Jonathan Culler (born 1944), Professor of English at Cornell University
This is not necessarily the same construction as the Culler-Shalen character variety (generated by evaluations of traces), although when the they do agree since Procesi has shown that in this case the ring of invariants is in fact generated by only traces.
Culler is the son of Glen Jacob Culler who was an important early innovator in the development of the Internet.