New Junior Professorships Honor Two Longtime HCII Faculty Members

Jessica Hammer and Amy Ogan, faculty members in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII), received the inaugural Thomas and Lydia Moran Career Development Professorships in Learning Science during a Feb. 19 ceremony.
Sara Kiesler, Hillman Chair Emerita of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found ways to track body movements and detect shape changes using arrays of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. RFID-embedded clothing thus could be used to control avatars in video games — much like in the movie "Ready Player One." Embedded clothing could also tell you when you should sit up straight— much like your mother.
Investment in research is at an all-time high, yet the rate of scientific breakthroughs isn't setting any records. To resolve this quandary, scientists are turning to artificial intelligence and crowdsourcing for help in identifying a key inspiration for innovation — the perfect analogy.
By mhenninger [at] cmu.edu (Michael Henninger)
Kevin Jarbo used to take the bus from his apartment in the Hill District, one of Pittsburgh's predominantly black neighborhoods. At the bus stop, he'd watch kids eating bags of chips for breakfast. The Hill didn't have a grocery store.
More than 100 Carnegie Mellon University students participated in an on-campus challenge last month, designing solutions for an emerging field so new that the technology, a pair of Bose augmented reality (AR) glasses, wasn’t even available to the participants.
The upcoming Bose AR technology will enable developers to superimpose sound on top of the real world based on location or head gestures, creating opportunities for novel experiences with learning, music, travel, and more.
Four Ph.D. students from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute contributed to the Fall 2018 issue of XRDS (Crossroads), the ACM Magazine by students for students. XRDS is a quarterly print and online publication that reaches tens of thousands of computer science students around the world.
This issue, “The Computer Scientist,” features interviews with a variety of computer scientists about their paths to this broad field.
The Human-Computer Interaction Institute is currently seeking client sponsors for spring semester 2019 projects.
Capstone projects are a partnership that benefit both parties -- project sponsors get hundreds of hours of skilled research and development, while our students gain valuable experience working on a real-world project.