Christopher Weaver

In 2012, Christopher Weaver is president of Media Technology Ltd., an engineering and consulting firm specializing in computer game design, user interface and media gateways. He also teaches game studies and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1985, he founded Bethesda Softworks. Bethesda is credited with developing the first physics engine for realtime sports simulation and created the original John Madden Football for Electronic Arts. During the course of twenty years and over fifty games, Weaver led the teams that created The Terminator, Wayne Gretzky Hockey, and the Elder Scrolls role-playing series, of which Skyrim is the latest chapter. In addition, he introduced the first massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) released in conjunction with a major motion picture, and created the user interface for the Victoria’s Secret website. He has made seminal contributions to both academic and commercial interactive multimedia and holds numerous patents in the field.

Weaver was formerly Chief Engineer to the Congressional Subcommittee on Communications; Vice President of Science & Technology for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association; and directed the Office of Technology Forecasting for the American Broadcasting Company.

He holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in Computer Science and Japanese from Wesleyan University and in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Upon returning from Japan on an International Institute of Education scholarship, he was elected a University Scholar and went on to complete a dual doctoral degree in Japanese and Physics. A former member of the Architecture Machine Group and Fellow of the MIT Communications and Policy Program, Weaver is currently a member of the MIT Communications Forum, an Instructor in the Comparative Media Studies program, and a Communications Technology Roadmap Board Member and Fellow in the MIT Microphotonics Center working on optical communications. He was inducted into the Cosmos Club in 2005.

A member of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Society for Cable Television Engineers, the Society for Motion Picture Engineers and the American National Standards Committee, Weaver contributed some of the earliest work in graphic interface, optical storage and broadband communications. He was the principal architect of the first electronic catalog for Federated Department Stores in 1982; helped design the Western Union satellite network; was one of the designers of the data communications system for the U.S. Congress, and the youngest scientist ever appointed by the National Academy of Sciences to represent the United States delegation at the XXth Assembly of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI).