NEWTON, Massachusetts (May 17, 2004) -- Zoesis Studios announced today it has appointed David Blohm to its Board of Directors and added Professor John Mayer, Professor Pattie Maes and Kevin Mowrer to the company's Strategic Advisory Board. According to Ellen Bossert, chief executive officer, Zoesis, "David, John, Pattie and Kevin provide Zoesis with immeasurable talent, wisdom and vision. The group's unique combination of skills will further support the company's mission of bringing seemingly alive, emotional digital characters to children on a broad basis."

Bossert continued, "Any experience that deepens a child's bond with characters through emotional interactions delivers a whole new level of play to kids. These visionaries will ensure that Zoesis is synonymous with meaningful, enriching, educational products that appeal to parents and children alike."

About David Blohm

David Blohm's career includes 27 years of entrepreneurship, mentoring and public service.

David was, most recently, president president and CEO of SmarterKids.Com, the leading educational store on the Web dedicated to helping parents help their children learn and develop. David led SmarterKids.com to its initial public offering in late 1999 and to its merger with EarlyChildhood to form Excelligence (LRNS).

David also co-founded MathSoft, Inc. in 1985, a firm that develops and markets mathematical calculation software sold to engineers, scientists, teachers and students. As president president and CEO, he led that firm to its initial public offering in 1993.

David is a past chairman of the Massachusetts Software and Internet Council and chairman of the Council's Education Task Force. David now serves as the president president of the Council's Education Foundation that is recognizing teaching excellence in middle school math and science. David is a trustee of the Boston Children's Museum and an advisor to several companies in the areas of wireless technology for the classroom, interactive entertainment/advertising and educational consulting.

About John Mayer, Ph.D.

Dr. John Mayer is a pioneer and preeminent authority in the field of emotional intelligence and personality psychology.

For more than a decade Dr. Mayer has developed the concept of emotional intelligence, sought to improve its measurement and to understand what it predicts. Currently Dr. Mayer serves as professor of Psychology at the University of New Hampshire. Members of Dr. Mayer's laboratory have been examining how people high in emotional intelligence differ from others in their life styles and life outcomes.

Dr. Mayer has also developed a systems approach to personality psychology. This system framework joins together many personality parts such as self-concept and sociability and considers how they are organized together and develop over the life span. Most recently his graduate students have been using this framework to assess the relationship between internal personality and a person's expression of personality in the life space. This framework now serves as the basis of another study examining alternative ways to measure personality.

Dr. Mayer has been published in highly esteemed journals such as Psychological Inquiry and Journal of Research in Personality. He has served on the editorial boards of Psychological Bulletin, the Journal of Personality, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, among others. He holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan, his Ph.D. in Psychology from Case Western Reserve University and was a postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University.

About Pattie Maes, Ph.D.

Dr. Pattie Maes is a highly regarded expert in human-computer interaction, artificial life, artificial intelligence, collective intelligence, and intelligence augmentation.

Dr. Maes is an associate professor in MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences. She founded and directs the Media Lab's Interactive Experience research group. Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Dr. Maes was a visiting professor and a research scientist at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab.

Dr. Maes is the editor of three books, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences. She has received several awards: Newsweek named her one of the "100 Americans to watch for" in the year 2000; TIME Digital selected her as a member of the Cyber-Elite, the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic Forum honored her with the title "Global Leader for Tomorrow"; and in 2000 she was recognized with the "Lifetime Achievement Award" by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council.

In addition to her academic career, Dr. Maes is also an experienced entrepreneur and an active member of the New England business community. She co-founded Firefly Network as well as Open Ratings, Inc. She is an advisor to numerous companies and sits on the technical advisory board of Polaris Ventures and Reuters V.C.

About Kevin Mowrer

Kevin Mowrer is a master at identifying brand extensions for entertainment, including television, motion pictures, toys, board games and electronic publishing.

While senior vice president of R&D for Hasbro's Kenner division (1990-1998), Kevin directed the creative and R&D effort that led to explosive growth. He helped to dramatically increase the commercial potential and brand longevity of licensed Hasbro properties by developing relationships with Hollywood partners such as Warner Brothers, Sony, Fox, and Dreamworks on projects including the "Batman" franchise, "Jurassic Park" and "Small Soldiers."

Recognizing the untapped potential of Hasbro's own brand portfolio, Kevin founded and formed Hasbro's property development center, The Fantasy Factory, in 1998. Kevin led the development of brands from Hasbro's property library for placement in television, video, publishing, board games, card games and general licensing categories. Property expansions included the Transformers, Beast Wars, Tonka Joe and Mr. Potato Head brands.

In February of 2000, Kevin left Hasbro to found THE STORY HAT™, an intellectual property development company, leveraging his many years of development experience across platforms and categories.

About Zoesis, Inc.
Zoesis is a highly advanced digital arts studio that uses proprietary cognitive science and artificial intelligence technology to deliver interactive characters in a completely new way. Zoesis' technology allows users to experience an engaging and empowering two-way relationship with digital characters—creating a powerful and distinct entertainment genre. Simply stated, Zoesis creates sentient characters in responsive worlds where the consumer becomes the essential co-star.

Zoesis, located in Newton, Massachusetts, was launched in Pittsburgh in 1996 by a four-person computer science and fine arts research team from Carnegie Mellon University. The company moved to Boston in 1997, where it now develops its unique artificial intelligence-based entertainment technology for commercial use. Further information about Zoesis can be found at www.zoesis.com.