HCII Director Elected to CHI Academy
News
Dey Is Institute's Eighth Academy Member
HCII Director and Associate Professor Anind Dey has been elected to the CHI Academy — an honorary group of individuals who have made substantial contributions to the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). Each year, the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction elects five to seven new academy members whose efforts have shaped the discipline and the industry. Members are selected based on cumulative contributions to the HCI field, impact on the field through development of new research directions and/or innovations, influence on the work of others, and participation in the ACM SIGCHI community.
Dey's research focuses on the idea of context-aware computing, or adapting computing applications to a user's environment. His Ph.D. work at Georgia Tech resulted in a toolkit for context-aware computing that marked a transformation in the field. "Before then, any time you wanted to build a new application, you were building it from scratch," he said. "I identified some common abstractions that would make building context-aware applications much easier."
Since then, he has continued to work in adaptive systems that use technology to learn peoples’ behaviors over time. He's particularly interested in determining the difference between routine and non-routine behaviors, and applying this knowledge to areas like healthcare, education, sustainability and driving.
"I'm really floored to be included in such an elite group of researchers in the human-computer interaction field," Dey said. "The members of the CHI Academy invented and have continued to innovate the field of HCI, and to be among them is truly a tremendous honor. Of course, I owe so much to the amazing set of mentors, colleagues and students I have worked with.”
Dey has received numerous accolades throughout his career, including four best paper awards; eight best paper nominations; the Georgia Tech Graphics, Visualization and Usability (GVU) Alumni Research Impact Award; and the ACM Recognition of Service Award. He joins five current HCII faculty members who belong to the CHI Academy: Professor Jodi Forlizzi, Professor Scott Hudson, Hillman Professor of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction Sara Kiesler, Herbert A. Simon Professor of Human-Computer Interaction Robert E. Kraut, and Professor Brad Myers. Former HCII Professor Bonnie John and the late Randy Pausch are also CHI Academy members. Carnegie Mellon is currently home to more CHI Academy members than any other academic institution in the world.