News & Events

Dr. Yolanda A. Rankin is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at Florida State University. Her research interests include developing best practices for broadening participation in K-16 computing education, designing video games to promote Second Language Acquisition (SLA), and utilizing Black feminist epistemologies (intersectionality and Black feminist thought) as critical frameworks for designing technology with underserved populations.

Professor Scheines received his Ph.d in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh in 1987, and joined the faculty in Philosophy in 1990. His research has focused on the connection between statistical evidence and causal claims, and on educational computing. In addition to his appointment in Philosophy, he is a member of the Center for Automated Learning and Discovery, the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and is the director of the undergraduate major in HCI.

Jon received both his undergraduate BFA in Industrial Design as well as his Masters in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His work at Trilogy, in Austin, TX, focused on interface-level interaction design for Fortune 500 clients such as Ford, Sun and IBM. After working at several start-ups in Austin, he joined the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA in 2003.

Alessandro Acquisti is an Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also a member of the CMU Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory, a member of CMU Privacy Technology Center, and a member of CMU Cylab.

Terry Swack is a 20-year veteran of the design profession as well as a leading digital strategist. Formerly, Terry was founder and CEO of TSDesign, an Internet strategy and product design firm which was acquired by Razorfish in 1999.

The development of the User Experience Audit, in 1996, was the first offering of its kind and positioned TSDesign as an industry leader in design analysis and user experience management. Clients included 3M, Compaq, BankBoston, WebCriteria, Tripod, Dell and Cendant Mortgage.

Noriyuki Fujimura began to make interactive artworks using his experience in the field of architecture and urban design. He has a BA in architecture (Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music) and a Masters degree in Media and Public Policy (Keio University). He is currently a Visiting Artist/Research Fellow at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry in the College of Fine Arts, supported by the Japanese Ministry of Cultural Affairs. He will present his artwork as part of a group exhibition “Healing the Environment” at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts this November.

Jenna is currently a co-founder of Fit Associates, LLC. Fit’s intention is to lead, nurture, connect and equip conscious clients for the greatest impact for the common good. Fit’s industry client list includes Nissan, Comcast, Whirlpool, SAP, Microsoft and Respironics. Increasingly, Fit is turning its attention to work in sustainability, local development, and other issues whose scope exceeds the reach of any one organization.

Professor Alex (“Sandy”) Pentland is a pioneer in computational social science, organizational engineering, and mobile information systems. He directs the Human Dynamics Lab, helping companies to become more productive and creative through organizational engineering, and the Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, which helps translate cutting-edge technology into real-world impact around the world. He is among the most-cited computer scientists in the world.

Harry Hochheiser is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University in Maryland, with a dissertation focusing on interactive visualization of time series data sets. Dr. Hochheiser’s research has covered a range of topics, including human-computer interaction, information visualization, bioinformatics, universal usability, security, privacy, and public policy implications of computing systems. Dr.

Dr. Rosé is an Associate Professor of Language Technologies and Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research program is focused on better understanding the social and pragmatic nature of conversation, and using this understanding to build computational systems that can improve the efficacy of conversation between people, and between people and computers. In order to pursue these goals, she invokes approaches from computational discourse analysis and text mining, conversational agents, and computer supported collaborative learning.

Leilani Battle is an Assistant Professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and co-director of the UW Interactive Data Lab. Her research spans the areas of data management, HCI, and data visualization.

Scott is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he co-directs the Human-Computer Interaction Group. Organizations around the world use his lab’s open-source design tools and curricula; several books and popular press articles have covered his research and teaching.