Past Seminars
The HCII Seminar Series has been a weekly tradition at CMU since 1990. Details of our seminars from 2014 to present, as well as many of their recordings, are available below. A few years ago, we held a year of special programming in celebration of the seminar's 25th anniversary.
| Date | Title | Speaker | Talk title and Abstract |
|---|---|---|---|
| HCII Seminar Series - 4 HCII Postdocs | 
HCII Postdocs |
The HCII regularly gives our postdocs an opportunity to present during the HCII Speaker Series. This Friday’s seminar will feature four presentations in a hybrid format -- three will be presenting in person in NSH and one will be presenting remotely. If you are available, we hope you will join us… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - featuring HCII Postdocs |
Adetunji Adeniran, Danielle Chine and Tricia Ngoon Postdoctoral Researchers |
The HCII regularly gives our postdocs an opportunity to present during the HCII Speaker Series. This week we will hear from three postdocs from the learning sciences: Adetunji Adeniran, Danielle Chine and Tricia Ngoon. Each person will present for approximately 15 minutes with limited… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Amy Pavel | 
Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas, Austin |
Human-AI Systems for Making Videos Useful Video is becoming a core medium for communicating a wide range of content, including educational lectures, vlogs, and how-to tutorials. While videos are engaging and informative, they lack the familiar and useful affordances of text for browsing, skimming… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Leah Buechley | 
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico |
"Hand and Machine" I believe that by making technology more accessible and building artifacts that look and feel different from anything that has been built in the past, I can change and broaden the culture of technology. I can get a diverse range of people excited by the ways that computers and… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Shunichi Kasahara | 
Researcher, Group leader at Sony Computer Science Laboratories |
"Superception : Exploring new “Self” in the integration of humans and computers" When computers and humans integrate, to what extent are we ourselves? Computers are already no longer tools of humans, but are gaining the ability to make decisions and actions beyond humans. Furthermore,… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Kat Schrier Shaenfield |
Kat Schrier Shaenfield Associate Professor/Director of Games, Marist College, School of Communication and the Arts; Consultant, Game Designer, World Health Organization (WHO) |
"What if We Could Design Games to Reduce Biases and Enhance Compassion?" Virtual reality (VR) and other types of games have been developed for educational purposes, with mixed results. We are still learning the best practices (and limitations) for designing games for skill development, such… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Tom Hope | 
Postdoctoral researcher at The Allen Institute for AI (AI2) and The University of Washington |
"Harnessing Scientific Literature for Boosting Discovery and Innovation" In the year 1665, the first academic journal was published. Fast forward to today, there are millions of scientific papers coming out every year. This explosion of knowledge represents an opportunity to accelerate innovation… Full Details | |
| HCII Speaker Series - Daragh Byrne |
Daragh Byrne Associate Teaching Track faculty, School of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University |
"Storytelling with data and devices: making sense of the quantified self" Stories about our everyday experiences are one of the main sensemaking methods we use to find meaning in our lives. As our lives are increasingly documented through smartphones, social media, and digital devices, we have… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Nazanin Andalibi | 
Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School of Information |
"Where is the Human in Emotion Recognition/AI Technologies?" Emotions are powerful, mediate humans’ experiences with their surroundings, and impact decision-making and attention online and off. Sharing and signaling one’s emotions to other humans can be beneficial, but involves privacy… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Joel Chan | 
Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College of Information Studies (iSchool) |
"Accelerating Scientific Discovery by Lowering Barriers to User-Generated Synthesis of Scientific Literature" In today's scholarly communication infrastructure, it is practically impossible to get timely answers to basic questions like "What is the best evidence that informs how vaccines will hold… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Marshini Chetty | 
Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Chicago |
"Imagine All The People On A Trustworthy Internet" Imagine a world where the Internet caters to all types of users and hosts trustworthy content. Right now, this world seems far off for many reasons. For instance, this world would require us to think more broadly of user needs beyond an `… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Susan Wyche | 
Associate Professor, Michigan State University, Department of Media and Information |
"Reconsidering Human-Centered Approaches to Design in Human-Computer Interaction and Development (HCI4D): Using Design Methods to Reimagine Technology in Rural Kenya" Enthusiasm for using human-centered design persists among HCI and HCI4D researchers and practitioners; funding agencies continue to… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Michael Wessely | 
Postdoctoral Associate at MIT CSAIL |
"Fabricating Physical User Interfaces with Smart Materials" Physical user interfaces like mobile phones, or wearable health monitors fundamentally changed how we live and work. However, their fabrication is still exclusive to industry and manufacturing experts. I envision that in the future… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Gabriela Marcu | 
Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School of Information |
"Designing for Coordination and Intervention in Behavioral Health" Behavioral and mental health is an underserved area, and receives less focus in health informatics research. Technology can play a role in different types of coordination with meaningful impact on behavioral and mental… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Robin Brewer | 
Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan |
"Challenging, Understanding, and Innovating to Support Aging and Online Engagement" The United States Census predicts that by 2030, one in five people will be over the age of 65, with similar trends globally. Such rapid growth of the older adult population presents opportunities and challenges… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Luke Stark | 
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario |
“Ordering Emotion: Scenes from the History of Affective Computing” In fields ranging from health and wellness and advertising and marketing to public safety and security, and political campaigning, data analytics tools united with techniques from the psychological and behavioral sciences… Full Details | |
| Special Seminar: Portable Laser Cutting with Thijs Roumen | 
Ph.D. student at Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam, Germany |
A portable format for laser cutting will enable millions of users to benefit from laser-cut models as opposed to the 1000s of tech enthusiasts that engage with laser cutting today. What holds widely adopted use back is the limited ability to modify and fabricate existing models. It may seem like a… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Morgan Ames | 
Assistant Adjunct Professor in the School of Information and Associate Director of the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society at the University of California, Berkeley |
"The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child" Drawing on her book, The Charisma Machine, Ames chronicles the life and legacy of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why — despite its failures — the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Timnit Gebru | 
Co-founder, Black in AI |
"The hierarchy of knowledge in machine learning and related fields and its consequences" Feminist and race and gender scholars have long critiqued "the view from nowhere" that assumes science is "objective" and studied from no particular standpoint. In this talk, I discuss how… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Oliver Haimson | 
Assistant Professor, University of Michigan, School of Information |
"Designing Trans Technology" Transgender and nonbinary people face substantial challenges in the world, ranging from social inequities and discrimination to lack of access to resources. Though technology cannot fully solve these problems, technological solutions may help to address some of the… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Andrea G. Parker | 
Associate Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech |
"Community Wellness Informatics: Designing Technology for Health Equity" In the United States, there are serious and persistent disparities in health outcomes. For example, socioeconomic status is predictive of mortality and disease, with low-SES households … Full Details | |
| Seminar: Ayanna M Howard | 
Dean, College of Engineering, The Ohio State University |
"Understanding and Mitigating Bias and Human Overtrust in Robotics and AI" People tend to overtrust sophisticated computing devices, including robotic systems. As these systems become more fully interactive with humans during the performance of day-to-day activities, the role of bias in these… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Denae Ford Robinson | 
Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research and Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington |
"A Tale of Two Cities: Software Developers in Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic" The mass shift to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the way many software development teams collaborate, communicate, and define productivity. Since the early months of the pandemic… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Tawanna Dillahunt | 
Associate Professor, University of Michigan |
"Designing and Rethinking the Role of Digital Tools in Support of Employment among Job Seekers Experiencing Marginalization" Today’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are designed to address one of society’s most pressing problems---unemployment. These technologies are… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Charlton McIlwain | 
Vice Provost for Faculty & Professor of Media Culture, and Communication, New York University |
"Dreams of (Black) Tech Futures Past" Abstract: This is what could have been. If the computer geeks at MIT in 1960 had just held on just a little while longer with our Mississippi freedom riders. If our uprisings in Watts, and Detroit, and Newark and Kansas City did not make us the computing… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Yolanda Rankin | 
Assistant Professor, School of Communications & Information, Florida State University |
"Rethinking Intersectionality in the Field of Computing: A Black Woman's Perspective" Intersectionality, a critical framework that examines how interconnected systems of power oppress marginalized populations, is currently receiving new garnered attention in the context of Human-Computer… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Jessica Hullman | 
Associate Professor of Computer Science, Northwestern University |
"Beyond Visualization: Theories of Inference to Improve Data Analysis & Communication" Data analysis is a decidedly human task. As Tukey and Wilk once wrote, “Nothing—not the careful logic of mathematics, not statistical models and theories, not the awesome arithmetic power of modern computers… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Anne Marie Piper | 
Associate Professor, University of California Irvine |
"Rethinking Design for Accessibility" Approximately 61 million Americans, or one in four U.S. adults, have a disability that affects daily life. Despite the prevalence of disability across the lifespan, accessibility is typically an afterthought in technology design. Discussions of accessibility… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Tamara Lynnette Clegg | 
Associate Professor, College of Information Studies and the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership, College of Education, University of Maryland |
"Designing Socio-technical Systems for Learning in the Third Place" Oldenberg (1989) characterizes Third Places as the gathering places outside of home, work, and school where informal public life (e.g., friendship, laughter, light-heartedness, civic participation) develop dynamically. Indeed… Full Details | |
| Seminar: Martin Robillard | 
Professor, McGill University |
"Supporting opportunistic learning in software development with Wikipedia" Programmers are continually in situations where they must discover what they do not know and learn new concepts. Based on my recent research in this area, this talk will contrast the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia as… Full Details |