance, Art, and Cyber-Interoceptive Systems (PACIS)

    Mark-David Hosale, Kate Digby, Erika Batdorf, Alan Macy

    6th International Conference on Movement and Computing, Tempe, AZ

    Read Paper

Presentations

  • Bioinformatics and the Human-Computer Interface

    New computer interfaces are becoming available which transform human biologically-generated activity into viable data input sources for computers. Human-sourced activity such as the physiological signals manifested by the heart, skeletal muscle, neuronal activity of the brain, eye movements, skin conductance or pulse are viable input data sources for computers and provide a wealth of information not readily available via alternate means. Methods for collection, analysis and interpretation of these types of data were presented. Consider the concept of computer interfaces that are capable of discerning one’s emotional dimension and motivational state for the purposes of enhancing and improving the creative design process and associated results. The realization of “emotional – motivational state resonance” between the designer and computer application could result in rapidly obtained design results that match the designer’s objectives. Such methodology could also be applied to recipients to deliver meaningful data back to the designer for inclusion in the design process.

    See Slide Deck

    Presentation Dates and Locations

    • March 2010

      TU Delft, Netherlands

    • March 2010

      Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM), Amsterdam, Netherlands

    • March 2010

      Media Technology, University of Aalborg, Denmark

    • April 2010

      Media Arts and Technology, UCSB

    • April 2010

      Fishbon Arts Collaborative, Event Lab, Santa Barbara, CA

    • October 2010

      Biomedical Engineering, Dalhousie, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

    • March 2015

      In Touch Health, Goleta, CA

    • November 2015

      MAXMSP Music Class, Computer Science Dept., Virginia Polytechnic, VA

  • To Radiate Essential Nature

    In the pivotal years 1791-1794, methods and results developed by L. Galvani and A. Volta establish a profound basis for the scientific fields of electrophysiology and electrical telecommunications. Galvani’s twitching frog (and inadvertent battery) lead to the understanding that electricity mediates the flow of information inside the body. Volta’s pile battery created a stable power source for the seminal work of Faraday, Oersted and Ohm. Human nervous system extension took a significant leap forward with the development of the telephone in 1876. Electricity moving inside the body could now directly mediate the flow of electricity outside the body, at a relatively high bit rate. In these most recent 220 years, the human nervous system has been greatly extended through the use of evolving telecommunications technology. We are now augmenting voice and image transfer modalities with techniques that extend the reach of new types of human-sourced data, such as emotional and motivational state.

    Slide Deck

    Presentation Dates and Locations

    • May 2012

      Dutch Electronics Arts Festival (DEAF), Rotterdam, Netherlands

    • May 2012

      Fishbon Event Lab, Santa Barbara, CA

  • Beauty and the Origins of Electrophysiology, Telecommunications and the Global Theater

    A tale that starts 360 B.C.E. and moves to the 17th century and beyond. A patchwork quilt story that starts with beauty and weaves its definition with emotional feeling, taste, the galvanic cell, electrophysiology, the telephone, re-tribalization and the Omega Point. Lambert’s, Hume’s and Sulzer’s ideas about taste, pleasure and appreciation of beauty have contributed to the origins of psychophysiological thought, and to the origins of electrophysiology. Methods developed by Galvani and Volta establish basis for the fields of electrophysiology and electrical telecommunications. Galvani’s twitching frog led to the understanding that electricity mediates the flow of information inside the body. Volta’s battery created a stable power source for the seminal work of Oersted and Faraday. Human nervous system extension was realized with the development of the telephone in 1876. Electricity moving inside the body could now directly mediate the flow of electricity outside the body, at an equivalent bit rate. At this transformative, technology-driven juncture, the body’s real-time nervous system components for speech and hearing were capable of being physically extended to great distances. Real-time, human nervous system extension technologies became tightly synchronized with power generation and transmission abilities. Extremely rapid human population growth and energy consumption was coincident.

    Presentation Dates and Locations

    • February 2013

      Media Arts and Technology, UCSB

    • April 2013

      Lucidity Festival, Santa Barbara, CA

    • May 2014

      Architecture Department, Dalhousie, Nova Scotia, Canada

    • May 2014

      Google Inc., TechTalk, Mountain View, CA

    • November 2014

      California Biofeedback Society, 40th Anniversary Conference, Oakland, CA

    • October 2015

      Shanghai Crystal Globe Cultural Expo, Lingang, China

    • October 2015

      TEDx “Lift-Off”, Asia World Expo, Hong Kong

  • Perception, Filtering and Art

    The human sensory system is a filtering system. Physical form and activity are perceived by the senses and translated into modulated streams of ionic current. These currents are moved though the body, via the nervous system, to the brain. Specialized brain regions receive and decipher these modulated current signals to process them for interpretation by other functionalities operating within the body. There are volitional and non-volitional (autonomic) aspects to our bodies. We can consciously and intentionally stimulate motor neurons, which innervate muscle fibers, to move our bodies. Other processes, like heart rate, digestion and perspiration are primarily subconsciously mediated. Some actions, like breathing, are subject to both subconscious and conscious control. And certainly, our conscious thought rests upon an emotional sea and our emotions are linked to autonomic processes in our bodies. If aroused, we can experience increased heart rate and perspiration. If we are happy, delicate muscles in our face contract to create a smile. Our mood, which stimulates our conscious thought, will influence our perception because our emotional substrate acts as a neurological filter. There is no clear separation between the medium either outside or inside the body. Human perception encompasses a continuum of medium filters. And also, the links between body and environment are richer than these connected medium filters. There is a resonance that’s established between body and environment that is subject to the cause and effect relationship between physiological and emotional state. We are stimulated by the environmental medium, and in turn, we can manipulate that medium, thus mixing cause and effect.

    Presentation Dates and Locations

  • Origin Story

    Visual Autobiography – 1958 to Present Day

    Presentation Dates and Locations

    • November 2015

      Innovation and Entrepreneurship Summit, Virginia Polytechnic, Blacksburg, VA