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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Test Seminar | 
Her Majesty's Secret Agent |
Think you have what it takes to become James Bond? This seminar will explain the process in which Her Majesty recruits James Bonde wannabes. Hail Britannia! We don't compare ourselves with other 3 letter agencies. | |
| A Computer Scientist's View of HCI, Systems and Theory | 
Associate Professor |
This talk is actually two talks, one about research our team did in applying social psychology to cybersecurity, and another about the nature and role of theory in HCI and how it relates to systems and practice. The research part of the talk looks at problems cybersecurity is facing, and… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series: Steven Dow |
Steven Dow Assistant Professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University |
A Research Journey from Telepresence to Design Theory to Social Computing Research, like life, often takes us in unexpected directions. This talk reflects on my research journey through HCI. It began nearly 20 years ago as a U. Iowa undergrad when I helped design the remote-operator… Full Details | |
| From EHRs to Body-Worn Sensors: Finding Causes of Health and Disease | 
Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Stevens Institute of Technology |
Massive amounts of medical data from electronic health records are now being mined by researchers, and can be used to improve care such as by finding factors affecting the recovery of patients in intensive care, or early risk factors for heart failure. However, patients are highly heterogeneous,… Full Details | |
| Interacting with Personal Fabrication Machines | 
PhD Student, Human Computer Interaction Lab, Hasso Plattner Institute |
Even though considered a rapid prototyping tool, 3D printers are very slow. Many objects require several hours of printing time or even have to print overnight. One could argue that the way 3D printers are currently operated is similar to the batch processing of punched cards in the early days of… Full Details | |
| Modeling Human Communication Dynamics | 
Assistant Professor, Language Technology Institute, Carnegie Mellon University |
Human face-to-face communication is a little like a dance, in that participants continuously adjust their behaviors based on verbal and nonverbal cues from the social context. Today's computers and interactive devices are still lacking many of these human-like abilities to hold fluid and natural… Full Details | |
| Unlocking the Potential of Algorithms in Human Matters | 
Research Scientist, Center for Machine Learning and Health, Carnegie Mellon University |
Even beyond industrial domains such as production and operation management, algorithms increasingly act as mediators between people and the world around them, from curating Facebook walls to matching riders with Uber drivers to selecting top job candidates on LinkedIn. Yet despite their often-… Full Details | |
| Playing with the Senses | 
Assistant Teaching Professor, Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University |
Widely-available digital games are usually limited to technologies that reach our sense of sight and sound. Yet so much more is possible in the realm of expressive communication through playful interaction. In a review of some recent research-creation projects, we’ll explore the limitations… Full Details | |
| Evidence-oriented Programming | 
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Nevada, Las Vegas |
Computer science has a long and complex history with programming languages. Historically, we have conducted evaluations using proofs, to ensure they give us the answers we intend, and performance data, to ensure they perform efficiently. While these two techniques are well established and… Full Details | |
| From Paid to Organic Crowdsourcing | 
Associate Professor of Computer Science, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences |
Human computation systems seamlessly combine human perception, creativity and knowledge with machine-driven algorithmic computation. Such systems have been demonstrated to accomplish tasks that could not previously be accomplished by either machines or by non-experts alone. Contemporary… Full Details | |
| Barbarians | 
Studio Director, Interactive Institute Swedish ICT |
In an age of massive transnational migrations, it becomes relevant to explore the concept of Barbarians. Where do they come from? From afar or from within? Barbarians are the ones that do not speak the language, they do not share the same system of representations of the accepted situated… Full Details | |
| Debiasing Decisions: Improved Decision Making With a Single Training Intervention | 
Associate Professor of Marketing, Questrom School of Business, Boston University |
From failures of intelligence analysis to misguided beliefs about vaccinations, biased judgment and decision making contributes to problems in policy, business, medicine, law, education, and private life. Early attempts to reduce decision biases with training met with little success, leading… Full Details | |
| Data-Driven Healthcare: Visual Analytics for Exploration and Prediction of Clinical Data | 
Research Scientist, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center |
Healthcare institutions are now recording more electronic health data about patients than ever before, including data about patient conditions, lab tests, genomics, treatments, and outcomes. However, an open question remains on what one can do with all of this data. Many hope… Full Details | |
| Designing At The Intersections | 
Assistant Professor, School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University |
Despite growing interest in interdisciplinary educations, many young art students still fear the idea of learning about technology. One of the missing pieces in enabling art students to get excited about learning something beyond their comfort zone is helping the students figure out how other… Full Details | |
| Design History: The Bauhaus | 
Associate Teaching Professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University |
The Bauhaus was the first academy for design in the world and has played a significant role in the history of design, art, and new media. The motivations behind the creation of the Bauhaus lay in 19th century anxieties about the soullessness of manufacturing and its products. Many historians… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar: Yao Cheng | |||
| A Glance at Design Education and Practice in China | 
Deputy Director of Information Product Design Program, Zhejiang University |
In recent years, China is more and more focused on innovation and design as it's desired to transform itself from "Made in China" to "Designed in China" or "Created in China". How are we doing in this dramatic change? In this talk, I introduce the development of design education of Zhejiang… Full Details | |
| When New Technology Is Old: Organizing Surgery in the Face of Legacy Robotic Surgical Systems | 
Doctoral Student, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
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| Enabling Creativity Through Better Tools for Designers and Developers | 
Senior Research Scientist and Engineering Manager, Adobe Research |
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| HCII Seminar Series: Nicole Kramer | |||
| Exploring the Universe with Immersive Virtual Reality | 
Human Interfaces Manager, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab |
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| Behavioral Science at Disney Research | 
Research Scientist, Disney Research |
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| Your Brain on Typography | 
Senior Curator, Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Tasty Technology: Creating Multisensory Experiences | 
Lecturer in Interaction Design, Department of Informatics, University of Sussex |
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| Going Beyond Code Search | 
Professor, Computer Science Department, Brown University |
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| Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as Components of Rich Landscapes of Learning | 
Adjunct Professor and Professor Emeritus, Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder |
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| The Continuing Quest for Secure and Usable Passwords | 
Professor, Computer Science and Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University |
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| Humanizing the Enterprise: Delivering Best in Class Experience to Business Software Users | 
Head of Strategic Design Services, Design & Co-Innovation Center, SAP Labs |
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| Toward Gender-Inclusive Software: A Tale of Five Facets | 
Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University |
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| Walgreens Customer Experience: From "At" to "Through" | 
UX Manager, Walgreens |