Abstract: Research and practice at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and global health has grown rapidly in the last few years, yet most of these efforts are fragmented and disconnected. There has been a pressing need to facilitate knowledge-sharing and resource coordination in this space across research and practice and multiple disciplines. With support from the IPaT engagement grant, we launched a global, interdisciplinary Research to Impact Collaborative (RIC) on AI and global health that: 1) supports knowledge-sharing across research and practice, 2) facilitates student learning, and 3) accelerates cross-sector collaborations. To catalyze the RIC, we have been conducting a year-long virtual seminar series and multiple in-person workshops that bring together researchers, practitioners, and students. This talk will reflect on the process of building a lasting collaborative, and laying the foundation for interdisciplinary collaborations and future funding.
Bio: Naveena Karusala is an Assistant Professor in Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Her research is on human-centered AI and health/wellbeing in underserved communities. She examines how we can design for more just care infrastructures that better recognize the labor, autonomy, and rights of care workers and care recipients. Her work has received Best Paper at ACM CHI and Diversity and Inclusion Recognition at ACM CSCW. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Center for Research on Computation and Society, and holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington. Naveena also serves as Vice-President for Communications on the ACM SIGCHI Executive Committee.
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Developing a community-based perspective on data center development
Abstract: Data centers are growing rapidly in the U.S., with nowhere more notable than in Georgia, particularly in the Atlanta metropolitan region. Moreover, data centers are often sited in ways that impose local external costs, impacting important aspects of everyday life, such as water security, energy prices, taxes, jobs, housing, and air quality. This talk shows how design-based workshops can be tools to investigate these trade-offs in constructing data centers, weighing the economic benefits against their external impacts on local Atlanta communities. Our talk in particular will discuss the process of designing these workshops, and the proposed outputs.
Bio: Cindy Lin is the Stephen Fleming Early Career Assistant Professor at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She is the director of Critical Technocultures Lab. Her research interests include data politics in environmental governance in Southeast Asia and the United States, and, more recently, rentier relations in global data center infrastructures.
Allen Hyde is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a quantitative scholar whose main research areas are stratification and inequality, urban sociology, work and occupations, climate and disaster resilience, and immigration. He is currently researching the effects of race/ethnicity and immigration status on homeownership, social and demographic change in Clarkston, GA (known as the most diverse square mile in America), and was recently Principal Investigator for the Youth Advocacy for Resilience to Disasters Program research project funded by the National Science Foundation's Civic Innovation Challenge.
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The Sound of Motion: Transforming Artistic Body Movement into Music for Motor Therapy
Abstract: We developed multimodal systems that transform the movement of the hand, arm, trunk, and head into the sounds of musical instruments (i.e., sonification). In one system, a depth camera captures human motion and creates associated musical sounds depending on the movement characteristics of the hand, arm, trunk, and head. The potential use cases include the rehabilitation training of reaching and grasping in stroke survivors and maintaining the head position upright in cerebral palsy. In another system, a virtual reality (VR) headset captures hand trajectory of the user in three dimensions in the VR environment. When the hand traces the visually presented target path appropriately, musical melody is produced. This modality could be used for training the arm and shoulder movements in people with limited range of motion, for example. This type of transformation of movement trajectories into musical sounds has the potential to empower people with motor disabilities to express their artistry with their less-impaired body parts as well. It could be personalized and is expected to benefit older adults and individuals with motor impairments by enhancing their well-being by introducing new, enjoyable, engaging, and rewarding artistic expressions or exercises.
Bio: Dr. Minoru “Shino” Shinohara is the director of the Human Neuromuscular Physiology Lab and an associate professor at the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech. He received his PhD in Multidisciplinary Sciences (Life Sciences) from the University of Tokyo, Japan. His research focuses on neurophysiological and biomechanical mechanisms that underpin motor skills, with a particular emphasis on their adaptations to altered neural input, aging-related changes, practice, and rehabilitation in humans. He employs state-of-the-art techniques in neuroscience, neuroengineering, physiology, and biomechanics, including transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation. In addition, he collaborates with engineers in the fields of human-robot interaction, human augmentation, machine learning, and their application in the enhancement of physical activity, sports, health, and rehabilitation.
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Designing Ethical Robot Behaviors for Unforeseen Human-Robot Interactions Using LLMs
Abstract: As robots increasingly operate within public spaces and urban environments, they are frequently confronted with morally ambiguous situations that are dynamic, complex, and unpredictable. Such contexts introduce novel factors and forms of agency that may quickly exceed the scope of anticipated—or pre-programmed—human–robot interactions (HRI). This raises a critical question: can morally appropriate robot behaviors be generated for unforeseen HRI scenarios using large language models (LLMs), and if so, how? In this talk, I present our proposed framework for generating morally appropriate robot behaviors, illustrated through the exemplar of a mobile, space-making robotic reading companion. I also briefly report on our current progress in evaluating this framework. Broadly, the framework comprises three key steps: (1) defining a library of robot behaviors; (2) training LLMs on general moral principles alongside examples of morally appropriate behaviors in predefined scenarios; and (3) leveraging the LLM to generate candidate behaviors for novel situations. The generated behaviors are subsequently evaluated by users and relevant stakeholders with respect to their perceived moral appropriateness. Through this work, we aim to offer a practical approach for designers and roboticists to develop novel robotic systems capable of behaving ethically in everyday, unforeseen contexts.
Bio: Yixiao Wang is an Assistant Professor at the School of Industrial Design (SID), Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). His background is in Architecture (B. Arch from Hunan University and M. Arch from UC Berkeley) and Human-Centered Design (Ph.D. from Cornell University). As an interaction designer and researcher, his work focuses on the human-centered design, engineering, and evaluation of “Space Agents” – physical and virtual spaces that are socially intelligent and interactive, as if they were our friends, partners, or companions. He is particularly interested in the various applications “Space Agents” could have in our everyday life, together with their lasting societal, cultural, and ethical values in education, healthcare, and work life. His major research fields are Architectural Robotics, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), and Human-Agent Interaction (HAI), broadly situated within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). He is the director of the “Robotic Environment Lab” at Georgia Tech, SID.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
This event will bring together people from academia, industry, government, and other organizations to discuss the future of data center sustainability, particularly from a social and policy lens, and to debate methods to help ensure equitable growth where the rewards and costs associated with this massively growing industry are shared across populations and communities. This is particularly important, as many community discussions about data centers focus on water and energy sustainability, while overlooking issues of policy, social, and community sustainability.
Our discussions will focus on both the local issues here in Atlanta and lessons learned and best practices we can draw from across the globe.
Expect engaging conversations pointing to a shared understanding of:
Event webpage with agenda and speaker details: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/data-ctrs-future-apr2026
]]>Abstract: As AI becomes increasingly powerful and ubiquitous, it is disrupting skills and displacing workers. NSF’s National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) posits that AI can be part of the solution to the growing problem if we can use AI for reskilling, upskilling, and workforce development at scale. The long-term vision of AI-ALOE is to develop and use AI technologies to enhance the proficiency of online education for all adult learners, using in-person education as a benchmark. The day-to-day mission of AI-ALOE is to conduct responsible research into AI that is grounded in theories of human cognition and learning and derived from the scientific process of learning engineering. I will describe ongoing research at AI-ALOE.
Bio: Ashok Goel is a Professor of Computer Science and Human-Centered Computing in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Chief Scientist with Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities. He is a Fellow of AAAI and the Cognitive Science Society, an Editor Emeritus of AAAI’s AI Magazine, and a recipient of AAAI’s Robert Engelmore Award, Outstanding AI Educator Award, Distinguished Service Award, and of multiple IBM Faculty Awards. Ashok is the PI and Executive Director of NSF’s National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (aialoe.org) headquartered at Georgia Tech. He is the Founder of Beyond Question AI, LLC.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: Archaeology is often considered to be about digging in the dirt. What could be less technological? But advances in technologies over the last 100 years have rocketed forward the scientific practice of archaeology. In this talk, GT's McEver Chair of Archaeology Allison Mickel will present the achievements of this century of technological advancements for archaeology and cultural heritage. More importantly, she will explore directions that the field is likely to move in over future decades, inviting collaboration across disciplines from you (yes you!), the audience.
Bio: Allison Mickel is the inaugural H. Bruce McEver Chair of Archaeological Science and Technologies at Georgia Tech, where she has arrived to build the Institute's first-ever archaeology program. Her research focuses on how archaeological work affects the communities that live on or near archaeological sites, particularly in the Middle East. She is the author of "Why Those Who Shovel Are Silent: A History of Local Archaeological Labor and Knowledge," which recovers the unrecorded expertise of locally-hired laborers at long-running archaeological projects in Jordan and Turkey. She is currently engaged in two projects in Atlanta focused on restorative history and public engagement, as well as a book project on current efforts to organize for workers' rights in Jordanian archaeology. She is also an active public anthropologist, writing for newspapers and online platforms, volunteering with the organization Skype a Scientist, reviewing educational material for organizations like the Boy Scouts of America, and organizing annual outreach events with local public schools for Anthropology Day.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Creating Space for Choice: LLM Supported Decision-Making in Inclusive Higher Education
Abstract: People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are often excluded from meaningful decision-making, leading to negative consequences for self-determination and quality of life. Research shows that interventions supporting active, informed decision-making can build causal agency and improve quality of life. In partnership with students, peer tutors, and advising staff at Georgia Tech's Inclusive Post-Secondary Education (IPSE) program, we designed and deployed MyChoice, an LLM-integrated tool that facilitated decision-making and assignment creation for IPSE students. Our design process involved formative interviews with IPSE stakeholders and participatory co-design with IPSE students, culminating in a semester-long deployment in Georgia Tech’s IPSE program. This talk explores our design and deployment, surfacing opportunities for LLM-integrated systems to support personalized, strengths-based decision-making for students with IDD.
Bio: Rachel Lowy is a PhD candidate in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech and is co-leading an OMCS seminar on LLMs. Her research specializing in the design of accessible and inclusive educational technologies for neurodivergent individuals. Rachel uses participatory and co-design methods, utilizing skills from her clinical background as a Speech Therapist to design inclusive and accessible design experiences. Her current project explores Large Language Models to support learners with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Inclusive Post-Secondary Higher Education programs. Her previous work on VR design for inclusive work and on inclusive design education have been featured at CHI and CSCW conferences.
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Epistemic Breakdowns: A Theory of Friction in Civic Sociotechnical Systems
Abstract: Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is a powerful framework for centering the lived experiences, priorities, and constraints of marginalized and stigmatized communities who are disproportionally affected by sociotechnical harms. CBPR demands a shift from traditional researcher‑driven approaches toward long‑term, equitable partnerships in which communities engage in all processes. Effectively "doing" CBPR involves a substantial time commitment, often requiring researchers to spend years building the rapport and trust necessary for a mutually beneficial relationship. This collaborative process frequently encounters tensions rooted in mismatches between academic expectations, research ideals, institutional requirements, and community needs. Drawing on three case studies from vulnerable groups, I illustrate the evolving interpersonal, ethical, and sociotechnical challenges researchers encounter and highlight opportunities to co‑create practices that empower underserved populations to design systems for the future.
Bio: Mohsin Yousufi is a civic technologist and currently a PhD candidate in Digital Media at Georgia Tech, working with Dr. Yanni Loukissas. He is also a research engineer at Public AI, where he researches the intersection of civic technology and collective intelligence systems. Mohsin's research focuses on developing innovative knowledge infrastructures that empower communities to pursue effective collective action and self-governance. Trained as an architect in Karachi, Pakistan, he was previously a researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, metaLAB, and a Fulbright scholar at the University of Illinois. His work has been presented at both academic and public venues, including the Smithsonian, ACM CSCW, DIS, and NeurIPS.
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Human-Centered Explainable AI for Aging in Place
Abstract: As AI systems become embedded in everyday life, from smart homes to health support, they increasingly act with more autonomy and often without clearly communicating why. This lack of human-understandable explanations from AI systems can lead to confusion, breakdowns in interaction, and eventually, reduced trust and adoption, particularly from non-technical users. In this talk, I present a human-centered approach to designing AI explanations that support understanding, confidence and actionability in real-world settings. Drawing on years of research with older adults aging in place, I examine how people interpret, question and respond to AI-driven decisions in everyday contexts. I introduce a framework that characterizes explanations based on the data they draw from (such as conversational history, environmental context, task knowledge and system confidence) and show how these influence user perceptions of trust and usefulness. Through both controlled studies and in-situ evaluations of conversational AI systems, this work highlights the importance of designing AI explanations as interactive and context-aware mechanisms that shape how people live with and rely on AI over time.
Bio: Niharika Mathur is a PhD candidate in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech, where she is advised by Sonia Chernova and Elizabeth Mynatt. Her research focuses on designing human-centered explainable AI systems that support understanding and long-term AI use in everyday contexts. She studies how conversational AI systems can communicate their reasoning in ways that are meaningful to non-expert users, with a particular focus on older adults aging in place. Her work has been recognized with a Best Paper Award at ACM ASSETS and has been published at leading venues in HCI including ACM CHI, CSCW, and ASSETS.
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Virtual Ecological Research Assistant (VERA): Integrating a Metacognitive LLM Agent into an Inquiry-Based Learning Tool for Ecology
Abstract: My research explores the design and development of a pedagogical AI agent within the web-based interactive learning environment, Virtual Ecological Research Assistant (VERA), to support inquiry-based learning through systematic model construction and simulation. In VERA, learners build and simulate conceptual models of ecological systems, investigating complex scientific phenomena. Prior work has focused on cognitive AI coaches that analyze user data to classify user types, predict learning stages, and provide personalized feedback. While these coaches provide insights into user performance, evaluating user models with machine learning approaches did not provide accurate results. Moreover, they often place less emphasis on the broader practices that make science learning meaningful. Inquiry-based learning requires learners to actively engage in scientific practices, integrate crosscutting concepts, and apply domain knowledge through guided exploration and scaffolding. Framing AI as a social agent, my research investigates how pedagogical AI agents can facilitate richer inquiry experiences by supporting students' sensemaking, iterative model refinement, and reflective reasoning. This work is novel in exploring how a metacognitive large language model-based agent can be embedded within a platform like VERA to support inquiry-based science learning. The presentation will share current progress and directions for future work.
Bio: Joon Kum is a second-year master's student in the Human-Computer Interaction program at Georgia Tech. He became interested in how AI can better support teachers and students during his student teaching at a Title I middle school, which led him to pursue graduate study at Georgia Tech. Advised by Dr. Ashok Goel, his research focuses on designing and developing a pedagogical AI agent to support inquiry-based learning in the ecology domain. After graduation, he will begin work as a public school computer science teacher in Gwinnett County, GA, where he wants to bring his knowledge and skills into his future classroom. He ultimately hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences and build a career as a researcher supporting educators, learners, and public education.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
By bringing awareness to the scientific community of barriers that create challenges for people with disabilities when accessing their community, we hope to spark ideas and conversations that would lead toward a greater goal of reducing barriers and creating environments accessible to all.
Facilitated by Dr. Deborah Backus, Vice President of Research and Innovation, and Director of Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute. Dr. Deborah Backus is a nationally recognized leader in neurorehabilitation research, physical therapy, and education, with more than 30 years of experience advancing evidence-based care for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI), multiple sclerosis (MS), and other neurological conditions. She oversees multidisciplinary research programs and strategic partnerships that translate discoveries into real-world solutions for people with complex neurological conditions.
Dr. John Morris is Director of the Accessibility User Research Collective (AURC) and a Senior Research Scientist in the User Experience and Usability Research Program. He leads research and development projects focused on assistive and rehabilitation technologies, ensuring that innovations are accessible, usable, and designed with the end user in mind. Dr. Morris also directs knowledge translation initiatives that bring research findings into practice, expanding access and independence for people with disabilities.
Dr. Raeda Anderson is a Research Scientist at the Shepherd Center’s Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute, where she leads transdisciplinary analytics to advance rehabilitation science with a strong emphasis on community participation and community integration for people with disabilities. Dr. Anderson’s work centers on understanding the social and environmental contexts that shape health equity, leveraging multimodal data to generate actionable insights that improve realworld rehabilitation outcomes. In addition to directing the iCORD Lab at Georgia State University, she collaborates widely across clinical and academic settings to promote evidence-based practices that enhance meaningful community engagement.
Dr. Brad Willingham directs Shepherd Center’s Multiple Sclerosis Research Program, where he leads a multidisciplinary team focused on improving health, function, and quality of life for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). His work spans neuromuscular physiology, neurorehabilitation, and digital health, bridging the gap between scientific discovery and clinical practice. Brad collaborates closely with clinicians and individuals with MS to design studies that generate practical, translation-ready solutions. His research integrates physiology, rehabilitation science, and technology to create strategies that can be adopted into real-world care.
Chris Maurer, Program Manager for the Center for Assistive Technologies
The Center for Assistive Technologies at Shepherd Center helps individuals regain independence after a neurological injury or condition. Challenges with mobility and cognitive function can impact daily activities like using devices, controlling home environments, and driving. Our team develops, tests, and customizes assistive technologies to support rehabilitation, empowering you to navigate life with greater ease and autonomy. Services include the Access Technology Lab (personal devices and technologies for life), the Driving Program, and the Wheelchair Seating and Mobility Clinic.
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Shepherd Center was founded in 1975 as a private, not-for-profit hospital specializing in medical treatment, research, and rehabilitation for people with spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, spine and chronic pain, multi-trauma, and other neurological conditions. Serving patients along the full continuum from the ICU through outpatient services, Shepherd Center is one of the nation’s top hospitals for rehabilitation, with patient rehabilitation programs that focus on individualized recovery and lifelong wellness. The Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute (CRI) was established at Shepherd Center in 1996 to promote the synthesis of research into clinical practice. CRI supports an integrated program of rehabilitation research, including clinical, health services, and outcomes research. Support personnel have expertise in clinical trials coordination, grants management and financial accounting, information technology, library sciences, and biostatistics. The James M. Cox Innovation Institute was established in 2025 to accelerate the journey from idea to impact and provide collaborative spaces where engineers, researchers, clinicians, therapists, and patients converge to build the future of rehabilitation. https://www.shepherd.org/
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Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).
All conversation gatherings are held in the Tech Square Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 < map >
The Tech Square Clubhouse is on the bottom level (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.), close to LA Fitness and only a few blocks away from the Midtown and North Ave. MARTA stations. Look closely and you'll see there is an outdoor staircase to the left of the Centergy One Building leading down to the street where you'll find the Tech Square Clubhouse.
PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00
GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.
]]>By bringing awareness to the scientific community of barriers that create challenges for people with disabilities when accessing their community, we hope to spark ideas and conversations that would lead toward a greater goal of reducing barriers and creating environments accessible to all.
Facilitated by Dr. Deborah Backus, Vice President of Research and Innovation, and Director of Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute. Dr. Deborah Backus is a nationally recognized leader in neurorehabilitation research, physical therapy, and education, with more than 30 years of experience advancing evidence-based care for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI), multiple sclerosis (MS), and other neurological conditions. She oversees multidisciplinary research programs and strategic partnerships that translate discoveries into real-world solutions for people with complex neurological conditions.
Dr. John Morris is Director of the Accessibility User Research Collective (AURC) and a Senior Research Scientist in the User Experience and Usability Research Program. He leads research and development projects focused on assistive and rehabilitation technologies, ensuring that innovations are accessible, usable, and designed with the end user in mind. Dr. Morris also directs knowledge translation initiatives that bring research findings into practice, expanding access and independence for people with disabilities.
Dr. Raeda Anderson is a Research Scientist at the Shepherd Center’s Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute, where she leads transdisciplinary analytics to advance rehabilitation science with a strong emphasis on community participation and community integration for people with disabilities. Dr. Anderson’s work centers on understanding the social and environmental contexts that shape health equity, leveraging multimodal data to generate actionable insights that improve realworld rehabilitation outcomes. In addition to directing the iCORD Lab at Georgia State University, she collaborates widely across clinical and academic settings to promote evidence-based practices that enhance meaningful community engagement.
Dr. Brad Willingham directs Shepherd Center’s Multiple Sclerosis Research Program, where he leads a multidisciplinary team focused on improving health, function, and quality of life for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). His work spans neuromuscular physiology, neurorehabilitation, and digital health, bridging the gap between scientific discovery and clinical practice. Brad collaborates closely with clinicians and individuals with MS to design studies that generate practical, translation-ready solutions. His research integrates physiology, rehabilitation science, and technology to create strategies that can be adopted into real-world care.
Chris Maurer, Program Manager for the Center for Assistive Technologies
The Center for Assistive Technologies at Shepherd Center helps individuals regain independence after a neurological injury or condition. Challenges with mobility and cognitive function can impact daily activities like using devices, controlling home environments, and driving. Our team develops, tests, and customizes assistive technologies to support rehabilitation, empowering you to navigate life with greater ease and autonomy. Services include the Access Technology Lab (personal devices and technologies for life), the Driving Program, and the Wheelchair Seating and Mobility Clinic.
-----
Shepherd Center was founded in 1975 as a private, not-for-profit hospital specializing in medical treatment, research, and rehabilitation for people with spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, spine and chronic pain, multi-trauma, and other neurological conditions. Serving patients along the full continuum from the ICU through outpatient services, Shepherd Center is one of the nation’s top hospitals for rehabilitation, with patient rehabilitation programs that focus on individualized recovery and lifelong wellness. The Virginia C. Crawford Research Institute (CRI) was established at Shepherd Center in 1996 to promote the synthesis of research into clinical practice. CRI supports an integrated program of rehabilitation research, including clinical, health services, and outcomes research. Support personnel have expertise in clinical trials coordination, grants management and financial accounting, information technology, library sciences, and biostatistics. The James M. Cox Innovation Institute was established in 2025 to accelerate the journey from idea to impact and provide collaborative spaces where engineers, researchers, clinicians, therapists, and patients converge to build the future of rehabilitation. https://www.shepherd.org/
----------------
Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).
All conversation gatherings are held in the Tech Square Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 < map >
The Tech Square Clubhouse is on the bottom level (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.), close to LA Fitness and only a few blocks away from the Midtown and North Ave. MARTA stations. Look closely and you'll see there is an outdoor staircase to the left of the Centergy One Building leading down to the street where you'll find the Tech Square Clubhouse.
PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00
GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.
]]>ABSTRACT: Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is a powerful framework for centering the lived experiences, priorities, and constraints of marginalized and stigmatized communities who are disproportionally affected by sociotechnical harms. CBPR demands a shift from traditional researcher‑driven approaches toward long‑term, equitable partnerships in which communities engage in all processes. Effectively "doing" CBPR involves a substantial time commitment, often requiring researchers to spend years building the rapport and trust necessary for a mutually beneficial relationship. This collaborative process frequently encounters tensions rooted in mismatches between academic expectations, research ideals, institutional requirements, and community needs. Drawing on three case studies from vulnerable groups, I illustrate the evolving interpersonal, ethical, and sociotechnical challenges researchers encounter and highlight opportunities to co‑create practices that empower underserved populations to design systems for the future.
BIO: Katie Siek is a professor at Indiana University. Her primary research interests are in human computer interaction, health informatics, and ubiquitous computing. More specifically, she is interested in how sociotechnical interventions affect personal health and wellbeing. Her research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the National Science Foundation including a five-year NSF CAREER award. She has been awarded with the IU Trustees Teaching Award (2022), FACET's Mumford Excellence in Extraordinary Teaching Award (2021), NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award (2019), a CRA-W Borg Early Career Award (2012), and Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance Distinguished Visiting Fellowships (2010 & 2015). Dr. Siek currently serves as an elected member of the Computing Research Association Board and appointed member of the Association of Computing Machinery Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. Prior to returning to her alma mater, she was a professor for 7 years at the University of Colorado Boulder. She earned her PhD and MS at Indiana University Bloomington in computer science and her BS in computer science at Eckerd College.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
ABSTRACT: The 21st century has witnessed rapid progress in technologies, which opened door for further discovery, development, and delivery of AI solutions for healthcare. Still, there exist big challenges that require AI Implementation Science to ensure true societal impact. I will summarize advances and challenges in biomedical AI and share a few examples. On AI Foundation Models, we developed the first retrieval augmented generation (RAG) solutions for healthcare (received ACM SIGBio Best Paper Award in 2023) followed up by EHRAgent, MedAdapter etc. for ACL. On AI Implementation Science, we developed clinician-patient shared decision system that had gone through 9-month 3-Tier AI Showcase assessment in American Medical Informatics Association. On Metaverse for healthcare, we developed real-time system (received the Best Paper award in IEEE International Conference in Intelligent Reality). With joint effort from academia, industry, government, and health system, AI, when guided by safe, trustworthy, actionable, and responsible principles, will transform healthcare for better care outcome with lowers healthcare cost.
BIO: Dr. Wang is Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Fellow and professor of BME and ECE at Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) and Emory University (EU). She received BEng from Tsinghua University and MS/PhD from GT. Dr. Wang is Director of Biomedical Big Data Initiative, Georgia Distinguished Cancer Scholar, Board of Directors of American Board of AI in Medicine, Petit Institute Faculty Fellow, Kavli Fellow, and Fellow of IEEE, AIMBE, AMIA, IAMBE and ELATES. She delivered 380+ invited keynotes and lectures, and published 360+ peer reviewed articles over 19,000 Google Scholar citations. Dr. Wang received Georgia Tech Outstanding Faculty Mentor for Undergrad Research, and Emory University MilliPub Award for a high-impact paper cited over 1,000 times. Current, Dr. Wang is the Senior Editor for IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics (JBHI), an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on BME, and IEEE Reviews in BME. She has been a panelist for NIH (e.g. BDMA, CDMA, MSB) Study Sections, NSF (e.g. Smart and Connect Health, SBIB), and Brain Canada for over 15 years. She chairs Biomedical and Health Informatics Technical Community Steering Committee in IEEE Engineering Medicine and Biology Society and leads ACM Special Interest Group in Bioinformatics. Dr. Wang research and education activities have been supported by NIH, NSF , CDC, Georgia Research Alliance, Georgia Cancer Coalition, Shriners’ Children, Children’s Health Care of Atlanta, Enduring Heart Foundation, Coulter Foundation, Imlay Foundation, Carol Ann and David Flanagan Foundation, Wallace H Coulter Foundation, Horizon Europe, Shepherd Center, Microsoft Research, HP, UCB, Amazon, and STEM and Leaders in Teaching and Learning Fellowship from Georgia Tech Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Speakers:
Michael Best, Executive Director of the Institute for People and Technology
Michael L. Best is Executive Director of the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and Professor with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology where he directs the Technologies and International Development Lab. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT and has served as director of Media Lab Asia in India and head of the eDevelopment group at the MIT Media Lab.
Maribeth Gandy Coleman, Regent's Researcher, Director of Research for the Institute of People and Technology, Assistant Vice Provost for Research Faculty
Maribeth Gandy Coleman is a Regent's Researcher and Director of Research for the Institute of People and Technology at Georgia Tech. She received a B.S. in Computer Engineering as well as a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. In her 20+ as a research faculty member her work has been focused on the intersection of technology for mobile/wearable computing, augmented reality, human computer interaction, assistive technology, and gaming. She is a computer scientist focused on developing novel and scientifically validated systems at the “human technology frontier” designed for purposes such as training, rehabilitation, and cognitive training, utilizing cutting-edge technology such as augmented and virtual reality. For example, she lead an initiative (funded by National Science Foundation, Dept of Education, and ACT Inc.) to research the design of games for cognitive training and assessment for older adults, persons with disabilities, and K-12 students. She also previously led a project funded by Georgia Tech’s Health Systems Institute to develop home-based computer games for stroke rehabilitation. In her AR research, she is interested in advancing AR as a new medium by focusing on authoring, evaluation, and deployment. She was the lead architect on a large open source software project called the Designer’s Augmented Reality Toolkit (DART), which had thousands of users and was used to create a variety of large-scale AR systems. She was also co-PI on an NSF grant focused on the development of presence metrics for measuring engagement in AR environments using qualitative and quantitative data. She has also applied AR technologies to a STEM education project for teens, explored how AR interfaces can enhance user abilities during maintenance and repair tasks, and is currently studying the use AR and mobile technologies to make Internet of Things environments more approachable and useful to communities. In her Director role she is responsible for organizational leadership & strategic planning, fundraising, convening & managing diverse teams, industry/academic partnerships, and translational work including commercialization of intellectual property.
Noah Posner, Research Scientist
Noah Posner is a research scientist with the Institute for People and Technology and lab manager of the Interactive Product Design Lab (IPDL) in the School of Industrial Design. His focus is on creating interactive experiences that leverage physical interaction. He holds degrees in Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Human Computer Interaction. His research involves creating rich physical interactions, designing and fabricating interactive devices using CAD and Rapid prototyping technologies, and developing educational tools for STEAM leaning that focus on utilizing hands on learning with intentionally designed artifacts. He also teaches courses in Physical Prototyping for Human Computer Interaction and Industrial Design.
Clint Zeagler, Director of Strategic Partnerships (IPaT), Principal Research Scientist
While teaching textiles and fashion design studio classes at Savannah College of Art & Design, Zeagler realized his true passion lies in bridging the gap between the disciplines of Wearable design and Human-Centered Computing. A diverse background in fashion, industrial design, and textiles drive his research on electronic textiles and on-body interfaces with the Contextual Computing Group of the GVU center of Georgia Tech. As a Principal Research Scientist for the Georgia Tech Interactive Media Technology Center and Instructor for the Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design he teaches courses on Wearable Product Design and an ID section of Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing (MUC). Zeagler enjoys working with corporations such as HP/Palm and Google to bring real-world experience into the classroom. He recently acquired a NASA Georgia Space Consortium grant to fund MUC student projects on wearable computing for space—a wonderful opportunity for undergraduate students. He is also a member of the NASA Wearable Technology Cluster a group of scientists and academics working together to give advice to those in NASA working on wearable computing or electronic textile projects. A deep understanding of the garment production process fosters innovation in his research. Zeagler’s company Pecan Pie Couture hand-dyed, embroidered, and screen-printed textiles and garments. Building upon that skillset, his recent research led to the creation of the Electronic Textile Interface Swatch Book (ESwatchBook) in collaboration with Thad Starner. The ESwatchBook is designed to help facilitate discussions between the skill and craft-based design disciplines (.i.e. fashion) and more technical disciplines (.i.e. computer science). To put the ESwatchBook’s capabilities to the test, he developed a series of workshops at multiple colleges with the purpose of bringing together designers with engineers/technology specialists. The workshops were funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant, which he co-authored. Zeagler’s most recent endeavor FIDO: Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations is an exploration into using wearable electronics to enhance interactions between service dogs and their handler/owners.
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Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).
All conversation gatherings are held in the Tech Square Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 < map >
The Tech Square Clubhouse is on the bottom level (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.), close to LA Fitness and only a few blocks away from the Midtown and North Ave. MARTA stations. Look closely and you'll see there is an outdoor staircase to the left of the Centergy One Building leading down to the street where you'll find the Tech Square Clubhouse.
PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00
GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.
]]>ABSTRACT: AI is increasingly deployed in high stakes environments that shape access to essential resources such as food, logistics, or healthcare. Yet, many AI efforts struggle in long term deployment, not because of technical limitations, but because challenges related to people, communities, and real world contexts in which they operate. This talk presents a people first, socio technical approach to designing and deploying AI systems with humans in the loop. By integrating community engaged research with optimization and agent based modeling, the work demonstrates how participatory design reshapes data practices, modeling assumptions, and evaluation criteria. Drawing on deployments in food access planning, decentralized cold chain logistics, and AI technologies designed with seniors, the talk highlights how real world constraints and community knowledge surface critical design and deployment considerations often invisible in lab based workflows. The talk concludes with open research directions for building people centered AI infrastructures through interdisciplinary collaboration, translation to impact, and long-term stewardship.
BIO: Rosemarie Santa González, Ph.D. is a Georgia T ech Research Faculty working at the intersection of AI, optimization, and people centered system design. Her research focuses on ethical, deployable AI enabled decision support tools for high stakes domains such as food access, logistics, healthcare, and aging services, using community-engaged methods to translate research into real-world impact.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
ABSTRACT: As systems of domination increasingly grip the academy with anti-intellectual, anti-democratic, and uncaring force, professors like me despair: what can we do? I have found a way to hope again through research praxis rooted in the testimony of the historically and multiply-minoritized. In dialogue with bell hooks, I will share my story as a western, white, wealthy woman with a disability who constructs Accessible Computing research in mutually-caring relationship with the community. In doing so, I extend bell hooks’s critical pedagogy to research and show how adding “ableist” to hooks’s refrain “imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy” can expand our capacity to care. When we do research that cultivates a multicultural and multiability community; when we dare to share our lived truth and vulnerability with the other; when we theory our lives and live our theories–then research is the practice of freedom.
BIO: Stacy Branham is an Associate Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Branham’s research investigates interdependence and technology in multiability social settings where one or more people is disabled, yielding actionable design guidance and proof of concept prototypes. Branham has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications at top venues, earning 5 best paper awards and 6 honorable mentions. Her work has been supported by over $24 million from Jacobs Foundation, Toyota, Intel, and the NSF. She currently serves as an Associate Editor of TOCHI journal and Program Co-Chair for ASSETS 2026. In 2021, she received the NSF CAREER Award and was named one of the “Brilliant 10” rising STEM researchers by Popular Science. She earned her Ph.D. in 2014 and her B.S. in 2007, both from Virginia Tech’s Department of Computer Science. www.stacybranham.com
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
ABSTRACT: Despite decades of computing advances, some human problems and core human values have remained difficult to solve or promote at scale. Instead of advancing individual technologies, I focus our attention on making major leaps in system-level thinking and orchestration. Specifically, I describe my efforts to design, build, and study computational ecosystems that interweave effective practices, interactional structures, and intelligent systems to form new, integrative solutions. Computational ecosystems emphasize (1) combining wedges of human and machine intelligence to make effective practices feasible; and (2) creating processes, interactions, and communities that sustain and deepen practice.
In the first half of my talk, I will share examples of computational ecosystems we built over the last decade that transform how we plan, coordinate, connect, learn, and innovate. The second half of my talk will share our more recent efforts to support human practices and human experiences computationally. I will close with a few thoughts on why we need computational ecosystems, especially if we intend to not only meet our consequentialist aims but to deepen our engagement in intrinsically valuable human activities.
BIO: Haoqi Zhang is an associate professor in Computer Science and Design at Northwestern University. His work advances the design of integrated socio-technical models that solve complex problems and advance human values. His research work bridges across Computer Science, Design, Learning Science, Psychology, and Philosophy, and is generously supported by the National Science Foundation.
Haoqi received his PhD in Computer Science and BA in Computer Science and Economics from Harvard University. At Northwestern he founded and directs the Design, Technology, and Research (DTR) program, which provides an original model for learning and growing through research for over 180 students (read the DTR annual letters, available at dtr.northwestern.edu/letters; and watch the DTR documentary, Forward, at http://forward.movie). With Matt Easterday, Liz Gerber, and Nell O’Rourke, Haoqi co-directs the Delta Lab, an interdisciplinary research lab and design studio across computer science, learning science, and design.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
ABSTRACT: In this talk, I will describe how the idea of accompaniment, which emerges from liberation theology and global health, can strengthen human-centered design (HCD) practices in the Information and Communication Technology and Development (ICTD) field. Drawing on my research in Kenya, I will present two projects that show how accompaniment offers another way of approaching design, one that prioritizes listening, mutual understanding, and long-term impact over problem solving and the development of novel technologies. The first project uses an HCD approach to develop an intervention that supports Kenyan youth with Type 1 diabetes in managing their condition. Although our original goal was to create a mobile health (mHealth) application, by relinquishing control of this intention we made space for unexpected outcomes to emerge, including a paper-based logbook and stronger community connections among participants. The second project is a Michigan State University course that connects students with peers at Kenya’s Egerton University to collaborate on design projects. The course activities turn the gaze on us; that is, MSU students became participants of inquiry themselves, reflecting on their own assumptions rather than designing interventions to address perceived problems in Kenya. I conclude by emphasizing the importance of adopting design processes that acknowledge both the possibilities and limits of design, and that support more reciprocal and just collaborations between the Global North and South.
BIO: Dr. Susan Wyche is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University and a faculty affiliate of the university’s African Studies Center. Her research focuses on Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD). For nearly two decades, her research program has sought to: 1) understand how people in Africa use ICTs and design technologies that reflect their contexts; 2) critically examine whether ICTs support socioeconomic development; and 3) increase African participation in technology design and research. To achieve these goals, she has conducted extensive fieldwork in Kenya since 2007 and collaborates with local partners to co-design interventions and develop educational programs that promote more inclusive and globally informed approaches to computing. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, USAID, and the Mozilla Foundation.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
ABSTRACT: GT DataWorks recruits and trains employees with little technical background to execute data projects for clients. Over five years, we built this participatory research platform with employees, focusing on critical data literacy, career development, and the role of data in generative AI training. Data skills are essential across a growing range of professions, driving demand for data-centric curricula in formal and informal learning environments. Yet most educational programs fail to meet the needs of the largest group affected by this change: working adults with limited technical backgrounds. To bridge this gap and create a platform for studying data education and the data-driven workplace, we developed GT DataWorks—a data services provider embedded at Georgia Tech that executes data projects for external and internal clients. Our work explores how real-world data practices influence the preparation of datasets that fuel generative AI systems and highlights the ethical implications of such work. This talk will provide an overview of this hybrid outreach and research platform, emphasizing how employees transitioned from research subjects to active research contributors, shaping our understanding of data's role in everyday workplaces and AI training.
BIO: Dr. Betsy DiSalvo is a professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on learning sciences, participatory design, and human-centered computing. DiSalvo leads the Culture and Technology Lab (CAT Lab), where she advises students studying the intersection of culture and technology in learning, workplaces, family life, and emerging research on the production of generative AI. This research focus has resulted in award-winning educational games and two workplace environments that served as research platforms: DataWorks, a self-sustaining cost center providing data work and a way to examine technology workplaces, and Glitch Game Testers, a job program for high school students testing video games and learning foundational CS skills. Dr. DiSalvo serves on the editorial board of Transactions on Computing Education, is a member of the Computing Research Association's Widening Participation Board, and has held leadership roles in ACM and other research organizations. She has contributed to numerous art and museum projects for organizations such as the Carnegie Science Museum, the Children's Museum of Atlanta, and the Walker Art Center. Dr. DiSalvo earned her Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Tech in 2012.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
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Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).
All conversation gatherings are held in the Tech Square Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 < map >
The Tech Square Clubhouse is on the bottom level (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.), close to LA Fitness and only a few blocks away from the Midtown and North Ave. MARTA stations. Look closely and you'll see there is an outdoor staircase to the left of the Centergy One Building leading down to the street where you'll find the Tech Square Clubhouse.
PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00
GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.
]]>Abstract: At its heart, making maps involves simplifying reality to help us navigate and to explain our world. Cartographers are trained in the art and science of shaping spatial data to support a wide range of user needs. The rise of AI begs us to consider how the process of designing geovisualizations should change. AI also offers the potential to serve as an interactive assistant to help people understand what they see in a geographic visualization. In this talk, I highlights results from recent efforts to envision how cartographers might use AI, as well as ongoing work to leverage AI approaches for improving map accessibility for people who are blind or visually-impaired. I conclude with reflections on why automating cartographic design is hard, and why I think it might remain that way despite the promises of AI.
Bio: Dr. Anthony Robinson is E. Willard & Ruby S. Miller Professor of Geography, Director of Online Geospatial Education Programs, and Director of the GeoGraphics Lab at Penn State. His research focuses broadly on designing and evaluating geovisualization tools to improve geographic information utility and usability. Using methods that draw upon Human-Computer Interaction studies, his research has focused on contexts like epidemiology, crisis management, higher education, and ecology. Dr. Robinson is the current Chair of the American Association of Geographers Cartography & Mapping Specialty Group, a past-President of the North American Cartographic Information Society, and vice-Chair of the International Cartographic Association Commission on Geovisualization.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. (while supplies last) and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Agenda
Held in the Clary Theater in the Bill More Student Success Center or virtually via Zoom.
]]>Abstract: For this lunch lecture, a subset of IPaT's researchers will provide lightning talks about their current work. These talks will give a high level overview of some of IPaT's current research landscape including presentations around Educational VR, the AwareHome and AI Caring, collaborations with GT Aerospace, and healthcare research using IPaT's "Secure Date Enclave".
Bio: The Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) is an Interdisciplinary Research Institute at Georgia Tech offering a unique people-first approach to research and innovation. IPaT assembles academics, industry, government, civil society, and other partners to create people-centered solutions to some of society’s thorniest challenges. Created in 2011, IPaT’s community of researchers has spearheaded breakthroughs in health, aging, usability, sustainability, smart cities, and more. IPaT focuses on real-world impact, translating research out of the lab and into people’s lives in the form of real products, applications, and community education and programming. It accomplishes this through the efforts of over twenty research faculty, more than 100 affiliated faculty, significant research infrastructure and systems, well regarded events and programming, and an incredible staff. This talk will feature the following research faculty:
Aaron Gabryluk, Research Scientist, IPaT
Brian Jones, Principal Research Engineer, IPaT
Richard Starr, Director of Research Operations and Research Scientist, IPaT
Scott Gilliland, Senior Research Scientist, IPaT
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: Leanne West will discuss the newly announced Shriners Children’s Research Institute that will be co-located with Georgia Tech at Science Square. Leanne will discuss the research priorities, the data faculty will have access to, the timeline for implementation, examples of current work, and upcoming events.
Bio: Leanne West is Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technologies at the Georgia Tech Pediatric Innovation Network. In her 25+ years working at Georgia Tech, she has led multimillion dollar programs and teams of researchers to develop products for government and industry partners. She also started her own company, Intelligent Access, to take her invention of a wireless personal captioning system to market. She serves as the technical liaison between Georgia Tech and pediatric hospitals around the world, with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Shriners Hospitals being the main partners. West works closely with clinicians to understand and identify problems that need a solution to allow them to take better care of their patients. She is an invited Judge for many medical device pitch competitions and serves on several Boards in the healthcare and technology arenas.
West is the President of the International Children’s Advisory Network (iCAN). Since 2014, iCAN fosters greater global understanding about the importance of the pediatric patient and caregiver voice in healthcare, clinical trials, and research. iCAN gives its members the opportunities to share their stories and experiences in front of organizations like the FDA, AAP, and CDC, and conferences. iCAN is an official partner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) as an official member organization of the Patient and Caregiver Connection Partner program and the Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Program. West is also a patient advocate for one of her two rare diseases, serving on the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research Patient Advisory Council and Speaker’s Bureau.
She has served as the twice-elected Chair of the Georgia Tech Executive Board (2007, 2008) and was the GT Chair of the State Charitable Campaign (2017). She was recognized by Georgia Trend magazine as one of Georgia’s “40 Under 40” in 2004; she was selected for Leadership Georgia in 2008; she was a member of the team awarded the international Optical Society 2012 Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award; she received Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Achievement in Research Enterprise Enhancement Award in 2014, and she was Women in Technology’s Woman of the year in 2014. In 2017, she was appointed to the board of the Georgia Technology Authority by the late Speaker of the House, David Ralston.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
To attend, register here >>
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Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).
All conversation gatherings are held in the Tech Square Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 < map >
The Tech Square Clubhouse is on the bottom level (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.), close to LA Fitness and only a few blocks away from the Midtown and North Ave. MARTA stations. Look closely and you'll see there is an outdoor staircase to the left of the Centergy One Building leading down to the street where you'll find the Tech Square Clubhouse.
PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00
GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.
Abstract: As artificial intelligence continues to shape the digital landscape, the human labor behind AI remains largely invisible. For over four years, I worked as a Facebook content moderator, witnessing firsthand the emotional and psychological toll of moderating harmful content. This experience fueled my advocacy for fair wages, mental health support, and ethical AI practices in Africa’s digital workforce. In this talk, I will shed light on the realities of content moderation, the urgent need for ethical AI that prioritizes human well-being, and the fight for fair labor conditions in Africa’s data and technology sectors. I will also explore how we can professionalize digital work, ensuring that AI development does not come at the expense of the mental health and dignity of its human contributors. My journey, recognized by Time magazine and BBC News, highlights the resilience of African tech workers and the power of collective action in shaping a fairer digital future.
Bio: Kauna Ibrahim Malgwi is a clinical psychologist, trauma survivor, and leading advocate for the mental health and rights of content moderators and data workers in Africa. A former Facebook content moderator, she turned her lived experience of trauma into activism and advocacy, founding the Digital and Mental Health Initiative and chairing the steering committee of, African Content Moderators Union (Nigeria Chapter)/Gammayyar African Tech Workers Cooperative(GTechCoop). Recognized by TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI (2024) and BBC’s 100 Women, Kauna now advances trauma-informed, ethical AI and fair digital labour practices through research, advocacy, and healing-centered frameworks.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: Nearly half of the global population and 35% of the US population report poor access to healthcare, while estimates suggest over 90% of the world’s population has access to smartphones. The overarching goal of our lab, the Uncommon Sense Lab, is to extend the reach of healthcare through leveraging existing infrastructure to access patients in rural areas or who cannot otherwise access healthcare. In this talk, I will present some of our work on novel sensing systems for continuous patient monitoring and remote diagnostics.
Bio: Alex's research focuses on designing, fabricating, and implementing new ubiquitous and wearable sensing systems. In particular, he can develop systems that enable remote monitoring and diagnostics for more pervasive healthcare. Alex leverages sensing, signal processing, and fabrication techniques to design, deploy, and evaluate novel sensing technologies. Originally a musician, Alex became fascinated by how he could capture and manipulate sounds through analog hardware and digital signal processing, which led him back to his hometown (Concord, NC). Alex completed his BS at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2014 and his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 2021 (advised by Professor Tanzeem Choudhury). Alex then became the resident Research Scientist for the Precision Behavioral Health Initiative at Cornell Tech (NYC) until the fall of 2022, when he joined the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently a faculty member in HCI, Robotics, and human-centered computing with affiliations in the Institute of People and Technology and the Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience. As Director of the Uncommon Sense Labs, he explores how we can meet people where they are with a novel sensing system that enables lab-quality health assessments for chronic disease, maternal/fetal health, substance use disorder, and chronic pain.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
12:30 - 12:45 pm: Lunch, Networking, and Conversation
12:45 - 1:15 pm: Michael Best, welcome and IPaT overview
1:15 - 1:45 pm: Jonathan Goldman, featured guest speaker
* Please RSVP for the meeting here: https://gatech.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cC8tMFeXms4LQTs
* Download an ICS file to place this on your calendar: https://t.e2ma.net/click/q850vs/a0o53q4f/yaxh37b
]]>]]>
To attend, register here >>
Atlanta RMHC is growing with an innovative new Ronald McDonald House to support the growing demand for complex medical treatment in our state. (Information about the new House >>).
As Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta opens its North Druid Hills campus, we will provide families unprecedented access to A New World of Care. Steps away from specialized pediatric healthcare, pharmacies, grocery stores, and other conveniences of home, our new House will allow families to connect, find comfort, build hope, and heal through welcoming indoor spaces and imaginative outdoor play areas.
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Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).
All conversation gatherings are held in the Tech Square Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 < map >
The Tech Square Clubhouse is on the bottom level (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.), close to LA Fitness and only a few blocks away from the Midtown and North Ave. MARTA stations. Look closely and you'll see there is an outdoor staircase to the left of the Centergy One Building leading down to the street where you'll find the Tech Square Clubhouse.
PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00
GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.
Abstract: Traditional healthcare is centered around face-to-face interactions between patients and clinicians. While these human relationships are important for establishing empathetic and ethical care, they limit the extent to which healthcare can be accessed and delivered. Ubiquitous technologies like smartphones and wearables can augment traditional healthcare workflows by increasing people's access to health-monitoring tools. Rather than viewing healthcare as a reactive endeavor, we can work towards proactive approaches like preventative screening, continuous disease management, and informative visualizations that empower all stakeholders to make informed and timely decisions. To achieve this vision, my research group applies signal processing and machine learning on sensor data to measure vital signs and infer symptoms. Since these technologies may sometimes be intended for people without medical training, my group also explores how such tools should be designed to achieve clinically relevant goals. In this talk, I will highlight three lines of research: (1) acoustic cardiac sensing with earbuds, (2) accurate and informative menstrual health tracking, and (3) chatbots for clinical pre-consultation.
Bio: Alex Mariakakis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. He runs the Computational Health and Interaction (CHAI) lab, which leverages ubiquitous and emergent technologies to address problems related to people’s health and wellbeing. He is also an Affiliate Scientist at the KITE Research Institute and an Education Faculty Affiliate within T-CAIREM, which has enabled his passion for digital health research to influence the clinical landscape in the Greater Toronto Area. His work has garnered multiple Best Paper Awards at top computer science venues like ACM CHI and ACM COMPASS, as well as significant attention from media outlets ranging from the BBC to Cosmo Magazine.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: Traditional healthcare is centered around face-to-face interactions between patients and clinicians. While these human relationships are important for establishing empathetic and ethical care, they limit the extent to which healthcare can be accessed and delivered. Ubiquitous technologies like smartphones and wearables can augment traditional healthcare workflows by increasing people's access to health-monitoring tools. Rather than viewing healthcare as a reactive endeavor, we can work towards proactive approaches like preventative screening, continuous disease management, and informative visualizations that empower all stakeholders to make informed and timely decisions. To achieve this vision, my research group applies signal processing and machine learning on sensor data to measure vital signs and infer symptoms. Since these technologies may sometimes be intended for people without medical training, my group also explores how such tools should be designed to achieve clinically relevant goals. In this talk, I will highlight three lines of research: (1) acoustic cardiac sensing with earbuds, (2) accurate and informative menstrual health tracking, and (3) chatbots for clinical pre-consultation.
Bio: Alex Mariakakis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. He runs the Computational Health and Interaction (CHAI) lab, which leverages ubiquitous and emergent technologies to address problems related to people’s health and wellbeing. He is also an Affiliate Scientist at the KITE Research Institute and an Education Faculty Affiliate within T-CAIREM, which has enabled his passion for digital health research to influence the clinical landscape in the Greater Toronto Area. His work has garnered multiple Best Paper Awards at top computer science venues like ACM CHI and ACM COMPASS, as well as significant attention from media outlets ranging from the BBC to Cosmo Magazine.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: Marginalized communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards but lack comprehensive data to monitor their hyperlocal environments, in part due to the geographic sparsity of regulatory monitors. Although low-cost, commercially available environmental sensors have created new opportunities for underserved areas, much of the research using these sensors is conducted in isolation and focused on small-scale studies. In this talk, I will outline two case studies that aim to address these shortcomings – 1) Eclipse: a 118-node air quality sensor network co-designed with city and community partners in Chicago, and 2) Noondawind: a sensing and data integration platform co-designed with Native American Nations to monitor environmental factors affecting the growth of Manoomin (wild rice), a vital cultural and economic resource for the Ojibwe people. I will discuss three key stages of these projects: hardware design, strategic sensor placement within urban spaces, and the creation of data visualizations. I will reflect on the successes, challenges, and lessons learned throughout these projects, emphasizing technical limitations, data sovereignty, and respect for local knowledge. This work contributes to a vision that integrates cyberinfrastructure, scientific research, and community collaboration to foster long-term sustainability across local and global communities.
Bio: Alex Cabral is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Ka Moamoa Lab at Georgia Tech and incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at MIT. She earned a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard University, where she was selected as a Siebel Scholar and CPS Rising Star and served as a member of the Urban Innovation group at Microsoft Research. Before attending graduate school, she was a Software Engineer at Xbox then middle and high school Computer Science, Math, and Robotics teacher. She has a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University and an M.S. in Computational Linguistics from University of Washington.
]]>Speaker: Rahul Saxena, Director of CREATE-X at Georgia Tech
Abstract: Treat a startup not as “a product to ship,” but as a socio-technical interaction system to be iterated until the smallest repeatable interaction reliably creates user progress. Optimize that interaction first; everything else (features, pricing, growth) composes around it.
Bio: Rahul Saxena is the Director of CREATE-X at Georgia Tech and previously served as Associate Director for the program’s Startup Launch accelerator. His career spans roles as a venture capitalist, startup CEO, entrepreneur, mechatronic design engineer, and published academic researcher.
Saxena earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech, a European Master’s degree in Fluid Mechanics from the Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, and an MBA from Emory University. He spent a decade with Seraph Group, a hybrid angel/venture capital firm, where he evaluated and invested in early-stage companies across all industries. During that time, he also served as CEO of a portfolio company and sat on multiple boards, with several companies achieving successful acquisitions.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Speaker: Michael Hanson, Senior Director, Verizon
Abstract: We are moving into the era of AI Industrialization, a transformative shift from bespoke AI projects to the full-scale integration of intelligent systems across the enterprise. This evolution promises to redefine productivity and create new value, but it brings a critical leadership challenge: how to manage the systemic risks that emerge when AI operates at an industrial scale. Success in this new age will be built not just on technological power, but on a foundation of trust.
This talk presents a strategic framework for navigating the complexities of AI Industrialization. We will focus on the essential business imperatives required to build and maintain stakeholder confidence as AI becomes a core operational utility. This includes establishing strategic oversight to ensure enterprise-wide alignment and safety, creating new metrics of success that measure both performance and reliability, and implementing clear systems of accountability for AI-driven outcomes.
The core message is that trust is the critical enabler of successful industrialization. Without it, the adoption of scaled AI systems will falter, facing resistance from customers, employees, and regulators. This lecture provides a high-level roadmap for leaders to architect a trustworthy, AI-powered organization, ensuring that this powerful technological shift translates into a durable and responsible competitive advantage.
Bio: Michael Hanson is a Senior Director of Business Transformation, AI & Data at Verizon, where he leads a team responsible for supporting advanced analytics and modeling applied to network operations for a global communications service provider. He has an M.B.A. and an M.Sc. in Corporate Finance from Boston College, and over 15 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, spanning legacy and fiber network operations, data analysis, expense reduction, product development, and capital management.
]]>To attend, register here >>
Detailed directions to the Tech Square Clubhouse can be found using the info URL below.
Info: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/conversations
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Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).
All conversation gatherings are held in the Tech Square Clubhouse.
The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 < map >
The Tech Square Clubhouse is on the bottom level (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.), close to LA Fitness and only a few blocks away from the Midtown and North Ave. MARTA stations. Look closely and you'll see there is an outdoor staircase to the left of the Centergy One Building leading down to the street where you'll find the Tech Square Clubhouse.
PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00
GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.
Bio: Carl DiSalvo is a Professor in School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He serves on the steering committee for the AIAI Network, a multi-institution endeavor investigating how the humanities might help us enlist AI ethically, equitably, and in the service of justice, funded by the Mellon Foundation. From 2024-2025 he was the James Wei Visiting Professor at Princeton University. DiSalvo’s research explores how design fosters and thwarts democratic participation, and how communities use and resist data while working toward social change. Throughout his work, he draws together concepts and practices from art and design, and the humanities and social sciences to interpret and make socio-technical systems. He is committed to engaged scholarship and partners with communities, civil society, government, and industry throughout his work. DiSalvo regularly publishes in design, science and technology studies, and human-computer interaction journals and conference proceedings. He’s published two books with MIT Press, Adversarial Design (2012) and Design as Democratic Inquiry (2022). He is a co-editor of the journal Design Issues. In 2025 he was inducted into the SIGCHI Academy for his contributions to the field of Human-Computer Interaction. In 2025 he was also awarded the STS Infrastructure Award from the Society for the Social Studies of Science, as a co-editor of the DigitalSTS Handbook.
]]>More on Jake :
https://www.uwmedicine.org/bios/jacob-sunshine#about-tab
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-sunshine-216238ab/
https://www.jacobsunshine.org
Abstract: Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) are associated with increased mortality, prolonged length of stay, and substantial healthcare costs. Research indicates that effective hand hygiene by healthcare staff is one of the most effective ways of reducing the potential for HAI occurrence. Although robust hand hygiene protocols and educational campaigns have established hand hygiene as a cornerstone of HAI prevention, observed compliance rates in environments of care (EoC) remain low (typically 60-70%). This shortfall reflects a complex interplay of behavioral and environmental factors. Human-centered environmental affordances offer a promising avenue for reinforcing reliable compliance. However, the impacts of environment on HHC and nurses’ experience has been underexplored. In this talk, I will share a series of studies based on interdisciplinary collaborations that combined expertise in evidence-based design, human factors, nursing, and industrial engineering. We evaluated how spatial configuration of nursing unit, patient rooms, and hand sanitizer dispenser placement influence compliance rates and nurse experience. Finally, I will discuss future directions of integrating big data analytics and machine learning approaches to predict hand hygiene behavior and develop data-driven interventions to better support patient and staff safety.
Bio: Dr. Hui Cai is a Professor of the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech. She also serves as the Executive Director of the SimTigrate Design Center, an interdisciplinary research center that foster innovation in design to promote health outcomes and human wellbeing. Cai holds a Ph.D. degree in Architecture from Georgia Tech. Dr. Cai’s research focuses on using a performance-driven and evidence-based design approach to analyze the relationship between culture, human behavior, and the physical environment, especially in healthcare settings and healthy communities. Cai combines various analytical tools in her research, such as space syntax analysis, discrete event simulations, and behavioral mappings. Cai disseminates her work extensively through numerous publications and presentations. Her work in healthcare research has received several awards, including the International Academy Award for Best Research project, AIA-AAH/AAH Foundation Burgun Fellowship, and the Inaugural Wilbur H (Tib) Tusler, Jr. Health Design Research Prize awarded by the Foundation for Health Environments Research. She was recently named as 2021 HCD 10 Healthcare Design Educator. She also served on the Board of Directors for the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA).
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: People grow accustomed to technology usage. The devices we use every day become normal to us. However, it can be important to sometimes step back and unpack the sense of normalcy that gets attached to our technologies. Some ideas from the field of philosophy of technology can be useful for articulating the details of our relationships to our devices and inspecting these relationships for places where problems can pop up. Here in this talk, I introduce some concepts from a growing school of thought called “postphenomenology,” a practical perspective for describing the details of user experience, and one that has found wide interdisciplinary application. In particular, I focus on the potential for this perspective to help draw out how our relationships with technologies can at times capture, direct, or divert our attention in problematic ways. I instantiate these ideas in two lines of study, the problem of smartphones and driver distraction, and the problem of the hidden politics of public spaces.
Bio: Robert Rosenberger is a Professor of Philosophy in the Carter School of Public Policy here at Georgia Tech. He serves as the Coordinator of the IAC Graduate Certificate in Science & Technology Studies, and has just completed his term as President of the Society for Philosophy of Technology. His edited and co-edited books include Postphenomenological Investigations, Postphenomenology and Imaging, and The Critical Ihde. His monographs include Callous Objects: Designs Against the Homeless, and Distracted: A Philosophy of Cars and Phones which recently received The Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture from the Media Ecology Association.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Bio: Dr. Michael L. Best is Executive Director of the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and Professor with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology where he directs the Technologies and International Development Lab. He was founding director of the United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society (UNU-CS) in Macau SAR, China. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT and has served as director of Media Lab Asia in India and head of the eDevelopment group at the MIT Media Lab.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Hodges Room, 3rd floor, Centergy One building in Technology Square.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
We’ll provide a variety of art materials you can use to make things like coasters, keychains, moss art, sun catchers, or anything else you feel inspired to create. Everything you make is yours to take home. Photo Album with examples of what you can make.
Location: Ground floor, Klaus classroom wing, next to the rainbow stairs.
Dates: all Weekdays, now through July 25th.
Time: 3:00–6:00 PM (drop in anytime, no sign-up needed)
No sign-ups needed — just walk in whenever it’s convenient. Stay for as long or as little as you’d like.
While you craft, a robot assistant will quietly observe and learn how to be helpful in real-world settings. Participation is completely informal—just come by when you can and stay for as long as you’d like.
Feel free to bring friends along. We hope to see you there!
Questions. Contact: Maithili (maithili@gatech.edu) and Kartik (kvr@gatech.edu)
]]>We’ll provide a variety of art materials you can use to make things like coasters, keychains, moss art, sun catchers, or anything else you feel inspired to create. Everything you make is yours to take home. Feel free to browse our flyer. And Photo Album with examples of what you can make.
Location: Ground floor, Klaus classroom wing, next to the rainbow stairs.
Dates: all Weekdays, now through July 18th.
Time: 3:00–6:00 PM (drop in anytime, no sign-up needed)
No sign-ups needed — just walk in whenever it’s convenient. Stay for as long or as little as you’d like.
While you craft, a robot assistant will quietly observe and learn how to be helpful in real-world settings. Participation is completely informal—just come by when you can and stay for as long as you’d like.
Feel free to bring friends along. We hope to see you there!
Questions. Contact: Maithili (maithili@gatech.edu) and Kartik (kvr@gatech.edu)
]]>We’ll provide a variety of art materials you can use to make things like coasters, keychains, moss art, sun catchers, or anything else you feel inspired to create. Everything you make is yours to take home. Feel free to browse our flyer. And Photo Album with examples of what you can make.
Location: Ground floor, Klaus classroom wing, next to the rainbow stairs.
Dates: all Weekdays, now through July 18th.
Time: 3:00–6:00 PM (drop in anytime, no sign-up needed)
No sign-ups needed — just walk in whenever it’s convenient. Stay for as long or as little as you’d like.
While you craft, a robot assistant will quietly observe and learn how to be helpful in real-world settings. Participation is completely informal—just come by when you can and stay for as long as you’d like.
Feel free to bring friends along. We hope to see you there!
Questions. Contact: Maithili (maithili@gatech.edu) and Kartik (kvr@gatech.edu)
]]>We’ll provide a variety of art materials you can use to make things like coasters, keychains, moss art, sun catchers, or anything else you feel inspired to create. Everything you make is yours to take home. Feel free to browse our flyer. And Photo Album with examples of what you can make.
Location: Ground floor, Klaus classroom wing, next to the rainbow stairs.
Dates: all Weekdays, now through July 18th.
Time: 3:00–6:00 PM (drop in anytime, no sign-up needed)
No sign-ups needed — just walk in whenever it’s convenient. Stay for as long or as little as you’d like.
While you craft, a robot assistant will quietly observe and learn how to be helpful in real-world settings. Participation is completely informal—just come by when you can and stay for as long as you’d like.
Feel free to bring friends along. We hope to see you there!
Questions. Contact: Maithili (maithili@gatech.edu) and Kartik (kvr@gatech.edu)
]]>We’ll provide a variety of art materials you can use to make things like coasters, keychains, moss art, sun catchers, or anything else you feel inspired to create. Everything you make is yours to take home. Feel free to browse our flyer. And Photo Album with examples of what you can make.
Location: Ground floor, Klaus classroom wing, next to the rainbow stairs.
Dates: all Weekdays, now through July 18th.
Time: 3:00–6:00 PM (drop in anytime, no sign-up needed)
No sign-ups needed — just walk in whenever it’s convenient. Stay for as long or as little as you’d like.
While you craft, a robot assistant will quietly observe and learn how to be helpful in real-world settings. Participation is completely informal—just come by when you can and stay for as long as you’d like.
Feel free to bring friends along. We hope to see you there!
Questions. Contact: Maithili (maithili@gatech.edu) and Kartik (kvr@gatech.edu)
]]>We’ll provide a variety of art materials you can use to make things like coasters, keychains, moss art, sun catchers, or anything else you feel inspired to create. Everything you make is yours to take home. Feel free to browse our flyer. And Photo Album with examples of what you can make.
Location: Ground floor, Klaus classroom wing, next to the rainbow stairs.
Dates: all Weekdays, now through July 18th.
Time: 3:00–6:00 PM (drop in anytime, no sign-up needed)
No sign-ups needed — just walk in whenever it’s convenient. Stay for as long or as little as you’d like.
While you craft, a robot assistant will quietly observe and learn how to be helpful in real-world settings. Participation is completely informal—just come by when you can and stay for as long as you’d like.
Feel free to bring friends along. We hope to see you there!
Questions. Contact: Maithili (maithili@gatech.edu) and Kartik (kvr@gatech.edu)
]]>2024 Foley Scholar Award Winners (MS) Momin Siddiqui and (PhDs) Vanessa Oguamanam, Charles Ramey & Jiawei Zhou to present their research.
"Behavior and activity recognition systems for destructive users in harsh environments" - Charles Ramey
Abstract: The enhancement of animal well-being is a primary goal for animal caretakers. As an animal-centered computing practitioner, I aim to use digital technologies to extend the ability of caretakers to monitor the health of animals under their care and the effectiveness of the animals’ enrichment programs over time. Due to their users' unique behaviors and environments, however, these systems are subject to numerous design constraints. We must create each new system with a high level of physical ruggedness in mind to survive animal interactions while preserving the safety of our users. In this talk, I will present an ongoing project that utilizes two custom-designed instrumented enrichment objects to quantify animal interactions with the devices. I will address some of the key design constraints involved when creating the devices and present the results of a pilot study that compared the intensity and duration of animal-user interactions with the devices.
Short bio: Charles Ramey is a 5th year Computer Science Ph.D. Student advised by Professors Melody Jackson and Thad Starner. By utilizing his interdisciplinary skillset, Charles creates interactive computing systems for studying animal behavior, activities, and communications. During his nearly 14 years at Georgia Tech, Charles has been highly involved with makerspaces across campus, researched in three different labs (Precision Biosystems Lab, Planetary Habitability Lab, and Contextual Computing Group), and has spent over two years worth of time participating in field research.
"Contextualizing Writing Education for LLM Instigated Paradigm Shift" - Momin Siddiqui
Abstract: The ubiquity in generative AI through technologies like ChatGPT has led to growing concern among school personnel and parents. Students use these tools to do their homework for them, thereby circumventing crucial learning steps. Through this talk, I want to share how instead of rejected generative technologies in classroom, their thoughtful integration through tools like Script&Shift can support students to produce better writing while engaging in reflective processes.
Short bio: Momin Siddiqui is an MS CS student at Georgia Tech. His research is at the intersection of learning engineering and human-ai interaction. His paper was recently recognized as an honorable mention at CHI and he also has publications at learning science venues like AIED and Learning at Scale.
"Generative AI in Our Information Ecosystem: Assessing and Communicating the Risks" - Jiawei Zhou
Abstract: While technology has democratized information access, it also presents unique challenges for individuals in assessing information quality and reliability. These challenges have become more pronounced with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies like large language models (LLMs), which can generate low-quality information — such as inaccurate or biased information — with high scalability and persuasiveness. Rather than approaching harm in a vacuum by measuring text alone, my research adopts a human-centered approach to understanding and contextualizing the perceived harms of using AI to meet informational needs. In this talk, I will first discuss what risks AI-generated information can bring, by presenting empirical evidence on its differences and challenges compared to human writing, as well as a risk taxonomy consolidated from professional and public voices. I will then share ongoing and future efforts to investigate how such risks are currently communicated, by characterizing the public discourse and investigating the effects of risk communication on public trust.
Short bio: Jiawei Zhou is a PhD student in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech, advised by Munmun De Choudhury. Her research lies in Human-AI Interaction, Social Computing, and Health & Wellbeing, with an emphasis on the impacts of AI in the information ecosystem and high-stakes health domain. Her research has been published at premier computing venues like CHI, CSCW, UbiComp, and ACL, and has been recognized by a Best Paper Honorable Mention at CHI and the Foley Scholar Award. She works closely with experts in public health and informatics, mass communication, natural language processing, and psychology. Her research has made practical and policy implications through invited talks and workshops at the UK Government Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), CSIRO Australian National Science Agency, Amazon, Mayo Clinic, and UT Southwestern Medical Center.
"Maternal Ease: A Tailored Approach to Supporting Perinatal Mental Health Through Digital Innovation" - Vanessa Oguamanam
Abstract: Perinatal mental health is a growing concern in the U.S., particularly for Black women who face higher rates of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) and chronic stress. Despite this reality, Black women reportedly use formal mental health support tools less frequently than their White counterparts due to barriers such as cost, access, and a lack of culturally competent resources. Digital platforms offer a promising solution to address these barriers. While the use of digital platforms for supporting perinatal mental health has been explored in HCI and CSCW, most evaluations focus on White and Asian women. My work addresses this gap by examining perinatal Black women’s use of, perspectives on, and engagement with digital platforms for managing stress and well-being. In this talk, I present empirical studies exploring how socio-cultural factors shape their preferences for digital mental health platforms. I will also discuss future directions for integrating a culturally tailored framework into digital mental health interventions aiming to improve engagement within this population.
Short bio: Vanessa Oguamanam is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science working in the Wellness Technology Lab under the supervision of Dr. Andrea Parker. She holds a M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park. Vanessa’s research sits at the intersection of human-centered AI, digital health equity, and maternal mental health. Specifically, her dissertation focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of an AI-powered digital health tool tailored to support stress management in perinatal Black women. Her research trajectory has been shaped by her prior experiences conducting digital health research at the University of Maryland’s HCI Lab, Microsoft Research, and Google.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
1. Adam Coscia
Title: Visual Analytics for Trustworthy LLMs in Education
Short bio: Adam Coscia is a fifth-year PhD student in Human-Centered Computing advised by Alex Endert, whose research explores how visual analytics tools can help experts leverage and evaluate AI like LLMs for complex, data-driven tasks in critical domains including education, intelligence analysis, data science, and autonomous exploration of space and deep-sea environments. He engages in user-centered design with analysts, scientists, and engineers to create visual analytics interfaces that not only explain opaque AI behaviors, but also enhance workflow efficiency and domain experts' understanding of the data, revealing novel design implications for bridging cutting-edge AI, visual analytics, and interface design with practical, real-world applications.
2. Qiao Zhang
Title: Understanding Human AI Teaming in Gaming Environments
Short bio: Qiao Zhang is a fifth year PhD student in Computer Science advised by Dr. MacLellan, whose research lies in the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Human Computer Interaction. Using multi-player cooperative games as environments, Qiao develop agents that can interact with human to understand human-AI teaming dynamics from the perspectives of communication, collaboration and adaptation.
3. Sichen Jin
Title: Visual Analytics for Spatial Social Network Mapping and Analysis
Short bio: Sichen Jin is a fourth-year CS Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech specializing in GIS, visual analytics, and human-computer interaction. Her research focuses on developing a visual analytic tool for exploring how underlying geography affects social ties.
4. Yao Dou
Title: Building Interactive and Personalized AI with User Simulators
Short bio: Yao Dou is a fourth year PhD student at Georgia Tech advised by Prof. Wei Xu. His current research interests lie in natural language processing (NLP), especially text generation, evaluation and online user privacy.
5. Jonathan Zheng
Title: Probabilistic Reasoning with LLMs for k-anonymity Estimation
Short bio: Jonathan Zheng is a second year PhD student at the Georgia Institute of Technology majoring in computer science. His current research interests lie in natural language processing, specifically in the learning and reasoning process of large language models.
6. Jin Yu
Title: Designing With, Not Just For: How In-Depth User Research Transforms Interaction Design
Short bio: Jin Yu is a fifth-year PhD student in human-centered computing, focusing on co-design, educational technology, and interactive systems to empower youth as active creators of future technologies. Her work bridges physical computing and digital platforms, developing toolkits that support hands-on learning, prototyping, and collaborative design.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Proposal title: Computational Design AI System to Empower Maker Educators: Team members: HyunJoo Oh, assistant professor, School of Industrial Design and School of Interactive Computing; Sehoon Ha, assistant professor, School of Interactive Computing; Sabrina Grossman, program director, Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing at Georgia Tech. Research overview: The rise of design and fabrication tools like 3D printers and microcontrollers has expanded maker education from K-12 to higher education. However, access remains a challenge, especially for underprivileged youth. Teachers often struggle to lead maker-centered activities due to a lack of design and engineering expertise, which particularly affects students in low-resource districts where school activities may be their only exposure to creative learning. To address this, we propose developing a web-based AI system that empowers teachers to lead kinetic design and engineering projects. Through participatory design with experienced teachers, the system will assist with project design and offer customized instructional guidance by identifying challenging steps and potential recovery solutions and adapting content to meet teachers’ needs.
Proposal title: Democratizing Creative Agency Through Interactive Technologies and Music Education: Team members: Moeiini Reilly, research technologist, GTRI, and human-centered computing Ph.D. student with the School of Interactive Computing; Paul Brancato, research engineer, GTRI; Nicole Brancato, composer and music educator. Research overview: Artistic computing learning environments play a crucial role in promoting equity and inclusion in computing by offering diverse opportunities to learn computational thinking through culturally relevant programming. Despite advances in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) education, there remains a significant gap in understanding how learners interact with and design creatively in these constructionist settings, as well as how the materiality of computational artifacts influences learning processes, meaning-making, and creative agency. This research seeks to build a framework for centering social and cultural dimensions of artistic learning within computational environments augmented by low-cost, technology-enhanced music education.
STEVE BANNERMAN:
Head of post-production for international originals and Head of International VFX at Amazon MGM Studios
Steve Bannerman is a dynamic technology and entertainment executive currently serving as head of post-production and visual effects for International Originals at Amazon MGM Studios. With a career spanning over three decades, Bannerman has established himself as a visionary leader in post-production, visual effects, and technology innovation. His journey began at Hayes Modems in Atlanta and London, followed by a significant twelve-year tenure at Apple, where he played a pivotal role in developing and launching QuickTime and managing the Power Macintosh product line.
Throughout his career, Bannerman has demonstrated exceptional entrepreneurial spirit and leadership abilities, founding Caststream Inc., which was later acquired by Oracle, and serving as CEO of Local Hero and later REAL by FAKE, where he oversaw prestigious television shows and independent films. His expertise in building and managing international teams is particularly evident in his current role at Amazon MGM Studios, where he established the company's first international movies post team, delivering 40 movies annually worldwide and spearheading the transition to cloud-based workflows.
A Georgia Tech graduate with a BSIM in business/engineering, Bannerman has consistently been at the forefront of technological innovation in the entertainment industry. His portfolio includes work on award-winning projects such as Big Little Lies (Emmy winner), Sharp Objects (Golden Globe winner) and Argentina 1985 (Oscar nomination, Golden Globe Winner). His expertise spans across visual effects, post-production workflows, and the integration of cutting-edge technologies like virtual production and AI tools, making him a respected figure in both the technology and entertainment sectors.
Abstract: The new Center for Human-AI-Robot Teaming (CHART) at Georgia Tech is designed to unite researchers and innovators dedicated to advancing how humans, AI, and robotics work together; and to act as a catalyst for developing practical solutions to critical scientific and societal challenges. CHART will cultivate a collaborative ecosystem that brings together the brightest minds from academia and industry. The research conducted by CHART members will not only amplify the innovative work already underway but also adopt a comprehensive, transdisciplinary approach to tackle the complex challenges of this rapidly evolving field. Beyond leading innovative research, CHART is committed to promoting lifelong learning for current and future leaders in human-AI-robot teaming.
Founding Director Bruce Walker will introduce the aims and mission of CHART, and will discuss how designing, developing, and deploying collaborative human-technology systems requires a deep understanding of people, technologies with agency, and teams science. This positions CHART squarely at the intersection of IPaT and IRIM. Dr. Walker will also introduce some of the CHART members, who already hail from 5 Georgia Tech colleges and 17 different universities (plus our industry partnerships), spanning fields such as psychology, design, interactive computing, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, public policy, and business. CHART welcomes new members. Finally, Dr. Walker will share some examples of the exciting projects already underway by CHART teams. Domains range from transportation to healthcare to education to assistive technology.
Short bio: Bruce N. Walker is a professor in the School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. His interdisciplinary Sonification Lab studies human-computer interaction issues in non-traditional contexts, like cockpits and vehicle displays. Research interests include sonification and auditory displays, driving, trust in automation, technology adoption, human-AI-robot teaming, navigation and wayfinding, creativity, VR/AR tools, and assistive technologies. Dr. Walker teaches Sensation and Perception, Engineering Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, Research Methods, Auditory Interfaces, and Assistive Technology. He is a Past President of the International Community for Auditory Display (ICAD). Dr. Walker is Director of the Center for Human-AI-Robot Teaming (CHART) and the Center for Inclusive Climate Communications (CICC). He is on the Steering Committee for the Center for Research and Education in Navigation (CRANE). In addition to academic research leading to over 250 journal articles and proceedings, Walker has consulted for NASA, state and federal governments, private companies, and the military. Dr. Walker is also an active entrepreneur, founding startups and working on projects related to COVID diagnosis, skin cancer detection, mental health monitoring, gun safety, and digital olfaction.
Co-sponsored with:
* Institute for People and Technology (IPaT)
* Center for Human-AI-Robot Teaming (CHART)
* Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM)
Abstract: Is DeepSeek a fundamentally new disruptor? Probably not, if we revisit arguments from the 2009 book Working-Class Network Society: Communication Technology and the Information Have-Less in Urban China. If we understand key concepts concerning the information have-less, e.g., existential informational needs, social innovation, and network labor, while updating them in the current era of AI. Processes of economic and social transformation continue to shape class and class consciousness, although seismic shifts are taking place in the realms of globalization, urbanization, and industrialization. Today’s working-class network society has become more pervasive, more polarized, and more ephemeral. But openings for change persist, in China, Asia and the Global South.
Bio: Dr. Jack Linchuan Qiu is Chair and Shaw Foundation Professor of Media Technology at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has published more than 130 research articles and chapters and 11 books in English and Chinese including Goodbye iSlave: A Manifesto for Digital Abolition (University of Illinois P, 2016), World Factory in the Information Age (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2013), Working-Class Network Society (MIT Press, 2009), and co-authored book Mobile Communication and Society (MIT Press, 2005). He is a recipient of the C. Edwin Baker Award for the Advancement of Scholarship on Media, Markets and Democracy, and an elected Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA).
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: Traditionally, research labs rely on, and benefits from, the work of undegraduate and graduate research assistants and visiting reseachers/scholars, with many being on track for the professoriate. However, higher education can benefit from engaging in increased opportunities that develop talent pools that are fluent in, and capable in building, public-private partnerships. This session will showcase how the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation’s Fellowship and Internship programs has leveraged early career talent to bolster research and economic development activities.
Bios:
Debra Lam is the Founding Director of the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, a statewide public-private partnership committed to investing in innovative solutions for shared economic prosperity. She continues to lead smart communities and urban innovation work at Georgia Tech. Prior to this, she served as Pittsburgh’s inaugural Chief of Innovation & Performance where she oversaw all technology, sustainability, performance, and innovation functions of city government. Before that, she was a management consultant at a global engineering and design firm, Arup. She has received various awards, including being named one of the top 100 most influential people in digital government by Apolitcal. She has worked and lived in the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. A graduate of Georgetown University and the University of California, Berkeley, Debra serves on the board of the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta and was most recently appointed by the U.S Department of Commerce to the Internet of Things Advisory Board.
Clarence Anthony Jr. is the inaugural Workforce Development Program Manager for the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation. His goal is to develop initiatives that engage current and emerging talent in capitalizing on their strengths and developing new skills to build a strong workforce within the Southeast region. Clarence has 12 years of experience in higher education, working in career services and student affairs. Prior to joining the partnership, he worked at the Georgia Tech Career Center, University of Michigan, and University of Florida Career Centers serving student-athletes, first-generation and low-income college students, and graduate students. Clarence holds a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Florida, a Master of Arts in psychological counseling from Columbia University, a Doctor of Philosophy in counseling and counselor education from the University of Florida, and a Master of Business Administration program at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Agenda includes a discussion led by Tim Lieuwen and Tanta Myles on how to conduct research collaboratively and securely given the continual shifts in the regulatory landscape for research.
There will be time for Q&A as well.
Zoom link: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/97247122372
Speaker: Thad Starner, Professor, School of Interactive Computing, College of Computing
Abstract: The Oscar best picture winning movie CODA has helped introduce Deaf culture to many in the hearing community. The capital "D" in Deaf is used when referring to the Deaf culture, whereas small "d" deaf refers to the medical condition. In the Deaf community, sign language is used to communicate, and sign has a rich history in film, the arts, and education. Learning about the Deaf culture in the United States and the importance of American Sign Language in that culture has been key to choosing projects that are useful and usable for the Deaf. This talk will review 30 years of effort in sign language recognition and working with the Deaf community and will feature several upcoming products such as PopSignAI, a smartphone game that helps hearing parents of Deaf infants learn sign language.
Bio: Thad Starner is a Georgia Tech Professor and a wearable computing pioneer. In 1990, Starner coined the term "augmented reality" to describe the types of interfaces he envisioned for the future. In 1997, Thad was a founder of the annual ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC), now in its 28th year. From 2010-2018 Dr. Starner was a Technical Lead on Google's Glass, which was named a "50 Most Influential Gadget of All Time" by Time Magazine. Professor Starner has been inducted into the CHI Academy in 2017 and AWE's XR Hall of Fame in 2024. He has over 100 issued United States utility patents on wearables, artificial intelligence and interfaces.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
• 12:00 -12:15 pm - Networking starts (with lunch provided)
• 12:15 -1:00 pm - Presentation on federal funding by Robert Knotts, Executive Director, Federal Relations, Georgia Tech
• 1:00 -1:30 pm - Expert Panel on Federal Funding
* Please RSVP for the meeting here: https://gatech.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9ABBDsoZsqfHw0u
* Download an ICS file to place this on your calendar:
https://mcusercontent.com/d5f49860c7ba5242167d244f2/files/9ee224e4-b9d5-1407-7f0a-4ee7d72654b9/ippat_townhallfeb24.ics
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Abstract: The Internet has made available massive amounts of information
and given users more choices than ever before, but all too often the
result is more confusion than satisfaction. Intelligent assistants can
help people filter relevant information and guide their choices, but
users have different goals and distinctive tastes. In this talk, I
report work adaptive user interfaces -- interactive systems that
automatically personalize their content to individual users. These
incorporate technology and principles from machine learning,
intelligent agents, and human-computer interaction to improve the
user's experience. I describe a number of prototype systems, including
a personalized navigation aide, an adaptive news reader, and a
conversational destination advisor. Along the way, I consider design
decisions about the problem formulation, the representation of user
profiles, the unobtrusive collection of user feedback, and the effective
utilization of inferred profiles. I claim that progress on personalized
services depends not on development of new algorithms, but rather
on the integration of existing methods in novel ways.
This talk describes joint work with Nicolas Fiechter, Melinda Gervasio,
Wayne Iba, Mehmet Goker, Seth Rogers, and Cynthia Thompson.
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Bio: Pat Langley, Ph.D., serves as Principal Research Scientist in the Information
and Communications Laboratory at Georgia Tech Research Institute
and as Director of the Institute for the Study of Learning and Expertise.
He has contributed to artificial intelligence and cognitive science for more
than 40 years, having published over 300 papers and five books on these
topics. Dr. Langley developed some of the first computational approaches
to scientific knowledge discovery, and he was an early champion of both
experimental studies of machine learning and its application to real-world
problems. He is the founding editor of two journals, Machine Learning
in 1986 and Advances in Cognitive Systems in 2012, and he is a Fellow
of both AAAI and the Cognitive Science Society. Dr. Langley's current
research focuses on architectures for embodied intelligent agents and
induction of explanatory scientific models.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Michael Best
Wednesday, April 5 at 11:00am
TSRB, 85 Fifth Street NW, Rooms 132-134
Virtual option - click here
Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and Master’s Program in Human-Computer Interaction (MS-HCI) are pleased to announce Interactivity@GT, the annual research showcase and networking event for industry featuring our students and faculty engaged in people-centric innovation.
The event will take place in Georgia Tech’s Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) on:
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
12:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Attendance is free, but does require advanced registration.
Information/Register Here:
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/interactivityGT2025
Interactivity@GT enables industry researchers, developers, and recruiters to connect with Georgia Tech people and state-of-the-art research exploring technology solutions that will shape our global future. Georgia Tech’s world-class IPaT and its top-rated MS-HCI Program are joining forces to sponsor Interactivity@GT, a powerful merging of pioneering research and renowned faculty with the best and brightest students preparing for industry-based user research and design careers. This is a free event and Atlanta-area businesses are encouraged to attend.
The panel will explore the technology innovation landscape in Atlanta and its broader national and global impact. Discussion topics include:
Abstract – the Matter of Data in a Self-Inscribing World – Data analysis and visualization are crucial tools in today’s society, and digital representations have steadily become the default for presenting claims about the state of the world. Yet, more and more often, we find that citizen scientists, environmental activists, and amateur forensic investigators are using analog methods to present evidence of pollution, climate change, and the spread of disinformation.
In my talk, I will discuss Autographic design as a non-representational framework of visualization based on the notion that data are material entities rather than abstract representations. Focusing on the materiality of data generation, the goal of autographic design is to make the process of data generation legible and accountable. In the institutional politics of whose data is accepted as trustworthy, autographic design reverses representational rules – instead of adopting experts’ methods and representations, it challenges these representations through sensory displays that emphasize traces, imprints, and self-inscriptions.
Bio – Dietmar Offenhuber is Associate Professor and Chair of Art+Design at Northeastern University in the areas of information design and urban affairs. He holds an MS and a PhD in from MIT (Medialab & Urban Planning). His research focuses on the relationship between data and design in the social context. Dietmar is the author of the award-winning monograph “Waste is Information” (MIT Press) and has published books on urban data and accountability technologies. His new book “Autographic Design – the Matter of Data in a Self-inscribing World” examines material visualization practices and the production of evidence.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: The past number of years have seen peak excitement, enthusiasm, and inflated optimism around AI, mostly predicated upon yet to materialise “benefits”, “potentials”, and “promises”. Actual deployed systems however continue to fail to live up to their promises, leading to numerous downstream impacts. In this talk, we survey current state-of-the-art AI systems and their downstream impact on society and conclude with some recommendations geared towards reliable and equitable AI systems as well as mechanisms for accountability.
Bio: Abeba Birhane founded and leads the TCD AI Accountability Lab (AIAL). Birhane received her PhD in 2022 and is currently a Research Fellow at the School of Computer Science and Statistics in Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses on AI accountability, with a particular focus on audits of AI models and training datasets – work for which she was featured in Wired UK and TIME on the TIME100 Most Influential People in AI list in 2023. Dr. Birhane also served on the United Nations Secretary-General’s AI Advisory Body and currently serves at the AI Advisory Council in Ireland.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: Much effort is devoted these days to understanding the root cause of distrust in election systems. Little effort is devoted to understanding the relationship between election technology and the historically significant distrust in populations whose rights have been denied. In this talk, I will first draw connections between the modern language used to justify the computerization of elections and the language of the Post-Reconstruction revision of the constitution of the state of Mississippi. I will use this analogy to bolster the argument that in modern times building "trust" in elections is counter-productive and that energy is better spent on developing confidence-building evidence-based methods for reaching agreement on election outcomes.
Bio: Richard DeMillo holds the Charlotte B. and Roger C. Warren Chair in Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. With cybersecurity threats on the rise, he founded and led Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, the first-of-a-kind at a top research university, to close the national skills gap in cybersecurity. He was formerly the John P. Imlay Dean of Georgia Tech's College of Computing and Director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center. He has held senior leadership positions in industry, government, and academia. He was Hewlett-Packard/s first Chief Technology Officer.
His academic research includes over 100articles, books, and patents in computer science and cybersecurity. He works at the intersection of fundamental problems in digital technology and the public impact of those technologies. His 1979 paper “Social Processes and Proofs of Theorems and Programs “has been reprinted dozens of times and was recently cited as one of the50most influential papers in computer science.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Abstract: Frontline coastal communities are under increased threat from intersecting disasters. Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, heatwaves, heavy precipitation, and flooding are projected to rise in their incidence and overall severity over the coming decades due to climate change. Meanwhile, industries operating in ports are polluting the air and soil of nearby neighborhoods, and the negative health effects caused by industrial pollution can be exacerbated or redistributed by hurricanes and flooding. Through Youth Advocacy for Resilience to Disasters (YARDs), we seek to engage youth living in frontline communities in disaster resilience planning through mapmaking and advocacy through a cross-curricular STEAM program designed for middle school students. We designed a youth program because families are often busy with other activities, care work, and their employment that they can be difficult to engage; however, youth can be a gateway to access these busy families. Research has shown that engaging youth in advocacy can enhance disaster resilience. From 2021 to 2023, we implemented a 14-session curriculum that educates and empowers middle-school-aged participants to advocate for infrastructural improvements that can benefit themselves and their neighbors by learning about disaster resilience from the perspective of environmental justice and equity. Students then learn about the importance of civics and understanding power and representation in their community. The next module focuses on MapSpot, virtual mapmaking, and data to understand the assets and vulnerabilities in their communities related to disasters and climate. They then learn about green and gray infrastructure solutions to disasters. Finally, they develop an action plan and present their plan to local leaders (political and civic, including their families) that they have identified in their community to advocate for change.
This curriculum has been piloted as an after-school program at a Title I school in Savannah and Chatham County's Public School System in the Fall of 2022 and twice as a summer camp in the summers of 2022 and 2023 at the Georgia Tech Savannah campus. Most recently, we ran the program as a 2-day camp in Cape Town, South Africa. This transdisciplinary and cross-curricular program includes elements and team members from diverse disciplines including sociology, urban planning, civil engineering, and digital media studies, as well as civic partners. We also refined and introduced a creative, accessible mapmaking tool, called Map Spot, to engage youth in data visualization and mapmaking to help make claims about disasters in their communities.
Bio: Allen Hyde is an Associate Professor in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a quantitative scholar whose main research areas are stratification and inequality, urban sociology, work and occupations, climate and disaster resilience, and immigration. He is currently researching the effects of race/ethnicity and immigration status on homeownership, social and demographic change in Clarkston, GA (known as the most diverse square mile in America), and a Principal Investigator for the Youth Advocacy for Resilience to Disasters Program research project funded by the National Science Foundation's Civic Innovation Challenge. He has also been a Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) grant. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Connecticut.
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The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays. Most lectures are held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) 1st floor ballroom.
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Present:
Shaping Artistic Research at Tech
"A Conversation about existing creative research happening across campus and what we can do to strengthen the artistic community."
with cocktail reception to follow.
]]>
Abstract: Frontline coastal communities are under increased threat from intersecting disasters. Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, heatwaves, heavy precipitation, and flooding are projected to rise in their incidence and overall severity over the coming decades due to climate change. Meanwhile, industries operating in ports are polluting the air and soil of nearby neighborhoods, and the negative health effects caused by industrial pollution can be exacerbated or redistributed by hurricanes and flooding. Through Youth Advocacy for Resilience to Disasters (YARDs), we seek to engage youth living in frontline communities in disaster resilience planning through mapmaking and advocacy through a cross-curricular STEAM program designed for middle school students. We designed a youth program because families are often busy with other activities, care work, and their employment that they can be difficult to engage; however, youth can be a gateway to access these busy families. Research has shown that engaging youth in advocacy can enhance disaster resilience. From 2021 to 2023, we implemented a 14-session curriculum that educates and empowers middle-school-aged participants to advocate for infrastructural improvements that can benefit themselves and their neighbors by learning about disaster resilience from the perspective of environmental justice and equity. Students then learn about the importance of civics and understanding power and representation in their community. The next module focuses on MapSpot, virtual mapmaking, and data to understand the assets and vulnerabilities in their communities related to disasters and climate. They then learn about green and gray infrastructure solutions to disasters. Finally, they develop an action plan and present their plan to local leaders (political and civic, including their families) that they have identified in their community to advocate for change. This curriculum has been piloted as an after-school program at a Title I school in Savannah and Chatham County's Public School System in the Fall of 2022 and twice as a summer camp in the summers of 2022 and 2023 at the Georgia Tech Savannah campus. Most recently, we ran the program as a 2-day camp in Cape Town, South Africa. This transdisciplinary and cross-curricular program includes elements and team members from diverse disciplines including sociology, urban planning, civil engineering, and digital media studies, as well as civic partners. We also refined and introduced a creative, accessible mapmaking tool, called Map Spot, to engage youth in data visualization and mapmaking to help make claims about disasters in their communities.
Bio: Allen Hyde is an Associate Professor in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a quantitative scholar whose main research areas are stratification and inequality, urban sociology, work and occupations, climate and disaster resilience, and immigration. He is currently researching the effects of race/ethnicity and immigration status on homeownership, social and demographic change in Clarkston, GA (known as the most diverse square mile in America), and a Principal Investigator for the Youth Advocacy for Resilience to Disasters Program research project funded by the National Science Foundation's Civic Innovation Challenge. He has also been a Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) grant. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Connecticut.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
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Abstract: How can we study and reveal the hidden, or repressed, histories within the built environment that illuminate a more complete and accurate record of our shared history? This talk will feature ongoing documentation, visualization, and historic interpretation work at modern civil rights sites in the southern U.S., and how expanded narratives can pave the way for a more resilient and inclusive future.
Bio: Danielle S. Willkens is an Associate Professor in Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and the Initiative Lead for Just, Resilient & Informed Communities at the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). Her research has been supported by the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Center for Architecture, Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation, the International Center for Jefferson Studies, the American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant, the Society of Architectural Historians and the National Center for Preservation Training and Technology. She holds an PhD from the Bartlett School of Architecture, a M.Phil from the University of Cambridge, and a M.Arch and BS from the University of Virginia.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
]]>Abstract: Humans engage in a wide variety of daily activities by constantly interacting with the environment physically. Recording, modeling, and augmenting such physical interactions are fundamental to understanding human behaviors, promoting health monitoring and delivery, and fostering human-centric intelligent system designs. However, challenges arise from the pervasive and diverse nature of physical interactions: they occur across the human body at extended duration, are subjectively perceived by individuals and involve diverse input-output modalities. Practically deployable integrated interfaces for physical interactions are required to be scalable, seamlessly integrated, robust, and adaptable.
In this talk, I will present three integrated textile-based systems for the recording, modeling, and augmentation of tactile interactions. First, I will introduce digital machine knitted full-sized tactile sensing garments for learning human-environment interactions. Then, I will briefly showcase the recording and modeling of tactile interactions in an ambient sensing scenario via an intelligent carpet. Lastly, I will describe adaptive tactile interactions transfer via digitally embroidered smart gloves. These innovations exemplify the opportunities by the combination of digital fabrication and artificial intelligence, enabling seamless observation of human activities, in-depth analysis of interactions with the surroundings, and strategies to augment our behaviors and intelligent systems.
Bio: Yiyue is an Assistant Professor at University of Washington ECE. She received her Ph.D. degree in EECS from MIT in 2024 and a B.S. degree in Materials Science & Engineering from UIUC in 2017. Her research lies at the intersection of digital fabrication, human-computer/robot interaction, and applied AI. Her research on integrated intelligent textiles has been published in interdisciplinary journals, e.g., Nature Electronics and Nature Communications, top human-computer interactions, robotics and learning venues, e.g., CHI, UIST, CVPR, ICRA. Her work has been selected as the cover of Nature Electronics, awarded Best Paper Honorable Mention at CHI, featured in prominent media outlets, and invited to public museums and world congress exhibitions. She has been supported by fellowship from MathWorks, Google, and Accenture, and was recently listed as 30 under 30 North American 2024.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
Abstract: Critical infrastructure networks provide socio-economic services across local and regional scales. However, population and economic growth, urbanization, increasing infrastructure interdependency, and natural hazards – not least due to the worsening effects of climate change – are putting these infrastructure systems under increasing pressure. Given future climatic variations, a comprehensive understanding of the potential impact of climate-change-induced natural hazards on the intra- and interconnected critical infrastructure networks and network resilience options is still absent. Through three types of infrastructure networks as case studies, this talk discusses approaches to better understand climate change impacts on critical infrastructure networks.
Bio: Yiyi He is an assistant professor in the School of City and Regional Planning (SCaRP) at the College of Design at Georgia Tech. Her research centers on the interdisciplinary fields of urban planning, GIScience, climate science, and artificial intelligence. She is interested in better understanding the uncertainty and asymmetric impacts of climate-change-induced extreme weather events (e.g., flooding, wildfires, extreme heat) on critical components of the built environment (e.g., lifeline infrastructure networks, vulnerable neighborhoods). She leverages data-driven approaches, such as GIS, network science, hyperspectral remote sensing, machine learning, and spatial statistics, to tackle complex challenges in climate change and resilience research and to inform more intelligent planning and policy directives. Her previous work involved using 3D hydrodynamic flood models to simulate flooding under different climate change scenarios and analyze the impact of coastal and inland flooding on critical infrastructure networks. She received her bachelor’s degree from Nanjing University and her master’s and Ph.D. degrees from UC Berkeley.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
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Abstract: For over two decades, my research has focused on the development and evaluation of technologies to support people with autism and ADHD and their families, friends, and allies. This work, grounded in community-engaged research, reflects a commitment to creating tools that are not only effective but are co-designed with and evaluated by the people who will use them—children, families, educators, and clinicians. From wearable devices to ubiquitous technologies for classrooms and homes, from individual focused to societal and structural interventions, from studying to designing to deploying, the research of my group has spanned a variety of approaches to understanding and supporting the neurodivergent experience. Throughout this journey, the importance of long-term, sustained partnerships has been paramount. This approach ensures that the technologies we create are deeply relevant to the contexts in which they are deployed, while also addressing the ethical challenges that come with designing for vulnerable and minoritized populations. Community-engaged research is messy and fraught with systemic barriers, including publication biases and the complexities of maintaining relationships over time. Despite these challenges, the outcomes have been profound, with technological innovations leading to real-world impact.
In this talk, I will explore the trajectory of this work, emphasizing key milestones in the development of autism and ADHD technologies. I will also reflect on the lessons learned from twenty years of community-engaged research, including the balance between scientific rigor and ethical responsibility, and the role that interdisciplinary partnerships play in making this work possible. Ultimately, this talk will underscore the critical role of community-driven innovation in shaping the future of technology for our increasingly neurodiverse world.
Bio: Gillian R. Hayes is the Vice Provost for Academic Personnel and the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Professor of Informatics at UC Irvine. She also holds joint appointments in Computer Science and in the School of Education and School of Medicine. Her research interests are in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, assistive and educational technologies, and health informatics. She co-directs the CERES global research network focused on child development and technology, is an elected board member of the Computing Research Association, and has the pleasure of serving on the advisory boards for both Human-Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She is a proud Tech alumna and very much looking forward to spending the day with IPaT:GVU friends, new and old.
]]>Abstract: Despite the rapid advancement of AI, computers' ability to comprehend human behaviors remains limited. For instance, commodity computing devices still face challenges in understanding even basic human daily activities such as eating and drinking. The primary obstacle lies in the absence of suitable sensing technologies capable of capturing and interpreting high-quality behavioral data in everyday settings. In this presentation, I will share my research on the development of everyday wearables that are minimally-obtrusive, privacy-aware, and low-power, yet capable of capturing and comprehending various body movements and poses that humans employ in their everyday activities. First, I will show how these sensing technologies can empower various everyday wearable form factors, including wristbands, necklaces, earphones, headphones, and glasses, to track essential body postures, such as facial expressions, gaze, finger poses, limb poses, as well as gestures on teeth and tongue. Then, I will demonstrate how, when paired with state-of-the-art AI, these everyday wearables can revolutionize how computers comprehend human behaviors. Specifically, I will focus on applications related to activity recognition, accessibility, and health sensing. Finally, I will discuss the prospects and challenges associated with the integration of AI and wearables to support users in the future of everyday computing.
Bio: Cheng Zhang is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Information Science and Computer Science (Field) at Cornell University, where he leads the Smart Computer Interfaces for Future Interactions (SciFi) Lab. His research focuses on designing, developing, and evaluating intelligent sensing systems, particularly minimally-obtrusive wearables, to seamlessly comprehend and predict human behaviors and intentions, thereby supporting users in areas such as accessibility, health sensing, and activity recognition. Cheng earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. He published at top-venues such as Ubicomp/IMWUT, UIST, CHI, ISWC, MobiCom, IUI, MobileHCI, and holds numerous patents. His research has been recognized with honors such as the NSF CAREER Award, the 10-Year Impact Award at Ubicomp, and several Best Paper awards and honorable mentions. His work has been featured by BBC, Forbes, New Scientist, DigitalTrends, CNET, Fast Company, Popular Science, Engadget, Gizmodo, NowThis, and Mashable. Cheng is the steering committee co-chair for International Symposium on Wearable computers(ISWC) and a member of the steering committee on International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp). He served as technical program committee (TPC) co-chair for ISWC 2023 and Ubicomp 2024.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
Abstract: For someone raised in the US, the statistics that quantify health inequalities around the world are difficult to comprehend. For example, in 2009, 1 in 11 children in Ethiopia died before their 5th birthday and 1 in 146 women died due to pregnancy complications. These statistics became personal to Dr. Gleason when, in 2009, his daughter Kennedy, whom he and his wife were adopting from Ethiopia, passed away before we could bring her home. This loss birthed in him a newfound passion to help address global health equity and wellness, that has reshaped his research, teaching, and service activities. Maternal and neonatal mortality rates in Ethiopia are among the highest in the world. In this talk, Dr. Gleason will present some of his recent research toward development of novel biomedical devices aimed at early assessment of risk of cephalopelvic disproportion (CPD) and preeclampsia (PE) in pregnant women in Ethiopia and pilot results for using a wearable device for continuous monitoring of neonates, during the first 7 days of life, in an Ethiopian Neonatal Intensive Care Unit setting. Dr. Gleason will also share his vision as the new initiative lead for Global Health Equity and Wellness in IPaT.
Bio: Rudy Gleason is a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Faculty Director for the Global Leadership Living-Learning Community, and the Global Health Equity and Wellness Initiative Lead at the Institute for People and Technology at Georgia Tech. Dr. Gleason’s research program has two key and distinct research aims. The first research aim is to quantify the link between biomechanics, mechanobiology, and tissue growth and remodeling in diseases of the vasculature and other soft tissues. The second research aim is to translate engineering innovation to combat global health disparities and foster sustainable development in low-resource settings around the world.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
]]>A Keynote Lecture by Andrew Quitmeyer, Ph.D.
Location: TSRB Auditorium, Georgia Tech, Atlanta
Dates: 29th October 3PM 2024
Dr. Andy Quitmeyer designs new ways to interact with the natural world. His transdisciplinary work spans scientific and design processes, from material exploration and natural experimentation to artistic outreach. Quitmeyer has worked with large organizations like Cartoon Network, IDEO, and the Smithsonian, taught as a tenure-track professor at the National University of Singapore, and even had his research turned into a (silly) television series called “Hacking the Wild,” distributed by Discovery Networks.
He spends most of his time volunteering with smaller organizations and communities, and recently founded the field-station makerspace, Digital Naturalism Laboratories. In the rainforest of Gamboa, Panama, Dinalab blends biological fieldwork and technological crafting with a community of local and international scientists, artists, engineers, and animal rehabilitators. Our research’s largest event, the international Digital Naturalism Conference, brings together hundreds of participants from all fields to collaborate on finding new ways of interacting with nature.
Andrew Quitmeyer's lecture is part of the Mothbox workshop being held Oct. 28-29 at Georgia Tech. Details can be found here:
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/mothworkshop-oct28
BIO: Lisa Marks, Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at Georgia Tech, integrates traditional craft techniques with advanced digital design, combining historic with modern technology to demonstrate a unique blend of art and science. Marks’ work has gained international acclaim, notably winning the 2019 International Grand Prix Lexus Design Award. Her research, aiming to preserve endangered crafts and innovate new design methodologies, has led to recognition and opportunities to present at prestigious institutions like Apple, The Marshall Space Center, and Milan Design Week. Marks incorporates her research into her teaching, developing new courses emphasizing the synergy between craft, design, and technology. She has recently been named the IPaT Initiative Lead for Arts, Expression, and Creative Technologies.
]]>Bio: Heidi Biggs is an Assistant Professor at the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Institute of Technology. They research Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and design focused on environmental sustainability in computing. Their approach to sustainability in computing seeks to expand ecological thinking in HCI through local, situated, and critical lenses. They were a pre-doctoral fellow in the Center for Humanities and Informatics and Penn State University and a Hanauer Fellow in Interdisciplinary Humanities at the University of Washington. They hold a PhD in Informatics from Penn State University and a MDes in Interaction Design from the University of Washington. Biggs’ work is featured in ACM SIGCHI conference proceedings such as CHI, CSCW, and DIS, the HCI Journal, as well as arts-based venues such as Textile Intersections in London, and contemporary performance venue On the Boards, in Seattle, WA.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
]]>Abstract: Novel haptic interfaces and soft robots are integral to our increasingly digital world. Haptics can enhance robot teleoperation for various tasks including gaming, caregiving, and agriculture, while soft robots enable human-robot interaction and delicate object manipulation due to their flexibility. By leveraging collaborative, community-driven research, we can yield innovative and impactful outcomes aligned with these goals. In this talk, I will highlight several projects spanning mobile tactile displays and soft robotic actuators. Specifically, I will touch upon a 3-DoF wrist-worn haptic device for guidance and communication, a smartphone app used to democratize haptics research, and a versatile soft pneumatic actuator with reconfigurable fiber configurations. Moreover, I will demonstrate how technical expertise derived from research in the lab was coupled with the broader community to propel new research avenues. Making a conscious effort to uncover synergies between community and robotics research provides invaluable opportunities to benefit agriculture, human health, and everyday technology.
Biography: Kyle Yoshida is a postdoctoral researcher at Washington State University and an incoming assistant professor at UCLA. He received his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University and his BS in Bioengineering with an African Studies minor at Harvard University. He received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. His work spans soft robotics, haptic perception, and human-robot interfaces. In his free time, he serves as Executive Director of Honua Scholars, a STEM mentorship program recognized as one of the Top 10 Native STEM Enterprises by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.
IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
]]>Bio: Sarita Schoenebeck is a Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Her research examines social and technical approaches to creating safer and more equitable experiences online. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award, Best Paper and Honorable Mention awards at CHI and CSCW, and ACM CSCW and UMSI Service awards. Her research has been covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and elsewhere. She has taught at Michigan and Yale Law Schools and is a Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Sarita received her PhD in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Tech.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
Bio: Dr. Kyle Yoshida is a postdoctoral researcher at Washington State University and an incoming assistant professor at UCLA. He received his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University and his BS in Bioengineering with an African Studies minor at Harvard University. He received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. His work spans soft robotics, haptic perception, and human-robot interfaces. In his free time, he serves as Executive Director of Honua Scholars, a STEM mentorship program recognized as one of the Top 10 Native STEM Enterprises by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
Bio: Sandjar Kozubaev is a researcher, designer and educator. He currently works at Intuit Mailchimp, a marketing technology company, as lead Strategist & Researcher. His areas expertise includes design research, participatory design, service design, and futures studies. Sandjar has worked with Fortune 500 companies in the financial services, consumer products, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, automotive and other industries as well as non-profit organizations. His scholarly research focuses on civic and social design and emergent community-based alternative design practices.
Sandjar has a BA and MS in economics from Tashkent Oriental Studies Institute (Uzbekistan) and University of St Andrews (Scotland), respectively. He also has an MBA in Design Strategy from California College of the Arts. He holds a PhD in Digital Media at Georgia Institute of Technology.
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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.
The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.
Abstract:
For the first IPaT GVU Lunch Lecture of the academic year, Michael Best, executive director of the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT), will present an overview IPaT’s activities and offerings, and welcome the team and our partners. IPaT has four new research foci, and we’ll meet the new research Initiative Leads: Professors Rudy Gleason (Global Health Equity and Wellbeing), Danielle Willkens (Just, Resilient, and Informed Communities), Allen Hyde (Responsible and Ethical Technologies), and Lisa Marks (Arts, Expression, and Creative Technologies). Each Initiative Lead will develop programs to enhance interdisciplinary research, community, funding opportunities, and impact in their areas. Best will also foreshadow some of this term’s events, including a stellar line-up for the Lunch Lecture series itself, our upcoming Wearable Innovations for Health Equity Workshop, the Fall Town Hall, and other programs. IPaT’s emerging global initiatives will be overviewed, with activities currently in Asia and Africa. He will announce this Fall’s IPaT/GTRI Research & Engagement Grant recipients. Finally, for folks new to IPaT, he will present IPaT's infrastructure and service offerings, such as its Craft and Prototyping Lab and the Aware Home. The lecture will end with an opportunity for conversation, input, and interaction.
IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here:
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures
Location:
TSRB 1st Floor Ballroom
85 Fifth St NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
If you can't attend, please watch the Live Stream.
Abstract: This is a talk about how to redesign capitalism, focusing on how startups are built, products are made, and customers are reached. I research how design and capitalism are intertwined, and how design perspectives can inform practices of entrepreneurship, commercialization, and tech transfer, practices which ultimately govern what new products and services are created and launched into the world where they have the opportunity to affect how people live their lives.
Translational work in HCD and HCI often focuses on product development and how to create technologies that effectively meet the needs of the people who adopt them — generally through iterative, research-oriented practices. This talk explores how the frameworks of HCD and HCI can be used more expansively — to guide not just how to build products, but how to build entire companies that address the needs of individuals and communities while minimizing downstream harms. While discourses of “how to start a startup” courses, whether formal university offerings or Startup Weekend style community events, address products and users in ways that borrow quite a bit from HCI and HCD, this talk will show how design and HCI can drive multiple aspects of startups — including the development of business models, employee policies, pricing strategy, and more — to help create companies that are less extractive and more beneficial to society at large.
For this talk, I will provide concrete examples of tools that can help translate social, environmental, ethical, and critical perspectives into technical designs. I will also talk about how business models – when paired with technological innovations – can be used as levers to increase the extent to which ethical considerations inform the foundation of a company. Finally, I will discuss how identifying user needs in a commercial context can be done within a morally and critically informed framework and then translated into technical specifications that guide product development work.
This work is based on my experience founding a medical device company, my work as a venture capitalist, and my past several years teaching a graduate course on “Building a Human Centered Venture.”
Bio: Beth Kolko is Professor and Associate Department Chair in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. She led the Design for Digital Inclusion Lab from 2001-2014, and since then has collaborated as co-lead of the Tactile and Tactical Technology Lab. She also co-founded the Y-Combinator backed medical device company Shift Labs. She is a Senior Venture Partner at Pioneer Fund, and Founding Venture Partner at Pack Ventures. Her recent work in HCDE focuses on entrepreneurship with a particular focus on how the intellectual frameworks of design can inform the creation of more human-centered companies.
Thursday, Apr 11, 2024
12:00 p.m. Lunch; 12:30 p.m. Talk
Location:
TSRB 1st Floor Ballroom
85 Fifth St NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
If you can't attend, please watch the Live Stream.
Abstract: As AI advances, so does human intelligence and productivity. Yet, AI use has the potential to
reduce users' capacity for deliberate decision-making, thereby diminishing their sense of agency. In
this talk, I will discuss how AI's core features—prediction, conversation, and generation—can be
employed in the field of mental health, a domain where agency is crucial, to support self-reflection and
informed decision-making about health activities. My research team conducted a series of studies on
examining the design and impact of AI-driven systems that: 1) utilize stress prediction and
explainability to empower users in managing stress; 2) employ conversational AI to assist users in
reevaluating cognitive biases; and 3) leverage language generation models for fostering self-reflection
via cooperative diary writing. The goal of this talk is to provide insights and recommendations for
designers, researchers, and practitioners to design AI technologies that are more sensitive to human
concerns and behavior to augment human agency within mental health interventions.
Bio: Hwajung Hong is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Design at KAIST, and leads the
DxD (Data, Interaction, Design) Lab. She is also an affiliated faculty member of the KAIST AI Institute.
Hong's research in human-AI interaction focuses on developing systems for better human-data interaction
in diverse settings such as healthcare and education. Her work aims to enhance the ways people interact
with and through data and AI, with a particular emphasis on creating inclusive technological experiences for
individuals with special needs. She earned his Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Tech in
2015. Her research and training programs are supported by generous funds from KAIST, NRF, LG and Elice.
ABSTRACT
Data analysis and visualization are crucial tools in today’s society, and digital representations have steadily become the default for presenting claims about the state of the world. Yet, more and more often, we find that citizen scientists, environmental activists, and amateur forensic investigators are using analog methods to present evidence of pollution, climate change, and the spread of disinformation.
In my talk, I will discuss Autographic design as a non-representational framework of visualization based on the notion that data are material entities rather than abstract representations. Focusing on the materiality of data generation, the goal of autographic design is to make the process of data generation legible and accountable. In the institutional politics of whose data is accepted as trustworthy, autographic design reverses representational rules – instead of adopting experts’ methods and representations, it challenges these representations through sensory displays that emphasize traces, imprints, and self-inscriptions.
BIO
Dietmar Offenhuber is Associate Professor and Chair of Art+Design at Northeastern University in the areas of information design and urban affairs. He holds an MS and a PhD in from MIT (Medialab & Urban Planning). His research focuses on the relationship between data and design in the social context. Dietmar is the author of the award-winning monograph “Waste is Information” (MIT Press) and has published books on urban data and accountability technologies. His new book “Autographic Design – the Matter of Data in a Self-inscribing World” examines material visualization practices and the production of evidence.
LECTURE PRESENTER
Gian-Gabriel Garcia
Grant Participants: Gian-Gabriel Garcia (co-PI, ISyE), Jovan Julien (co-I, ISyE and Public Policy), Juba Ziani (co-PI, ISyE)
ABSTRACT
Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is one of the most common chronic diseases in the United States, affecting about 10% of Americans. T2DM is irreversible, and when left untreated, can increase risk for several health complications, including nerve damage, heart disease, stroke, and negative mental health impacts. To this end, the early disease stages of T2DM, i.e., pre-diabetes, are reversible and the later stages are treatable. Accordingly, early screening, detection, and treatment are critical to reducing the rates of progression to T2DM and mitigating the adverse effects of T2DM among those who already have it. Yet, in the United States, T2DM can often go undetected until its later stages, with each missed detection stage leading to worsening health outcomes and increasing financial burden. Further, people from disadvantaged and underserved groups often face lower access to care, leading to more missed detection and greater downstream disease burden. In this research, our goal is to build a mathematical model to optimize investments across screening and treatment resources while reducing disparities across disadvantaged populations. To do so, we take a novel, zoomed-out approach that models the entire pipeline of disease management from screening to treatment, rather than treating each piece in isolation. Crucially, our modeling will consider how the prevalence, progression, screening, and treatment of T2DM disease across different subpopulations will impact future disease progression in these populations, along with their resource needs. This mathematical framework can inform health policy on how to allocate limited resources across a heterogeneous population and provide insight on modeling of interventions in other chronic diseases with similar progression characteristics to T2DM, thereby reducing disparities in long-term health outcomes across populations while lowering the need for costly–—and for many unaffordable—treatments over time.
BIO
Gian-Gabriel Garcia is an Assistant Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research involves the design, analysis, and optimization of data-driven frameworks at the intersection of prediction and decision-making as motivated by high-impact problems in health policy and personalized medicine. This research spans applications to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, concussion, opioids, and maternal health. He has secured federal funding as PI from the National Institutes for Health and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. His research has also received recognition through various awards, including the IISE Transactions Best Paper Award in Operations Engineering and Analytics, INFORMS Bonder Scholarship for Applied Operations Research in Health Services, INFORMS Minority Issues Forum Paper Competition, and SMDM Lee B. Lusted Prize in Quantitative Methods and Theoretical Developments. Before joining Georgia Tech, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. He earned his PhD and MS in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and his BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
LECTURE PRESENTER
Andrea Jonsson
Grant Participants: Andrea Jonsson (School of Modern Languages), Stuart Goldberg (School of Modern Languages)
ABSTRACT
As artificial intelligence, autotune, robotics, and voice technology platforms strive to create more realistic human-sounding interlocutors, it becomes increasingly important to problematize the role of voice as a cache of humanistic information that crosses interdisciplinary and transcultural boundaries. Where technology can mimic cadence, linguistic syntax, and register in many languages, it is still the timbre of the voice that eludes recreation. Studying through a critical lens what is human about the human voice is necessary to enhancing our understanding of the limits of voice technology. This year, thanks to the IPaT:GVU research and engagement grant, I have undertaken an initiative to establish an innovative Interdisciplinary Voice Studies Lab called the Voice+ Research Lab housed in the School of Modern Languages that aims to explore the multifaceted nature of human voice expression endeavors to advance our understanding of the voice's role in human interaction, artistic expression, and social dynamics, with implications for fields ranging from linguistics and psychology to education and performance studies. Through a combination of collaborative research, interdisciplinary discussions, and student and faculty engagement, the lab seeks to unravel the intricacies of vocal communication in various contexts, including speech, singing, and nonverbal vocalizations. Key objectives include investigating the physiological and psychological mechanisms underlying voice production, analyzing cultural and societal influences on vocal behavior, and developing novel methodologies for voice analysis and visualization. By fostering collaboration among experts from different fields, this project has started an invited speaker series and a student research symposium, created a website, and has plans to expand to include a podcast, a brown bag research presentation series, a cross-disciplinary reading group, and eventually an edited volume.
BIO
Andrea Jonsson, associate professor of French and French program director at the Georgia Institute of Technology, received a Bachelor of Music Performance from McGill University and a PhD in French and Francophone Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Andrea has several recent articles and chapters on voice, gender, and affect. Her co-authored book with Heather Warren-Crow (The University of Minnesota Press-Forerunners Series) is entitled Young-Girls in Echoland: #Theorizing Tiqqun. Her current book project, Amplified Intimacy: Voicing French Feminisms in Contemporary Pop Culture examines ways women use vocal intimacy to redefine soundscapes historically dominated by men in comedy, podcasts, performance, and music and is under contract with Liverpool University Press.
LECTURE PRESENTERS
Aviv Cohav (L) + Avery Gong (R)
Grant Participants: Bruce Walker (Psychology/Interactive Computing) and Clint Zeagler (IPaT)
ABSTRACT
Dog guides provide an excellent mobility solution for blind or visually impaired (BVI) individuals. Unfortunately, these dogs must undergo a rigorous and costly training process, after which they only have about 8 “working years”. This results in a substantial problem with availability, and only a small percentage of BVI individuals who could benefit from having a dog guide are able to access them. To address this issue, we are developing a robot that could carry out the tasks of a traditional dog guide, with added capabilities. Our current work is focused on design research, with the goal of identifying specific functional and aesthetic design concepts to implement into a basic quadruped robot for an optimal blend of familiarity, innovation, and practicality. We have collected data through interviews and surveys to answer design questions pertaining to the appearance, texture, features, and method of controlling and communicating with the robot. These data inform us on directions for prototyping, enabling us to narrow in on designs that effectively meet the needs of BVI individuals.
BIOS
Aviv Cohav (he/they) is a MS student in Computational Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is interested in research at the intersecting fields of Psychology, AI, and HCI, and intends to pursue a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology. Avery Gong is a MS Computer Science student specializing in Machine Learning at Georgia Tech. She is interested in interdisciplinary research in HCI, AI, computer vision, and robotics. Aviv and Avery are involved in HCI research at the Georgia Tech Sonification Lab under the guidance of Dr. Bruce Walker. Their collaborative work centers on design research for the development of a robot dog guide for individuals with vision impairment.
LECTURE PRESENTER
Milka Trajkova
Grant Participants: Milka Trajkova (School of Literature, Media, and Communication)
ABSTRACT
Abstract: As humanity stands at the brink of an artificial intelligence (AI) renaissance, a pivotal question emerges: Can AI decode the artistry of human movement? Classical ballet is a critical piece of this question, given it is a synthesis of technical precision and profound creative expression. Many artistic movement domains are steeped in tradition but are ripe for innovation, and these invite us to explore the potential of AI to transcend the subjective and venture into the quantifiable realms of performance and wellness. To initiate this exploration, we are convening a summit from May 30-31, 2024, to begin a conversation on the way we transform the subjective assessments of artistic human performance into objective, quantifiable processes. Our workshop, hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology, brings together researchers from industry and academia to harness AI to enhance human performance and wellness, with the goal of addressing the challenge of quantifying artistry. The potential ramifications for this work extend well beyond dance. As sports analytics have reshaped our understanding of athletic prowess, a similar approach to dance could redefine our comprehension of human movement, with implications for healthcare, construction, rehabilitation, and even aging as we know it.
BIO
Milka Trajkova, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology working in the Expressive Machinery Lab. Milka leverages her past professional ballet career to explore how we can design non-invasive AI-based tools to enhance artistic human movement performance toward the democratization of training, learning, and creativity.
LECTURE PRESENTERS
Michael Cross (L) + Paula Gomez Z. (R)
Grant Participants: Michael Cross (RSI, CIPHER Lab, GTRI), Paula Gomez (SRE, CIPHER Lab GTRI), Mark Riedl (Professor and Associate Director of the Georgia Tech Machine Learning Center, School of Interactive Computing)
ABSTRACT
The peer-review system, which relies on ad honorem subject matter experts (SME), is in crisis due to the decreasing number of reviewers since the COVID-19 Pandemic, doubling the time required for a blind review process. This situation creates a need for new tools and methods for conducting peer reviews. As the peer review process is well structured and includes an analysis of a set of components (title, keywords, IMRaD structure, length, clarity, and innovation), a peer review is an excellent candidate for AI training, addressing topics such as duplicate submissions, self-plagiarism, incomplete abstracts, IMRaD evaluation, and standardization of scores for the final selection of abstracts. This research proposes to implement such as Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs) for prototyping an opensource LLM, trained with information acquired through the Computational Design Conference organizations. The outcome will be a set of automatically produced reviews that will be evaluated and scored by SME. The long-term goal is the implementation of this AI reviewer in systems such as OpenConf.
BIOS
Michael Cross is a Research Scientist and IT Operations Branch Manager at the IT division of the Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research (CIPHER) Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute’s (GTRI). He has been Principal Investigator for Subject Matter Assistance and Resource Tool for Intelligent Engineering (SMARTIE), an IRAD aimed at bringing AI capable tools to researchers working with proprietary information. His experience includes End-User Computing manager, focusing on important principles in Human-Factors and Ergonomics to Information Technology Support Management.
Dr. Paula Gómez Z. is a Senior Research Engineer at the RISC Unit at the CHIPER Lab, GTRI, where she leads the Systems Modeling research thrust, including spatiotemporal modeling, information and knowledge modeling, systems modeling, and MBSE. She obtained her Ph.D. in Computational Design from Georgia Tech, sponsored by Fulbright. She is instructor on the Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) program, Principal Investigator on research projects for Spatiotemporal Model of COVID-19 spread in buildings, and was MBSE task lead for the MBSE Gates Foundation Generation 2 Reinvented Toilet (G2RT) and the NASA Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex PZ-interactive flooring system. Dr. Gomez’s work has been recognized by her peers with several international awards. She currently serves as Vice President of International Affairs for SIGraDi (2024-2026), and has served on the International board since 2017, as well as several scientific reviews committees, including eCAADe, SIMAUD, and ASCAAD. She was guest editor in chief of the International Journal of Architectural Computing, IJAC (2018-2024).
Date: 2024-3-14 12:30 pm
Location:
Technology Square Research Building (TSRB, 1st Floor Ballroom)
85 Fifth Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
Livestream available here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/gvu-lunch-lectures
ABSTRACT
Children interact with Artificial intelligence (AI) in various direct and indirect ways, yet, there is limited research on the impacts of AI on children. Further, these studies mainly focus on cultivating, nurturing, and nudging children towards technology use and design, without promoting critical perspectives towards AI. For instance, there is little discussion with children on the limitations, inherent biases, and lack of diversity in current design and development of AI, and on critical examination of the ethical aspects of technology use, design, inherent limitations, and consequences of these on children and society at large. In this talk, I will present my work on critical AI literacy with young children, sharing lessons from hands-on workshops with children in Finland, India, and Japan.
BIO
Sumita Sharma is a postdoc researcher in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) with a focus on empowerment, inclusion, and accessibility using interactive and novel technologies for and with children and underserved user groups. She has worked on designing and evaluating technology for underserved communities, including neurodiverse children, children living in urban slums, and women in remote / rural regions. From 2021, she is working on participatory approaches with children to design and discuss ethical AI with an emphasis on fairness, as a part of her Research Council of Finland funded project on Participatory AI with Children.
ABSTRACT
Caregiving is a universal activity that is receiving increasing attention among technologists and researchers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging technologies like conversational AI, augmented and virtual reality, and smart homes have all been described as potentially revolutionary technologies in care work, intended to automate and transform the overall care experience for caregivers and care recipients. However, such promises have yet to translate to successful deployments as these technological innovations come up against socioculturally situated traditions of care work that prioritize human connection and interaction. In this talk, I will share empirical studies looking into how formal care workers (in clinical settings) and informal care workers (in home settings) reconcile technology utilization in care work with sociocultural expectations and norms that dissuade them. I will then discuss possible technology-mediated futures of care work by positing how emerging technologies could best be designed for and integrated into activities of care in ways that unburden care workers while ensuring quality care.
ABSTRACT
When creating choropleth maps, mapmakers often bin (or group) quantitative data values into bins (or groups) to help show that certain areas fall within a similar range of values. For instance, a mapmaker may divide counties into high, middle, and low life expectancy. Yet, different binning methods (e.g., natural breaks, quantile) yield different groupings, wherein the same data can be presented differently depending on how it is split into bins. This flexibility can sometimes be (mis)used by journalists to present (false) narratives or by fund managers to (inappropriately) seek additional funding. To mitigate against these dangers, we built a new geospatial visualization tool, Exploropleth. This system lets users upload their own data and interact with the outputs of 18+ established data binning methods, and subsequently compare, customize, and export custom maps. Feedback from cartographers and geographic information system experts highlighted the system’s potential to educate students as well as mapmakers.
ABSTRACT
Online platforms and AI-based tools increasingly play a core role in how people create meaning from experiences of distress and engage with care. For example, large language model chatbots, online support communities, and personalized resources from search engines may all help an individual to contextualize their experiences of distress and find life-saving support. Technology-mediated support is thus often framed as a powerful means to reduce widespread mental health disparities and close care gaps. However, my research has demonstrated that offline inequities are paralleled in online contexts, further making it difficult for marginalized people to access care. The ability to meet diverse needs with technology-mediated support requires a deep understanding of how social inequities and technology design may together impact lived experiences with distress and care. In this talk, I present my work leveraging computational and qualitative approaches to understand these sociotechnical inequities, across diverse geographic contexts and online platforms. Building on this research, I outline my research vision for how we may consider identity and power in mental health intervention and technology design, towards acceptable and effective care for all people.
ABSTRACT
Amidst widespread efforts to diminish queer existence from public society, access to stories of queer identities, communities, and histories is vital. Particularly, understanding queer archives provides a lens through which we can critically reflect on what “counts” as recorded knowledge or data and how it holds weight in our conceptions of history. In queer archives scholarship, ephemera—or, material traces not traditionally collected in institutions—can provide powerful, affective links to gaps in the historical record. In this talk, I discuss my work in tangible interaction design with archival ephemera that speak to marginalized, queer histories. I ask how designing with ephemeral materials in tangible embodied experiences can prompt critical reflections on the past, inspiring alternative configurations of bodies, feelings, and histories. Further, I ask how designing with ephemeral materials contributes to queering human computer interaction (Queer HCI), deepening our understandings of tangible embodied interaction, and inspiring alternative interpretations of history.
Exploring Dual Perspectives in Computer-mediated Empathy
Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024
12:00 p.m. Lunch; 12:30 p.m. Talk
Location:
TSRB 1st Floor Ballroom
85 Fifth St NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
If you can't attend, please watch the Live Stream.
ABSTRACT
A common belief is that technology can play a pivotal role in enhancing individuals' capacity to empathize with others. While it is true, it's worthwhile to adopt an alternative perspective that underscores the inherent duality of empathy and emphasizes the empowering aspect for the recipients of empathy. In this talk, I will focus on recent projects that explore how technologies can facilitate empathy. These approaches primarily focus on those who need to be empathized and help them express, reveal, and reflect on themselves. Through these works, I propose a new framework that offers various research topics relevant to enhancing computer-mediated empathy
BIO
Sang Won Lee, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. His research aims to understand how we can design interactive systems that facilitate empathy among people. His research vision of computer-mediated empathy comes from his background in computer music, striving to bring music's expressive, collaborative, and empathic nature of music making to computational systems. He creates interactive systems that can facilitate understanding by providing ways to share perspectives, preserve context in computer-mediated communication, and encourage self-reflection. He has applied these approaches to various applications, including creative writing, informal learning, and programming.
Abstract:
Healthcare and AI have an intertwined history dating back at least to the 1960's when the first 'cognitive chatbot' acting as a psychotherapist was introduced at MIT. Today, of course, there is enormous interest in and excitement about the potential roles of the latest AI technologies in patient care. There is a parallel concern about the risks. Will human physicians be replaced by intelligent agents? How might such agents benefit patient care short of that? What role will they play for patients. We'll explore this in a far-ranging talk that includes a number of real-world examples of how AI technologies are already being deployed to hopefully benefit those physicians and their patients.
Bio:
After a long career as a health informatics entrepreneur, Dr. Braunstein taught it at Georgia Tech for 12 years before he retired in 2020. Since then, he has been a Visiting Scientist at the Australian eHealth Research Centre, the health informatics lab within Australia's national scientific organization, CSIRO. He is also developed and helps teach an innovative Digital Health Software Project course at the University of Queensland. He is a frequent lecturer, the author of over 50 peer reviewed papers and five books, the most recent of which is Health Informatics on FHIR: How HL7s API is Transforming Healthcare, a definitive text on the applications of the latest interoperability standards to healthcare.
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Abstract
Diversity in datasets is a key component to building responsible AI/ML. Despite this recognition, we know little about the diversity among the annotators involved in data production. Additionally, despite being an indispensable part of AI, data annotation work is often cast as simple, standardized and even low-skilled work. In this talk, I present a series of studies that aim at unpacking the data annotation process with an emphasis on the data worker who lifts the weight of data production. This includes interview studies to uncover both the data annotator’s perspective of their work and the data requestor’s approach to the diversity and subjectivity the workers bring; an ethnographic investigation in data centers to study the work practices around data annotation; a mixed methods study to explore the impact of worker demographic diversity on the data they annotate. While practitioners described nuanced understandings of annotator diversity, they rarely designed dataset production to account for diversity in the annotation process. This calls for more attention to a pervasive logic of representationalist thinking and counting that is intricately woven into the day to day work practices of annotation. In examining structure in which the annotation is done and the diversity is seen, this talk aims to recover annotation and diversity from its reductive framing and seek alternative approaches to knowing and doing annotation.
Bio
Ding Wang is a senior researcher at Google Research, her current research focus is to explore the intersection of HCI and AI, specifically the labour involved in production of data and its impact on AI systems subsequently. Prior to joining Google, Ding completed her postdoc research from Microsoft Research India, where her research projects focused on the future of work and health care. Prior to joining MSR, Ding has completed her PhD from HighWire Centre for Doctoral Training in Lancaster University and her doctoral thesis offers a critical/alternative view on how smart cities should be designed, developed and evaluated.
Date: 2/1/2024 12:30 pm (12:00 lunch)
Location:
Technology Square Research Building (TSRB, 1st Floor Ballroom)
85 Fifth Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
ABSTRACT
We are at a transformational junction in computing, in the midst of an explosion in capabilities of foundational AI models that may soon match or exceed typical human abilities for a wide variety of cognitive tasks, a milestone often termed Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Achieving AGI (or even closely approaching it) will transform computing, with ramifications permeating through all aspects of society. This is a critical moment not only for Machine Learning research, but also for the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
In this talk, I will define what I mean (and what I do NOT mean) by “AGI," and my journey from AGI skeptic to believing we are within five to ten years of reaching this milestone. I will then discuss how this new era of computing necessitates a new sociotechnical research agenda on methods and interfaces for studying and interacting with AGI. For instance, how can we extend status quo design and prototyping methods for envisioning novel experiences at the limits of our current imaginations? What novel interaction modalities might AGI (or superintelligence) enable? How do we create interfaces for computing systems that may intentionally or unintentionally deceive an end-user? How do we bridge the “gulf of evaluation” when a system may arrive at an answer through methods that fundamentally differ from human mental models, or that may be too complex for an individual user to grasp? How do we evaluate technologies that may have unanticipated systemic side-effects on society when released into the wild?
I will close by reflecting on the relationship between HCI and AI research. Typically, HCI and other sociotechnical domains are not considered as core to the ML research community as areas like model building. However, I argue that research on Human-AI Interaction and the societal impacts of AI is vital and central to this moment in computing history. HCI must not become a “second class citizen” to AI, but rather be recognized as fundamental to ensuring the path to AGI and beyond is a beneficial one.
BIO
Meredith Ringel Morris is Director for Human-AI Interaction Research at Google DeepMind. Prior to joining DeepMind, she was Director of the People + AI Research team in Google Research’s Responsible AI division. She also previously served as Research Area Manager for Interaction, Accessibility, and Mixed Reality at Microsoft Research. In addition to her industry role, Dr. Morris has a faculty appointment at the University of Washington, where she is an Affiliate Professor in The Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and also in The Information School. Dr. Morris has been recognized as a Fellow of the ACM and as a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy for her contributions to Human-Computer Interaction research. She earned her Sc.B. in computer science from Brown University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University. More details on her research and publications are available at http://merrie.info.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the School of Interactive Computing and the Institute for People and Technology.
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Dr. Oliver Haimson is an Assistant Professor at University of Michigan School of Information and a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award. He conducts social computing research focused on envisioning and designing trans technologies, social media content moderation and marginalized populations, and changing identities on social media during life transitions. Much of his research has focused on transgender identities and experiences online and with social technologies, and his research goal is to impact technological inclusion of marginalized users.
Casey Fiesler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Information Science
University of Colorado Boulder
ABSTRACT
Hardly a day passes without a new technology ethics scandal in the news — from privacy violations on social media to biased algorithms to controversial data collection practices. In computing practice and research, good intentions sometimes still lead to negative consequences. So what can we do as technologists, researchers, and educators? This talk describes three lessons from my research that inform ethical practices in studying, building, and teaching about technology: (1) remembering the humans present in data, towards ethical research practices; (2) unpacking ethical debt (as a parallel to technical debt) in technology design and research as the precursor to the types of unintended consequences that underly many controversies; and (3) a broader perspective on computing education that puts thoughtful critique of technology in everyone’s hands.
BIO
Casey Fiesler is an Associate Professor of Information Science (and Computer Science by courtesy) at University of Colorado Boulder. She researches and teaches in the areas of technology ethics, internet law and policy, and online communities. Her work on research ethics for data science, ethics education in computing, and broadening participation in computing has been supported by the National Science Foundation, and she is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award. Also a public scholar, she is a frequent commentator and speaker on topics of technology ethics and policy, and her research has been covered everywhere from The New York Times to Teen Vogue (though she’s particularly proud of her TikToks). She is a three-time alum of Georgia Tech, and in addition to her PhD in Human-Centered Computing, she also holds a JD from Vanderbilt Law School.
This lecture is sponsored by the Institute for People and Technology & the School of Interactive Computing (IC).
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About the CIC
The Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC) is dedicated to helping students create and showcase innovative and viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. CIC categories are determined by community and industry partners. Winning entries will include a viable end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, and/or platforms. CIC entries can be based on class projects, student research projects, as well as personal hobbies and interests.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a monetary prize for participating.
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Speaker: Stefanos Nikolaidis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California
Date: 2023-11-09 12:30 pm
Location:
Technology Square Research Building (TSRB, 1st Floor Ballroom)
85 Fifth Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
ABSTRACT
The advent of state-of-the-art machine learning models and complex human-robot interaction systems has been accompanied by an increasing need for the efficient generation of diverse and challenging scenarios to test these systems.
In this talk, I will formalize the problem of algorithmic scenario generation and propose a general framework for searching, generating, and evaluating simulated scenarios. I will first discuss our fundamental advances in quality diversity optimization algorithms that search the continuous, multi-dimensional scenario space. I will then show how integrating quality diversity algorithms with generative models allows for the generation of realistic scenarios. Instead of performing expensive evaluations for every single generated scenario in a robotic simulator, I will discuss combining the scenario search with the self-supervised learning of surrogate models that predict human-robot interaction outcomes. Finally, I will introduce the notion of 'soft archives' for registering the generated scenarios, which significantly improves performance in hard-to-optimize domains.
While the talk will focus on scenario generation, the proposed framework is general and can be applied to a wide range of applications where diverse datasets are desirable. I will conclude the talk by discussing applications in searching for diverse faces, robot locomotion policies, and warehouse layouts.
BIO
Stefanos Nikolaidis is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and the Fluor Early Career Chair at the University of Southern California, where he leads the Interactive and Collaborative Autonomous Robotics Systems (ICAROS) lab. His research draws upon expertise on artificial intelligence, procedural content generation and quality diversity optimization and leads to end-to-end solutions that enable deployed robotic systems to act robustly when interacting with people in practical, real-world applications. Stefanos completed his PhD at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and received an MS from MIT, a MEng from the University of Tokyo and a BS from the National Technical University of Athens. In 2022, Stefanos was the sole recipient of the Agilent Early Career Professor Award for his work on human-robot collaboration, as well as the recipient of an NSF CAREER award for his work on “Enhancing the Robustness of Human-Robot Interactions via Automatic Scenario Generation.” His research has also been recognized with best paper awards and nominations from the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, and the International Symposium on Robotics.
Livestream available during the talk found here:
https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/gvu-brown-bag-lunch
Title: Augment, Diminish, Remap Reality: Freeing the Mind and its Resources
Abstract:
Our senses and minds construct our reality. Both are inherently limited and we naturally seek tools to improve our experiences. Anyone who covers their ears as a siren roars past, turns on closed captions, or dons sunglasses on a bright day has altered ‘reality.’ As technology advances, we can also control reality with cutting-edge extended reality (XR) technologies, which add to, subtract from, and remap sounds and visuals in our world. This presentation will cover the perceptual and mental processes underlying XR cognition aids, with methods of testing the effectiveness of these aids, current domains of inquiry, and results from several laboratory experiments on how altering visual and auditory reality can improve a person’s performance and experience.
Bio:
Anne Collins McLaughlin (MS, PhD Engineering Psychology, 2007) is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at North Carolina State University. She has received awards for her teaching and research from NC State and was chosen as a Faculty Scholar in 2016. Her work has been funded by NSF, NASA, NIH, and other organizations. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. She has been the President of Division 21 of the American Psychological Association and was an Associate Editor for the journal Human Factors, the flagship journal of the field from 2018-2022. She co-authored a book for practitioners wishing to design technologies for older persons, Designing Displays for Older Adults. She has also recently published a book introducing human factors psychology to the general public, All Too Human. Her current research focuses on the design and use of cognition aids to improve performance and learning of challenging tasks. When she’s not thinking about that next research project, she loves rock climbing and teaching other women to do the same.
Speaker: Mengyao Li, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at Georgia Tech
Date: 2023-10-12 12:30 pm
Location:
Technology Square Research Building (TSRB, 1st Floor Ballroom)
85 Fifth Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
ABSTRACT
Artificial Intelligence (AI), with its increasing capability and connectivity, extends beyond limited and well-defined contexts and is integrated into broader societal domains. AI algorithms now steer autonomous vehicle fleets, shape political beliefs through news filtering, and oversee resource allocation and labor. Establishing trust between humans and their AI counterparts becomes important to facilitate effective cooperation. Trust profoundly influences how individuals use, communicate with, and collaborate alongside AI systems. Thus, trust measurement and management within human-AI cooperation are indispensable for ensuring safety, efficiency, and overall success. This talk focuses on trust in human-AI interactions, addressing three primary questions: (1) How can we measure people’s trust in human-AI conversations? (2) How does trust change over time within human-AI conversations? (3) How can we effectively manage instances of overtrust or undertrust through conversational cues to enhance human-AI cooperation? This talk highlights critical advancements in measurement of trust dynamics in human-AI cooperation, promising to influence the future of AI integration into broader societal domains.
BIO
Mengyao Li an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at Georgia Tech. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial & System Engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She directs the Hybrid Intelligence Lab (HI lab), which explores the interaction of human and machine intelligence. Her research is concentrated on understanding, predicting, and shaping human-AI communication, social cooperation, and the long-term coevolution within safety-critical environments.
As part of the Convergence Innovation Competition, a panel of industry and campus partners will review teams’ submission materials virtually.
About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
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About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>faith@gatech.edu
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About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>Date: 2023-10-05 12:30 pm
Location:
Technology Square Research Building (TSRB, 1st Floor Ballroom)
85 Fifth Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
ABSTRACT:
The Humanitarian Engineering (HE) program at the Colorado School of Mines (Mines) has been transforming what it means to be an engineer by, among other things, integrating social justice into the engineering curriculum, including its humanities/social science courses, design projects, and, perhaps more importantly, its engineering science core. The HE program has challenged engineering faculty and students to re-think “what counts as engineering” by considering areas historically unattended by engineering (e.g., homelessness, immigrants, indigenous populations, low-wage workers, etc.) as worthy of engineering problem definition and solution. Dr. Lucena will share the Mines experience in rendering social justice visible throughout the engineering curriculum without compromising its integrity. He will focus on the different spaces within and around engineering curricula where integration can occur.
BIO:
Juan is Professor and Director of Humanitarian Engineering (HE) Undergraduate Programs at the Colorado School of Mines. Juan obtained a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from Virginia Tech and two BS in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His books include Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (with Jen Schneider and Jon Leydens, Morgan & Claypool, 2010), Engineering Education for Social Justice: Critical Explorations and Opportunities (Springer, 2013), and Engineering Justice: Transforming Engineering Education and Practice (with Jon Leydens, IEEE-Wiley, 2017). As an engineering student, he learned the strengths and limitations of engineering assumptions and methods for engaging communities, particularly those historically neglected by engineering. He has dedicated his career to educate and study engineers to view engineering education and practice as sites for important societal change that can be studied and transformed for the wellbeing of communities, social justice, and sustainability. The main driver for his teaching and research is to challenge students to ask, what is engineering for?
Date: 2023-09-28 12:30 pm
Location:
Technology Square Research Building (TSRB, 1st Floor Ballroom)
85 Fifth Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
ABSTRACT
Mobile augmented reality (AR), which integrates virtual objects with 3D real environments in real time, has been showing outstanding potential in many application areas including education, retail, and healthcare. AR is broadly expected to redefine how we interact with the world around us. Yet current AR falls short of many of the expectations. This talk presents our vision of multi-device, edge computing-supported and Internet-of-Things (IoT)-integrated architectures for next-generation intelligent context-adaptive AR. The talk describes shortcomings in modern AR’s semantic and spatial awareness capabilities and identifies key research gaps that need to be addressed to enable AR to become robust and resource-efficient; we discuss solutions to some of the key challenges, based on the advances in edge computing, machine learning, and resource-efficient simultaneous localization and mapping. The talk also highlights the opportunities associated with the close integration of AR platforms and their users, and describes how integrated multi-device architectures can improve user context awareness in AR. The talk showcases several applications of next-generation context-aware AR, including AR in surgery and mental health.
This talk is based on research that appeared in ACM SenSys, IEEE ISMAR, ACM IMWUT, IEEE INFOCOM, and IEEE/ACM IPSN.
BIO
Dr. Maria Gorlatova is a Nortel Networks Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science at Duke University. Her research is in emerging pervasive technologies, with a particular focus on next-generation augmented reality and the Internet of Things. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, and her M.Sc. and B.Sc. (Summa Cum Laude) degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Ottawa, Canada. She spent two years at Princeton University Electrical Engineering Department as an Associate Research Scholar and an Associate Director of the Princeton University EDGE Lab. Dr. Gorlatova was named among the 10 N2Women Rising Stars in 2019, and has received multiple awards including the NSF CAREER Award, Facebook Research Award, CISCO Research Award, ACM SenSys Best Student Demonstration Award, IEEE/ACM IPSN Best Research Artifact Award, Google Anita Borg Fellowship, the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Young Author Best Paper Award, and the IEEE ComSoc Award for Advances in Communications.
ABSTRACT
New advances in robotics and autonomy offer a promise of revitalizing final assembly manufacturing, assisting in personalized at-home healthcare, and even scaling the power of earth-bound scientists for robotic space exploration. Yet, in real-world applications, autonomy is often run in the O-F-F mode because researchers fail to understand the human in human-in-the-loop systems. In this talk, I will share exciting research we are conducting at the nexus of human factors engineering and cognitive robotics to inform the design of human-robot interaction. In my talk, I will focus on our recent work on 1) enabling machines to learn skills from and model heterogeneous, suboptimal human decision-makers, 2) “white-box” that knowledge through explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques, and 3) scale to coordinated control of stochastic human-robot teams. The goal of this research is to inform the design of autonomous teammates so that users want to turn – and benefit from turning – to the O-N mode.
BIO
Dr. Matthew Gombolay is an Assistant Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was named the Anne and Alan Taetle Early-career Assistant Professor in 2018. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 2011, an S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Autonomous Systems from MIT in 2017. Gombolay’s research interests span robotics, AI/ML, human-robot interaction, and operations research. Between defending his dissertation and joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, Dr. Gombolay served as technical staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, transitioning his research to the U.S. Navy and earning a R&D 100 Award. His publication record includes a best paper award from the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and the ACM/IEEE Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI’22) as well as finalist awards for the best paper at the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL’20) and Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS’23) and best student paper at the American Controls Conference (ACC’20). Dr Gombolay was selected as a DARPA Riser in 2018, received the Early Career Award from the National Fire Control Symposium, and was awarded a NASA Early Career Fellowship.
ABSTRACT
What would it mean if we could select any part (shape) of a CAD model and use it to find (⌘F) all its geometrical instances in the model (or other CAD models for that matter) – same size, larger, smaller, rotated, reflected or transformed in some way? What would it mean if we could edit this part and use it to replace (⌘R) all its geometrical instances in the model? Why is that the Find and Replace (⌘F/⌘R) operations that are so essential in Word or Excel have yet to be implemented in CAD? And what would happen if we could seamlessly use these shape-based Find and Replace (⌘F/⌘R) operations in a logical processing framework using states, loops, jumps and conditionals to literally write programming code by drawing shapes? How would this affect our current view of computation and what would it mean for design? The talk discusses the current state of the Shape Machine, a shape-rewrite computational system that features shape-based Find and Replace (⌘F/⌘R) operations for lines and arcs in 2D vector graphics and a logical processing framework including familiar control flow constructs (looping and branching), to allow write programming code by drawing shapes. Shape Machine is developed at the Shape Computation Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology and currently is integrated within Rhinoceros, a NURBS 2D/3D CAD software. Several applications drawn from architectural design, industrial design, game design, circuit design, mathematics and other fields showcase the potential impact of this new technology in various domains. https://shape.gatech.edu/
BIO
Athanassios (Thanos) Economou is a Professor at the School of Architecture in the College of Design and an Adjunct Professor at the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Economou’s teaching and research are in shape grammars, computational design, computer-aided design, and design theory, with over sixty published papers in these areas. He is the Director of the Shape Computation Lab, a research group that explores how the visual nature of shape can be formally implemented with new technologies to enable new paradigms in CAD, design automation, visual scripting, and creative design. Recent projects include the Shape Machine, a new computational technology that allows shape embedding in CAD systems, funded by Georgia Research Alliance and NSF-iCorps Sites, and the Courtsweb, the most significant visual database on Federal Courthouses, funded by GSA and US.Courts. Design projects from his studios at Georgia Tech have received prestigious awards in international and national architectural competitions. He has been invited to give talks, seminars, and workshops at several universities including MIT, Harvard, TU Vienna, U. Michigan, KAIST, Chiao Tung U Taiwan, Emory, Seoul National U, Cambridge U, Tsinghua U, UCLA, NTUA, U.Thessaly, U.Aegean, among others. Dr. Economou holds a Diploma in Architecture from NTUA, Athens, Greece, an M.Arch from USC, and a PhD in Architecture from UCLA.
ABSTRACT
While decades of AI research on high-level reasoning have yielded many techniques for many tasks, we are still quite far from having artificial agents that can just “sit down" and perform tasks like intelligence tests without highly specialized algorithms or training regimes. We also know relatively little about how and why different people approach reasoning tasks in different (often equally successful) ways, including in neurodivergent conditions such as autism. In this talk, I will discuss: 1) my lab's work on AI approaches for reasoning with visual imagery to solve intelligence tests, and what these findings suggest about visual cognition in autism; 2) how imagery-based agents might learn their domain knowledge and problem-solving strategies via search and experience, instead of these components being manually designed, including recent leaderboard results on the very difficult Abstraction & Reasoning Corpus (ARC) ARCathon challenge; and 3) how this research can help us understand cognitive strategy differences in people, with applications related to neurodiversity and employment.
BIO
Maithilee Kunda is an assistant professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University. Her work in AI, in the area of cognitive systems, looks at how visual thinking contributes to learning and intelligent behavior, with a focus on applications related to autism and neurodiversity. She directs Vanderbilt’s Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence and Visual Analogical Systems and is a founding investigator in Vanderbilt’s Frist Center for Autism & Innovation. She has published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (JADD), the premier journal for autism research, as well as in AI and cognitive science conferences such as ACS, CogSci, AAAI, ICDL-EPIROB, and DIAGRAMS, including a best paper award at the ACS conference in 2020. Also in 2020, her research on innovative methods for cognitive assessment was featured on CBS 60 Minutes, as part of a segment on neurodiversity and the workforce, and in 2022, her work on a new educational computer game for middle school students on the autism spectrum was featured in the New York Times, in a piece on AI and special education. She holds a B.S. in mathematics with computer science from MIT and Ph.D. in computer science from Georgia Tech.
Please register and join us for an Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) sponsored campus event focused on people and technology -- past and present. This campus event kicks off with a GVU Brown Bag lecture presented by IPaT's new executive director, Michael Best. His talk is titled, "Considering IPaT: celebrating the past and inventing the future." After the lecture, IPaT will offer lab tours, a panel discussion featuring distinguished members of the Georgia Tech community in a continuing discussion about people and technology, ending with a beverage and food reception. The event will be held in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB), 1st floor on Thursday, August 24 starting at 12:00 PM with the Brown Bag lunch.
Details of the event can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/considering-people-and-technology
You're invited! Please register here >>
Panelists participating at 3:00pm: (pictured above, clockwise):
* Margarita Gonzalez, Principal Researcher and Senior Technologist for Digital Innovation (GTRI-ICL)
* General “Phil” Breedlove, Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe and distinguished professor, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
* Ruthie Yow, Service learning and partnerships specialist, Serve-Learn-Sustain
* Tansu Celikel, Chair of the School of Psychology, College of Sciences
* Kirk Bowman, Regents’ entrepreneur and professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
* Lisa Marks, Assistant professor, School of Industrial Design
* Matthew Gombolay, Assistant professor, School of Interactive Computing
* Sabir Khan, Associate professor, School of Architecture
Maribeth Gandy Coleman, director of IPaT research will serve as the moderator for the 3:00pm panel discussion. Julia Kubanek, vice president for interdisciplinary research, will deliver the event's closing remarks. Pictured at left
is Michael Best, executive director of the Institute for People and Technology, who is presenting the Brown Bag lecture at 12:30 pm.
You'll see research themes that range from AI, augmented reality, civic computing, cognitive science, educational technologies, gaming, graphics and visualization, health informatics, human-computer interaction, mobile and ubiquitous computing, music technology, robotics, wearable tech, social computing, and other areas.
You're invited to meet some of Georgia Tech's top research talent from more than 20 labs in the GVU community and experience their latest innovations
]]>https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/industry-innovation-day
]]>About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>
CIC finalists demonstrate their projects and answer questions from a panel of judges with expertise in entrepreneurship and innovation.
About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>
Topics for upcoming sessions:
March 14th: IPaT Summer Internships
March 28th: TBD
CANCELED: April 4th: The Georgia Coastal Equity & Resilience Hub
April 11th: IPaT Office Hours (virtual drop in session)
]]>
Facilitated by Kait Morano, Research Scientist II, Institute for People and Technology and Russ Clark, Senior Research Scientist, Institute for People and Technology
]]>Maribeth Gandy Coleman
Tuesday, April 4 at 3:30pm
TSRB, 85 Fifth Street NW, Rooms 132-134
Virtual option - click here
]]>
Neha Kumar
Tuesday, April 4 at 11:00am
TSRB, 85 Fifth Street NW, Rooms 132-134
Virtual option - click here
Betsy DiSalvo
Monday, April 3 at 11:00am
TSRB, 85 Fifth Street NW, Rooms 132-134
Virtual option - click here
This talk will address the design challenges and opportunities in creating health technologies for men to improve the health of women in religiously conservative, patriarchal, and low-income societies. In this talk, I will share findings from the deployment of a speech-based service called Super Abbu (Super Dad) designed to connect expectant fathers to doctors and to each other. Over a period of 71 days, the service reached upwards of 20,000 users who spent almost 400 thousand minutes on the platform. Through a critical examination of cultural and societal factors, such as traditional gender roles, stigma towards sexual health information-seeking, and limited access to resources, I will highlight key considerations for designing effective and culturally sensitive health technologies for this population. The goal of this talk is to provide insights and recommendations for designers, researchers, and practitioners to create health technologies that are inclusive, accessible, and effective for users, regardless of their cultural, social, and economic backgrounds.
Speaker Bio:
Mustafa Naseem is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. Mustafa’s research focuses on design challenges around creating, deploying and scaling health technologies in religiously conservative, patriarchal and low-income societies. Mustafa’s scholarship informs technology and policy design in international development, with a focus on centering marginalized individuals’ voices and needs, while focusing on factors such as access and gender. Mustafa has taught and conducted research with underserved communities in Pakistan, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, Botswana and the US. Mustafa’s work is published in venues including ACM CHI, CSCW, Web Conference (WWW), Compass, and ICTD, and has received Best Paper Honorable Mention and Diversity and Inclusion Awards at ACM CHI and CSCW. Mustafa received his Masters in ICT and Development (ICTD) from the University of Colorado Boulder on a Fulbright Scholarship. His work is supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and USAID, among others.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2023
]]>“Deepfakes” are videos in which the (usually human) subject of a video has been digitally altered to appear to do or say something that they never actually did or said. Sometimes these manipulations produce innocuous novelties (e.g., testing what it would look like if Will Smith had been cast as “Neo” in the film The Matrix), but far more dangerous use cases have been observed (e.g., producing fake footage of Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he instructs Ukrainian military forces to surrender on the battlefield). Generating the knowledge and tools necessary to defend against potential harms these videos could impose is likely to rely on contributions from a broad coalition of disciplines, many of which are represented in the GVU. In this week’s Brown Bag presentation, we will offer some real-time demonstrations of deepfake technology and present findings from our work that has largely focused on investigating the psychological factors influencing deepfake detection.
Speaker Bios:
John Stasko is a Regents Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he has been on the faculty since 1989. He works in the areas of information visualization and visual analytics, approaching each from a human-computer interaction perspective. Stasko received the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee (VGTC) Visualization Technical Achievement Award in 2012 and was inducted into the ACM CHI Academy in 2016 and IEEE Visualization Academy in 2019. He was named an IEEE Fellow in 2014 and an ACM Fellow in 2023.
Richard Catrambone is a Professor in the School of Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his B.A. from Grinnell College and his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Michigan. His research interests include problem solving, educational technology, and human-computer interaction. He explores how to create instructional materials that help learners understand how to approach problems in a meaningful way rather than simply memorizing a set of steps that cannot easily be transferred to novel problems. He served on the Cognitive Science Society governing board from 2011-2016 and was chair of the Society in 2015.
Zack Tidler is a doctoral student in the School of Psychology with an emphasis in engineering psychology. His primary research interest is in developing new measures of human cognitive ability that consider tool usage, but he has developed a secondary research program which is focused on the study of deepfake video detection in humans. He is a former president of the Georgia Tech Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. His work on deepfake detection has been featured in the College of Sciences newsletter and the 2021 issue of the GT Alumni Magazine.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2023
]]>This talk will address the design challenges and opportunities in creating health technologies for men to improve the health of women in religiously conservative, patriarchal, and low-income societies. In this talk, I will share findings from the deployment of a speech-based service called Super Abbu (Super Dad) designed to connect expectant fathers to doctors and to each other. Over a period of 71 days, the service reached upwards of 20,000 users who spent almost 400 thousand minutes on the platform. Through a critical examination of cultural and societal factors, such as traditional gender roles, stigma towards sexual health information-seeking, and limited access to resources, I will highlight key considerations for designing effective and culturally sensitive health technologies for this population. The goal of this talk is to provide insights and recommendations for designers, researchers, and practitioners to create health technologies that are inclusive, accessible, and effective for users, regardless of their cultural, social, and economic backgrounds.
Speaker Bio:
Mustafa Naseem is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. Mustafa’s research focuses on design challenges around creating, deploying and scaling health technologies in religiously conservative, patriarchal and low-income societies. Mustafa’s scholarship informs technology and policy design in international development, with a focus on centering marginalized individuals’ voices and needs, while focusing on factors such as access and gender. Mustafa has taught and conducted research with underserved communities in Pakistan, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, Botswana and the US. Mustafa’s work is published in venues including ACM CHI, CSCW, Web Conference (WWW), Compass, and ICTD, and has received Best Paper Honorable Mention and Diversity and Inclusion Awards at ACM CHI and CSCW. Mustafa received his Masters in ICT and Development (ICTD) from the University of Colorado Boulder on a Fulbright Scholarship. His work is supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and USAID, among others.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2023
]]>
Facilitated by Leanne West, Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technologies
]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>Georgia Tech artists-in-residence Whitney & Micah Stansell, Tristan Al-Haddad, William Barrow, Whispers of Night, Rafiana, Doctor Calico, and Adia Davina will do a panel discussion on arts and technology. These artists-in-residence are working at Georgia Tech this spring as part of three distinct residency programs: Media Arts, Library AIR, and PREMIER. The panel will be led by residency program organizers Yanni Loukissas (Media Arts), Catherine Manci (Library AIR), and Noura Howell (PREMIER). The Media Arts and PREMIER residency programs are funded by GVU/IPaT.
About the Artists:
Tristan Al-Haddad is a multi-medium designer and visual artist in addition to previously holding the position of assistant professor in the School of Architecture at Georgia Tech. He leads Atlanta-based Formations Studio. Al-Haddad’s work has been exhibited in venues including the Pompidou Center, The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Boston Center for the Arts, The International Contemporary Furniture Fair, and The AIA’s Center for Architecture in New York, as well as being published in print sources including the New York Times, Dwell, Metropolis, Art Papers and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Al-Haddad was one of seven recipients of the ARTADIA Artist Award in 2009 in addition to being a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria in Valparaiso, Chile. In 2014 Al-Haddad was selected by the US Department of State to represent the United States at the Colombo Art Biennale in Sri Lanka. He has large scale permanent sculptures located throughout the United States.
Micah and Whitney Stansell’s body of work ranges from fibers, sculpture, painting and drawing to single and multi-channel film and video works, to large public art installations. The work often explores ideas of family history, narrative traditions, and binary relationships that pull from contemporary issues influenced and informed by environment and location.
The Stansells’ work has been reviewed in numerous publications including Art in America, Moviemaker Magazine, FiberARTS Magazine, and the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Exhibiting in galleries, museums, contemporary art centers, and film festivals, the Stansells’ work has been experienced in cities around the world including Beijing, Vienna, New York, and Atlanta.
Recent honors include a Forward Arts Prize, Special Jury Prize at the Atlanta Film Festival, Artadia Award, MOCA Working Artist Project Award, Herradura Art Prize, NMWA 2020 Artist to Watch, and a Student Academy Award Nomination for their graduate thesis film. Their work can be found in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and in Cornell University, and SCAD-Atlanta, Lacoste France, and Hong Kong.
Whispers of Night: Majid Araim, Benjamin Shirley -- Whispers of Night is an ongoing musical collaboration between Majid Araim and Benjamin Shirley, a multi-instrumental duo rooted in the sounds of the South and dedicated to exploration, improvisation, and creative expression. After almost a decade of collaboration and tours across the United States and Europe, the duo honed a sympathetic and dynamic musical bond, persistently seeking to cultivate novel concepts of composition, recording, and presentation in musical practice. Since 2014, Whispers in the Night developed a conception of improvised music nurturing the sound worlds of acoustic instruments such as fiddle, mandolin, cello, banjo, harmonica, drums, and voice, bringing to the fore their resonance and timbres with the elemental feeling of the music traditions of the southern Appalachian region.
Doctor Calico. Here’s what you need to know about Doctor Calico: A child prodigy on piano and drums at four, he played glockenspiel in the orchestra by six. This led to experiments with tape and turntables by age eight, then programming BASIC on a Commodore 64 and analog synthesizers utilizing subtractive synthesis at 10. Calico produced his first catalog by age 15 in a home-built, four-track studio called Soundworks, for which he received the Governor’s Award in Art. He started producing records, then signed a publishing deal for a 300-song catalog by age 18 with MCA.
Calico has produced many major label artists including Organized Noize, Akon, X-Clan, Toni Braxton, and Elephant Man. In addition to being self-taught in more than 100 instruments, he started the award-winning, state grant-funded Renaissance Kids program for College Park schools. Additionally, Calico founded a 60-week residency in 2015 at the Magnolia House in Historic West End Atlanta with Dr. Al-Yasha Williams of Spelman University.
Doctor Calico currently works as a DJ and electronic musician at Underground Atlanta’s arts facility and performs at various venues in the city. Recent accomplishments include going viral as an influencer on Instagram by sharing live musical performances and archival content. He has racked up more than a million views on the self-made platform with no advertising or paid partnerships.
William Barrow. Born in western Kentucky, William Barrow works with oftentimes outdated electronics to convey contemporary concepts through sound and video. He produces videos and electronic sounds as a result of experimentation with children’s toys, audio and video tape machines, and synthesizers, creating interconnected systems of pre-existing and homemade instruments.
Barrow studied at Murray State University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in video and performance. There he was a manager of the university galleries and the sculpture studio assistant for four years, as well as being the head of 3D printing operations for the Summer Art Workshop. He has worked in collaboration with dancers, electronic and acoustic musicians, and provided live sound for Butoh dance workshops and outdoor yoga classes. Since moving to Atlanta, Barrow has joined the Atlanta Improvisers Orchestra (AIO) and worked closely with experimental performance and event venue No Tomorrow.
Adia Davina is an experimental, independent and multi-disciplinary artist based in Atlanta. Currently she is pursuing an interdisciplinary degree at Georgia State University, as well as engaging in collaborations with the theatre department as a playwright and wardrobe assistant.
Davina has performed in Ghana with Rakaba, a west African dance company, sung in numerous choirs, trained at John Robert Powers and performed, recorded and toured the United States with artist Raury. Her unique vocals can be heard echoing through his hit song, and her first feature, “Gods Whisper.” Her last performance with him was at Coachella 2017. Davina currently works as a stylist and make-up artist and directs, writes and produces music.
Rafiana is a multidisciplinary artist of Puerto Rican and American descent from Atlanta producing works in the performing arts, music, film, and painting. They have shared the stage with Grammy-nominated performers, as well as self-professed “non-performers.”
Rafiana's work focuses on improvisation and the many ways in which that practice collides with elements of form. After graduating from Georgia State, their work became largely based in an abstraction of poetry as it related to the body, the physical world, movement, dance and music.
The most recent live works include large-scale experimental theater pieces in which an orchestra scores movements and actions loosely choreographed with an emphasis on improvisational “moods” created by various elements in each scene.
Rafiana designs many of the aesthetic elements of their theater world, which involves creating costumes, props, object curation, painting, sound design, and lighting. The more recent themes of their work have been rooted in exploitation of the self, exploring variations on the concept of clowning and experiments with abstraction of samples to environments and material played on the midi guitar.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2023
]]>As part of the Convergence Innovation Competition, a panel of industry and campus partners will review teams’ submission materials virtually.
About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>How, When, and Should Robots Deceive Humans?
Kantwon Rogers is a fifth-year PhD student (advised by Ayanna Howard) and has also served as an instructor for the undergraduate introduction to Matlab course for the past six years. His interests include human-computer/robot interaction, teaching, and baking cupcakes.
Building and Evaluating Controllable Models for Text Simplification
Mounica Maddela is a sixth-year PhD student advised by Wei Xu. Her broad interests are natural language processing and machine learning with focus on natural language generation.
Guidance Communication in Mixed-Initiative Visual Analytics
Arpit Narechania is a fourth-year Computer Science PhD student, advised by Alex Endert. He loves to apply techniques from information visualization, visual analytics and human-computer interaction to design systems that help users interact with and make sense of their data; these users span automobile engineers, digital marketers, database engineers, data scientists, and most recently geographic information system experts.
Creative Wand: A System to Study Effects of Communications in Co-Creative Settings
Zhiyu Lin is a sixth year PhD student advised by Mark Riedl. His interests lie in machine learning techniques to procedurally generate user-aware interactive experiences and the user experience revolving around it, i.e., the human-machine interface that stimulates mixed-initiative/co-creativity applications.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2023
]]>IPaT and GT Neuro are excited to host this Industry Innovation Day together as a response to industry interest in our aligned and collaborative endeavors.
Industry Innovation Day begins with keynotes, panels, and student poster sessions on relevant and innovative projects. In the afternoon, IPaT presents GVU Spring Research Showcase where research demonstrations are presented from across IPaT by students, professors, and research faculty.
Industry Innovation Day is an IPaT event, co-presented with GT Neuro in 2023
]]>Many real-world applications require that robots handle the complexity of multi-party social encounters, e.g., delivery robots may need to navigate through crowds, robots in manufacturing settings may need to coordinate their actions with those of human coworkers, and robots in educational environments may help multiple people practice and improve their skills. How can we enable robots to effectively take part in these social interactions? At first glance, multi-party interactions may be seen as a trivial generalization of one-on-one human-robot interactions, suggesting no special consideration. Unfortunately, this approach is limited in practice because it ignores higher-order effects, like group factors, that often drive human behavior in multi-party Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).
In this talk, I will describe two research directions that we believe are important to advance multi-party HRI. The first direction focuses on understanding group dynamics and social group phenomena from an experimental perspective. The other one focuses on leveraging graph state abstractions and structured data-driven methods for reasoning about social contexts, which include individual, interpersonal and group-level factors relevant to human-robot interactions. As part of this talk, I will also describe our recent efforts to scale HRI data collection for early system development and testing via online interactive surveys. We have begun to explore this idea in the context of social robot navigation but, thanks to advances in game development engines, it could be easily applied to other HRI application domains.
Speaker Bio:
Marynel Vázquez is an Assistant Professor in Yale’s Computer Science Department, where she leads the Interactive Machines Group. Her research focuses on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), especially in multi-party and group settings. Marynel is a recipient of the 2022 NSF CAREER Award and two Amazon Research Awards. Her work has been recognized with nominations to paper awards at RO-MAN 2016, IROS 2018, HRI 2021, and RO-MAN 2022. Prior to Yale, Marynel was a Post-Doctoral Scholar at the Stanford Vision & Learning Lab and obtained her M.S. and Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, where she was a collaborator of Disney Research. Before then, she received her bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2023
]]>Facilitated by Robert Knotts, Executive Director, Georgia Tech Federal Relations
Virtual Conferencing Details:
Meeting ID: 974 9201 1541
Participant Passcode: 226701
For higher quality, dial a number based on your current location.
Dial:
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 305 224 1968 US
+1 309 205 3325 US
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 931 3860 US
+1 719 359 4580 US
+1 253 205 0468 US
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 360 209 5623 US
+1 386 347 5053 US
+1 507 473 4847 US
+1 564 217 2000 US
+1 669 444 9171 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 689 278 1000 US
faith@gatech.edu
]]>Facilitated by Zack Tidler, graduate student; Richard Catrambone, Professor of Psychology and John Stasko, Regents Professor, School of Interactive Computing
]]>The goal of the symposium is for researchers, stakeholders, staff, members, care partners and community members to share and discuss research aimed at empowering people living with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We will take stock, move forward, encourage collaboration, and synergize the center's progress. Attendees will hear from CEP researchers, members and care partners about what we have been able to accomplish so far in our 3 years of operation. To learn more about the CEP, please visit http://ipat.gatech.edu/cep.
We hope that you are able to attend the symposium and ask that you share this invitation with the members of your network. And we look forward to collaborating with you! To register for the conference, please visit https://bit.ly/3XlWcdL.
And for more information about the symposium, please contact Jennifer DuBose at jennifer.dubose@design.gatech.edu.
While the hope is that most participants will join us in person at CEP, we will be broadcasting the event live online for those who prefer to participate virtually. Please note that registration is required for all participants – the link for virtual programming will be sent out closer to the event date. There will be lunch available after the formal program ends to give the people who attend in person an opportunity to socialize and network. And parking is free!!
]]>The Raise Your Hand exhibit, shown in the lobby of the Ferst Center on 1-14 November, 2022, used LIDAR and camera-based pose detection from participants to control parameters in Arduino-controlled mechatronics and in original music and video. The combination of interactive mechatronics along with interactive music and video distinguish this exhibit different from many other reported interactive art installations in recent years. The purpose of the exhibit was to entertain participants and to investigate what aspects of the exhibit were most effective. The talk will describe the exhibit and the results collected from four focus groups and 200+ online survey responses.
Speaker Bio:
Mary Ann Weitnauer has been a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech since 1989 and was Senior Associate Chair there from 2016-2021. After decades of wireless communication research and some teaching of design courses, often involving art, she decided in 2021 to begin, with Tom Martin of GTRI, the Electronic ARTrium VIP team, and shifted her focus to interactive digital art with mechatronics, music, and video.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2023
]]>The Internet-of-Things (IoT) promises to enhance even the most mundane of objects with computational properties. Yet, IoT has largely focused on new devices while ignoring the home’s many existing possessions. Requiring households to replace their possessions to adopt IoT yields substantial costs. Beyond financial, these include waste, work to arrange and orchestrate objects to suit households, and attention investment to acquire new skills. To address these costs, this project worked with 10 American families to design an upcycled approach to IoT that makes use of existing household possessions and then built a system responsive to these findings. The results 1) describe patterns of families’ socio-material practices, 2) develop a framework for designing lightweight modification, and 3) presents The IoT Codex—a book of programmable and inexpensive, battery-free interactive devices—to support customizing everyday objects with software and web services using stickers. The presented work offers a lightweight approach to end user programming of everyday objects for customizing IoT to suit idiosyncratic socio-material practices.
Speaker Bio:
Kristin Williams is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in Emory University's College of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on making programming the Internet of Things approachable to casual end user programmers. This work builds on Kristin's longstanding interests in agency, DIY publishing, and access to information. In the past, Kristin has worked closely with community organizations to shape and evaluate assistive technologies for individuals with visual and cognitive disabilities, managed an archive of Soviet dissident literature on the political abuse of psychiatry, and created a 10+ year book project on Central Asian civil society as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan. She has a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University's Human Compter Interaction Institute, an MS in Human-Computer Interaction from both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland, College Park and a BA in Philosophy from Reed College. She was a 2021 EECS Rising Star, an NSF EAPSI Fellow, and an AAUW Career Development Grantee.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2023
]]>The finalist projects from the Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC) will be featured during this GVU Brown Bag. The teams will each give an overview of their projects including their process of customer and project discovery and future project opportunities. A panel conversation with team members from each finalist will discuss their background, process, and team development. At the end of the brown bag, the winning teams will be announced and prizes awarded. Student teams are encouraged to attend the session to learn more about projects and network with campus and industry partners.
About the Competition: The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Areas of interest are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
Panel Moderator Bio:
Clint Zeagler is the co-director of strategic partnerships at IPaT. With a Ph.D. in human centered computing, Zeagler drives his research on electronic textiles and on-body interfaces with the Contextual Computing Group and the GVU Center of Georgia Tech. As a senior research scientist within IPaT and as an instructor for Georgia Tech, he teaches courses on Wearable Product Design and Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing (MUC). Zeagler enjoys working with corporations such as HP/Palm, Google, and even the Atlanta Braves to bring real world experience into the classroom. As a member of the NASA Wearable Technology Cluster, his ongoing relationship with the NASA Georgia Space Grant Consortium funds MUC student projects on wearable computing for space.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Eye-tracking sensors track where a user looks and are being increasingly integrated into mixed-reality devices. Although critical applications are being enabled, there are significant possibilities for violating user security and privacy expectations. There is an appreciable risk of unique user identification from eye-tracking camera images and the resulting eye movement data. Biometric identification would allow an app to connect a user’s personal ID with their work ID without needing their consent, for example. Solutions were explored to address concerns related to the leaking of biometric features through eye-tracking data streams. Privacy mechanisms are introduced to reduce the risk of biometric recognition while still enabling applications of eye-tracking data streams. Gaze data streams can thus be made private while still allowing for applications key to the future of mixed-reality technology, such as animating virtual avatars or prediction models necessary for foveated rendering.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Brendan David-John (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. Brendan was the first Native male to graduate with a doctorate in Computer Science from the University of Florida in 2022, and received his BS and MS from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2017. He is from Salamanca NY, which is located on the Allegany reservation of the Seneca Nation of Indians. His personal goals include increasing the representation of Native Americans in STEM and higher education, specifically in computing. He is a proud member of the American Indian Science & Engineering Society and has been a Sequoyah Fellow since 2013. His research interests include virtual reality and eye tracking, with a primary focus on privacy and security for the future of virtual and mixed reality.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Personal tracking through digital technologies like pedometers, mood monitoring apps, and food journaling apps has great potential to help people begin to change their behaviors, understand their habits, connect with others and advocate for their healthcare. But in practice, they have largely failed to deliver on their promise of helping people derive value from their health and wellbeing data, with majorities abandoning tracking within weeks or even days. A core challenge is that people often view the act of tracking as a meaningless experience, finding that tracking technology prioritizes behavior change over opportunity to create other meaningful experiences through personal satisfaction, connection, and communication. In this talk, I discuss how my research group has approached understanding how to make personal tracking more meaningful, and design strategies that we think provide for more meaningful tracking experiences. I will touch on opportunities for meaningful tracking we are examining in personal, social, and clinical settings.
Speaker Bio:
Daniel Epstein is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Computer Science. His work examines how personal tracking technology can acknowledge and account for the realities of everyday life, designing new technology and studying people's use of current technology. Daniel's work has been published in top HCI venues including CHI, Ubicomp, CSCW, and DIS, receiving multiple awards and nominations. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Washington in 2018. His work is supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and Snap Inc.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Production challenges are rarely solved by the pure application of code. Many obstacles encountered in the making of a CG animated movie balance artistic needs against production limits. Potential solutions often have restrictions related to budget and immovable release dates. This talk walks through three complex problems from Tangled, Moana and Frozen II and the solutions needed to resolve them.
Speaker Bio:
Heather Pritchett, (MS CS 93) started with Walt Disney Animation Studios shortly after graduation. After 28 years, she’s still enjoying her job. In her nearly three decades with Disney she has worked on theme park projects, videos games, shorts, live-action films, and animated films, both hand-drawn and CG. She is a frequent mentor for new hires and part of an internal committee that address workflow issues and technical debt. She recently finished up work on “Strange World”, which is hitting theaters on November 23rd. She can’t tell you about her current project because it’s still a secret. When she’s not recovering from a global pandemic, she likes to volunteer for organizations like Girls Who Code, PyLadies and Django Girls.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Brittany and Julian will discuss the way agriculture has transformed over the last two decades with the infusion of data, GPS, and AI. They will review five pivotal examples of technologies that are helping farmers feed the world sustainably by: augmenting human skills; farming remotely; and, in some cases, superhuman capabilities.
Speaker Bios:
Brittany Holthausen, Ph.D., is a Senior User Experience (UX) Engineer responsible for operator experience of John Deere’s harvesting products. In this role, she discovers, defines, and evaluates design concepts for the harvesting product portfolio in collaboration within the UX design, UX research, automation experience, and product development teams.
Prior to her role at John Deere, Brittany built and led a team to design and develop the next generation of military aviation experience at Boeing Defense, Space, and Security. She also completed several internships at Naval Surface Warfare Center - Carderock and Naval Surface Warfare Center - Dahlgren where she worked on a wide range of projects from heterogeneous unmanned vehicle control to weapon system development. Brittany has authored over 25 peer-reviewed publications in the area of trust in automation.
She earned bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering and psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University prior to earning master’s and doctoral degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology in Engineering Psychology.
Julian Sanchez, Ph.D., is a John Deere Fellow, and the Director of Emerging Technologies in the Intelligent Solutions Group (ISG) at John Deere. Julian’s team focuses on researching, developing, and supporting the deployment of Deere's next generation technologies to improve customer profitability and sustainability.
As a seasoned technologist he has made significant contributions at John Deere including the establishment of UX capabilities and the early deployment of digital solutions in agriculture. Julian holds over 20 patents and has published dozens of peer-reviewed studies in the areas of aviation, agriculture, and medical devices.
He earned his bachelor’s in industrial engineering and master’s in industrial and systems engineering from Florida International University and his Ph.D. in human factors from Georgia Institute of Technology.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Computing holds the promise of alleviating negative impacts of mental illness and chronic disorders by scaling human effort and best medical-practices over time and space. One in five adults is experiencing mental illness and four in ten adults in the US have two or more chronic diseases. The urgent need to manage these conditions calls for robust, and reliable technology that is useful and usable by patients and their caregivers. It calls for accountability at the intersection of science and design. In this talk, I will demonstrate how human-centered computing can leverage the generalizability of theoretical frameworks to design and build computational systems for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Diabetes. I will discuss unique challenges in each clinical domain and will present theory-driven technology interventions that address them. I will also explore how these interventions can lead to improved health and wellness in diverse populations.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Rosa Arriaga is Associate Professor and the Associate Chair of Graduate Studies in the School of Interactive Computing Georgia Tech. She received her PhD in Psychology from Harvard University. Her research interests are in the use of psychological theories and concepts to address fundamental topics of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and mHealth. She is currently the lead PI for the NSF Smart and Connected Health project titled “Prolonged Exposure Collective Sensing System (PECSS) for PTSD”. In 2022, she received the Dalmas A. Taylor Distinguished Contributions Award from the American Psychological Association.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Operational concepts for novel robotic systems employing a human supervisor require the consideration of enabling technologies, the needs of the human operators, and their interactions. Leveraging the abstraction hierarchy method can support the development of a set of function allocations to inform the operational concept and a research roadmap for novel systems. Reviewing current and envisioned enabling technologies can support downselect of the potential function allocations. The use of operational event sequence diagrams can help to specify information and control requirements and also to identify gaps in the operational concept. The combination of the abstraction hierarchy method and operational event sequence diagrams holds promise for supporting the development of operational concepts for novel robotic systems. As a case study, this talk addresses the use of the methods to inform the specification of the human-robot interaction for a novel robotic Medjool date palm tree thinning system.
Speaker Bio:
Ellen J. Bass is Interim Associate Dean for Research and Professor in the Department of Information Science in the Drexel University’s College of Computing and Informatics, Bass has over 30 years of human-centered systems engineering research and design experience in multiple domains. She develops theories of human performance, quantitative modeling methodologies, and associated decision support and visualizations that can be used to design and to evaluate human-autonomy interaction and human-human collaboration in the context of total system performance. Her research program is currently funded by the FAA, NIH, PCORI, and the VA. Bass is the Past Secretary-Treasurer and a fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and a senior member of the IEEE and of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Bass holds a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Advanced Technology from the State University of New York at Binghamton, a B.S.Eng. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S.Econ. in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>This seminar is presented by Rena Youngblood, Executive Director of Computer Museum of America (CMoA) located in Roswell, GA. Rena will share how and why the museum was started, how they managed the pandemic, their goals for education and inspiration, and why Atlanta needs to treasure this metro area history museum.
Speaker Bio:
Rena Youngblood is the first Executive Director of the Computer Museum of America (CMoA) located in Roswell, Georgia. The museum opened to the public in July 2019.
Rena leads and directs all aspects of the organization, including finances and fundraising; communications and marketing; education and programming; stewardship and management of facilities and collections; and building positive working relationships with the Board of Directors, community, external partners, stakeholders, visitors to the museum and donors.
Before joining CMoA, Rena served as Senior Director of Charter School Services for the Association of American Educators and as Director of Member Services at the Georgia Charter Schools Association. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a minor in Communication Studies.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>For decades our smart devices, from wireless sensor networks to FitBits, have generally assumed stable, reliable power from a battery or wall outlet. These devices are exploding in numbers and quickly becoming the foundational data collection platforms used to inform societal and personal scale decisions. Unfortunately, the battery dependency of these devices prevents scaling (because of bulk, expense, and maintenance) and contributes to existing global e-waste problems. This talk explores an alternative; instead of relying on energy stored in a battery, harvesting energy from the surrounding environment; however, this unstable energy supply means that these devices compute intermittently through many power failures. This new paradigm of sustainable computational things has required a rethinking of hardware, software design, and tool creation– yet it has also opened up incredible new avenues to deploy sustainable data science infrastructure, health sensing, and reimagine education at scale. I'll describe advances in making these devices more useful in the context of motivating data-science applications our lab has worked on: including late-breaking work on smart face masks, a system that enables novices to program intermittently powered devices with Python or Block-based languages, and large scale environmental monitoring.
Speaker Bio:
Josiah Hester holds the Allchin Chair and is Associate Professor of Interactive Computing and Computer Science at Georgia Tech. Josiah was previously at Northwestern as an Assistant Professor. He works in intermittent computing and battery-free embedded computing systems. He applies his work to health wearables, interactive devices, and large-scale sensing for sustainability and conservation, supported by multiple grants from the NSF, NIH, and DARPA. He was named a Sloan Fellow in Computer Science and won his NSF CAREER in 2022. He was named one of Popular Science's Brilliant Ten, won the American Indian Science and Engineering Society Most Promising Scientist/Engineer Award, and the 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award in 2021. His work has received six Best Paper type Awards and seven Best Presentation type Awards, and featured in the Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, BBC, Popular Science, Communications of the ACM, and the Guinness Book of World Records, among many others.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Growing public discussions, legislative actions, and worker actions call for greater consideration of social values and ethics during technology development. In response, approaches such as compliance checklists have been developed to address these issues. However, fully addressing ethical issues in technology systems requires approaches beyond prescriptive checklists, also needing a broader range of modes of action across different stages of technology development and use.
In this talk, I report on projects that investigate different modes of engaging ethical concerns in design. One project uses speculative design probes to prompt conversations with technology professionals about privacy and surveillance in Internet of Things technologies in various social contexts. Another focuses on the work practices of a group of North American user experience (UX) professionals at large technology companies. These professionals see addressing social values and ethical issues as part of their everyday UX work. They also aim to create change at group or institutional levels from their positionalities within large corporations, with mixed success.
Throughout the talk, I draw out several relationships between design and ethics that can help engage in surfacing, discussing, and addressing values and ethical issues, including: design as a form of ethical provocation; design as a form of labor to address ethical issues; and design as a research method and reflective practice. This research points to a broader set of modes of engagement that can be used to consider values and ethical issues during technology design research and practice.
Speaker Bio:
Richmond Wong is an Assistant Professor in Digital Media at the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. His research focuses on understanding the social values, ethical issues, and work involved in technology production and use. He studies how technology professionals address ethical issues in their work. He also develops design-centered approaches to engage groups that create or are impacted by digital technology, to proactively discuss and consider ethical issues related to technology such as privacy or fairness. Richmond's work utilizes qualitative and design-based methods, drawing from science and technology studies, speculative and critical design, and human-computer interaction. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of California Berkeley School of Information.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Background: Trimble is committed to delivering autonomy solutions that bring value to our customers faster than ever before. But creating autonomy solutions is not an easy task. These new technologies need to control real equipment out in the real world safely and efficiently. One of the most difficult challenges is getting access to the real machines to test the latest build, validate algorithms or verify that multiple components integrate correctly. Another challenge is access to ground truth. When data is collected in the field, one has to also obtain the best possible data that represents the “truth”. Any errors in your ground truth data will affect the accuracy of the estimated efficiency of the solution.
One of the technologies that has been identified as an enabler for creating complex solutions is simulation. For the past eight years, Trimble has promoted the Virtual Proving Ground as a way to optimize and share the benefits of high-fidelity simulations.
Problem Statement: Even though there is a general consensus that simulation can solve these problems, it can also raise other challenges. One of the most critical ones is that there is little time between the moment when stakeholders decide that a simulation system needs to be used in a project and the moment when developers and testers need to have access to the actual simulator.
Synopsis: In this presentation, we will share the way the virtual proving ground (VPG) is being used to expedite the development of several autonomy projects in Trimble. The presentation will show examples of several custom simulators created with a just- in- time approach to deliver virtual equipment with hardware in the loop to testers, developers and stakeholders. Finally, we will present an overview of the latest and future upgrades of the VPG tools that have enabled the Trimble autonomy simulation team to deliver and continue to produce high fidelity solutions in record time.
Speaker Bio:
Augusto received a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering, a Master’s Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Ph.D. in Computer Graphics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has over 30 years of experience in research, development and implementation of complex dynamic virtual environments.
He pioneered the use of Virtual Reality in construction simulation applications while working as a research engineer and post-doctoral fellow from 1994 to 1997 at Georgia Tech. He served as senior research engineer at Spectra Precision Software from 1997 to 2000, where he developed Terravista, Terramodel Visualizer and the Virtual Environment Manager SDK. In 2000, he co-founded XYZ Solutions, Inc. where he led the development team that created XYZ World, a real-time publish-subscribe 3D monitoring suite. After XYZ Solutions was acquired by Trimble in 2006, he started working as a senior research engineer focusing on simulation and visualization projects for several Trimble divisions. In 2011, he pioneered the use of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to accelerate image processing and point cloud colorization and was invited to demonstrate the potential of GPU computing to the Trimble Board of Directors. In 2013, Augusto introduced the Virtual Proving Ground (VPG), a comprehensive simulation framework that can be used to propose and test the validity of ideas and also to develop and promote products. Over the last decade, VPG has been used in Building Construction, Geospatial, Mining, Forensics, Civil Engineering Construction, CTCT, ICT, and Ag projects. In 2019, Augusto joined Trimble Autonomous Solutions (TAS) and became the product owner of VPG. He currently leads the simulation team in TAS which is responsible for the development of simulation tools for autonomy projects.
He holds a Caterpillar patent, eight Trimble patents, and received a Trimble Innovation Award for his work on Corkscrew (a parametric mine design software). During the 2017 Trimble Global Hackathon, Augusto led the “iCSI” team and received the grand prize award. He also led the “Field of Dreams” team during the 2021 Trimble Global Hackathon which won the Digital Transformation category award.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event). If you have any questions, email us at gvu@cc.gatech.edu.
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Meeting ID: 939 0381 7828
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]]>
Meeting ID: 939 0381 7828
Passcode: 350568
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103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney)
103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne)
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In the first GVU Brown Bag Seminar of the academic year, Keith Edwards, GVU Center Director and Professor of Interactive Computing, will kick off our talk series with an overview of the GVU Center detailing its unique resources and opportunities, and previewing some of the events coming up this semester.
Also, each year, the GVU Center and IPaT announce funding for the Engagement Grants, which support early stage work by Georgia Tech researchers. This year’s winners will give brief overviews of the work they will be doing over the coming academic year.
Speaker Bio:
Keith Edwards is a Professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech and Director of the GVU Center. His research interests focus primarily on driving human-centered concerns into core computing infrastructure. He is a pioneer in the exploration of human-centered perspectives on computer networking, particularly in the home and has been active in developing more usable approaches to information security systems. Lately, his research has expanded into a number of explorations of the social impacts of computing technology, and understanding how technology can support the work of non-profits and NGOs. While he is a technologist at heart, he enjoys working with designers, as well as ethnographers and other social scientists.
How to watch: If you can't attend. please watch the Live Stream, or view the Recording (available 30 days after event).
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2022
]]>Counter-Institutional Data Accomplices
Project Title: Court Eviction Data as a Boundary Object for Housing Work with Carl DiSalvo [Interactive Computing], Elora Raymond [City and Regional Planning], and Anh-Ton Tran [Interactive Computing]
Housing costs in Atlanta have increased nearly 28% since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile, institutional investors and Private Equity firms are snatching up more property and operating as landlords across communities of color, particularly in Atlanta. This reinscribes historical cycles of racial dispossession and inequity. How might computing scholars, with our disciplinary expertise in data, complement the fight for housing as a human right? Particularly when we live in an age where data is used as a scaffold to the commodification of housing? In this work, we present our findings and reflections working with a local housing activist-non-profit: Housing Justice League. We first describe and analyze the data practices volunteering and technically managing a remote, community outreach tool for tenants facing eviction and seeking organizing support. We then interpret the work of Housing Justice League through the lens of care, identifying home-brewed databases and data fragmentations as negotiations between care and efficiency. We argue that care is enacted through the assemblage of the technical systems, and present tinkering as an alternative approach to developing data practices. Understanding how housing activists use data is a prerequisite to consider aiding and abetting social movement work with data. We conclude by sharing our most recent endeavors to utilize and couple institutional eviction data with grassroots data to inform organizing initiatives. We present a preliminary case on why corporate landlords exacerbate housing instability and how data can support future tenant organizing work.
Creating E-Textiles Across Disciplines
Project Title: E-Textile Workshop Series with Lisa Marks [Industrial Design] and Noah Posner [Industrial Design]
GVU is preparing to open an exciting new lab focused on the area of E-textiles. This lab focuses on a rapidly emerging field that will lead to technological innovation for wearables, home goods, healthcare, and transportation. To maximize this field’s potential, we must have students trained in both the hardware and coding as well as the fabric structure and making methods. This Engagement Grant has funded the development of a series of 3 workshops (weaving, knitting, and CNC embroidery), each involving a discussion of the textile qualities and history, a hands-on demonstration and student creation of the textile, coding and implementation of electronic sensors, and a brainstorming session of potential uses of the methods covered in a variety of fields.
Internet Connection, Disconnection, and Everything In-Between
Project Title: Edge Computing for Bringing Smart Services to Underserved Urban Communities with Kishore Ramachandran [Computer Science], Ashutosh Dhekne [Computer Science], Manasvini Sethuraman [Computer Science], and Anirudh Sarma [Computer Science]
Today we are substantially dependent on centralized infrastructure (aka Cloud based services such as Netflix, Uber, YouTube, Coursera, Google Maps, etc.) for most of our everyday activities including learning, hailing a ride, restaurant suggestions in a neighborhood, etc. Many of our day-to-day activities depend on smart services made available to our fingertips from the cloud —be it participating in school, homework submission, job hunting, or grocery shopping. Studies have shown that access to the Internet (connection speed, duration of connectivity, and cost of connectivity) influences the way people search for jobs or do homework which in turn affects quality of life. While Internet penetration continues to be on the rise in densely populated urban areas, there continues to be a section of society where reliable and good Internet access is still not the norm. In urban areas, lack of access to the Internet is often correlated with lower income. We engaged with local leaders, public schools and non-profits to understand the internet infrastructure in Atlanta’s Westside, especially from the education standpoint. We present some of our findings, along with proposals for low-cost self-sustainable technological solutions to improve internet penetration in the neighborhood, without necessarily relying on increasing the number of internet subscriptions.
Speaker Bios:
Counter-Institutional Data Accomplices. Project Title: Court Eviction Data as a Boundary Object for Housing Work
Anh-Ton Tran is a PhD student advised by Dr. Carl DiSalvo in Human Centered Computing at Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing. His current research focuses on institutional and community eviction data. He studies how data acts as infrastructure for institutions and governments that coordinate their work. He also studies how data can be used to support and build community power through tenant organizing, and how data can be a form of participatory "institutioning."
Creating E-Textiles Across Disciplines. Project Title: E-Textile Workshop Series
Lisa Marks is an Assistant Professor in Industrial Design specializing in developing new technological adaptations and applications for traditional textile techniques. Her unique pedagogy aims to diversify material culture in Industrial Design and highlight how issues surrounding gender, class, and race have influenced Design throughout history. Her work is in the permanent material collection at the University of Pennsylvania and has shown at design weeks in New York, Milan, India, and Bangkok. She has won the 2019 International Grand Prix Lexus Design Award.
Noah Posner is a research scientist with the IMAGINE Lab and lab manager of the Interactive Product Design Lab (IPDL) in the School of Industrial Design. His focus is on creating interactive experiences that leverage physical interaction. He holds degrees in Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction. His research involves creating rich physical interactions, designing and fabricating interactive devices using CAD and Rapid prototyping technologies, and developing educational tools and workshops for STEAM learning that focus on utilizing hands-on learning with intentionally designed artifacts. He also teaches courses in Physical Prototyping for Human-Computer Interaction and Interactive Products for Industrial Design.
Internet Connection, Disconnection, and Everything In-Between. Project Title: Edge Computing for Bringing Smart Services to Underserved Urban Communities
Anirudh Sarma is a 2nd year PhD student at the Embedded Pervasive Lab and advised by Dr. Kishore Ramachandran. He is interested in exploring edge-centric mechanisms to optimize the data plane.
Manasvini Sethuraman is a 3rd year PhD student in the Embedded Pervasive Lab led by Dr. Kishore Ramachandran. Her research interests are primarily in design of edge/cloud computing systems focused on intermittent connectivity to the Internet.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/jwyhvcgr
]]>(1)Anh-Ton Tran, Counter-Institutional Data Accomplices (2)Lisa Marks and Noah Posner, Creating E-Textiles Across Disciplines (3)Anirudh Sarma and Manasvini Sethuraman, Internet Connection, Disconnection, and Everything In-Between
]]>The analyses of mobility data are involved in a wide range of domains such as demography, public health, urban planning, transportation, business, and biology. Mobility data consists of a set of moving objects, each having a sequence of sampled locations as it moves across space and time. In addition to a general overview of challenges for mobility analytics, this talk focuses on introducing a set of methodologies for mobility data mining, visualization, prediction, optimization, and their real-world applications.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Diansheng Guo is currently the Chief Scientist and Technology Committee Chair at Tencent Map, Tencent. Prior to joining Tencent, he was Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina. He received his B.S. degree from Peking University, M.S. from Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Guo has been conducting research in the fields of GIScience, big data analytics, information visualization, and recently in geospatial technologies in industry. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2008. He was the President (2012) and Chair of Board (2013) for the International Association of Chinese Professionals in Geographic Information Sciences (CPGIS).
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/hzpkaqww
]]>Nivedita Arora, Designing for Sustainability in Computing: Self-Powered Computational Material
In this era of burgeoning IoT devices, we measure computing progress with speed, power, and reliability improvements but often forego thinking about its environmental impact. A new sustainable way of thinking about computing across the full lifecycle -- including manufacturing, operation, and disposal -- is necessary to meet the present needs without compromising the wellbeing of the future generations. Inspired by this, during my Ph.D. I have built ‘Self-powered Computational Material’ that enables sustainable operation without toxic batteries. I will showcase this with an example of an easy-to retrofit sticky note that can sense human interactions like speech, movement, and touch and provide feedback by harvesting power from the surroundings. Finally, I will chart how designing for sustainability requires a high-interdisciplinary mindset and rethinking the entire computing stack from the material level.
Upol Ehsan, Human-Centered Explainable AI: Thinking Outside the Black-Box of AI
As AI systems power critical decisions in our lives, they need to be held accountable to mitigate an unjust AI-powered future. One way to hold AI systems accountable is to make them explainable– to understand the “why?” behind their decisions. Implicit in Explainable AI (XAI), is the question: explainable to whom? The “who” governs the most effective way of describing the “why” behind the decisions. Critical insights into how best to explain AI’s black box lie outside it; because that’s where the humans are.
In this talk about AI, humans will take center stage. I will discuss three aspects of the journey towards Human-Centered Explainable AI (HCXAI), a departure from the algorithm-centered roots of XAI. First, I will share how people’s perceptions of AI agents explaining their actions in plain English shaped the foundations of how we think about who the humans are in Human-centered Explainable AI (HCXAI). Second, I will chart the visions of HCXAI by bridging insights from Critical Theory and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) to question the status quo of XAI design and expose intellectual blind spots. Third, I will apply the HCXAI lenses to highlight an intellectual blind spot in the algorithm-centered narrative of XAI and share how we addressed it by introducing the concept of Social Transparency in AI– a sociotechnically situated concept that expands the boundaries of XAI by incorporating socio-organizational contexts into AI systems. I will share key lessons from this journey towards HCXAI including missed turns and design implications around improving explainability, calibrating trust, and fostering decision-making.
Qiaosi Wang, Mutual Theory of Mind for Human-AI Communication
From navigation systems to smart assistants, we communicate with various types of AI on a daily basis. At the core of such human-AI communication, we convey our understanding of the AI system’s capability to the AI through utterances with different complexities, and the AI conveys its understanding of our needs and goals to us through system outputs. However, this communication process is prone to failures for two reasons: the AI systems might have the wrong understanding of the user and the user might have the wrong understanding of the AI. In my work, I posit the Mutual Theory of Mind framework, inspired by our basic human capability of “Theory of Mind”, to enhance mutual understanding in human-AI communication. My work takes place in the context of online education where AI agents have been widely deployed to offer informational and social support to online students. In this talk, I will discuss the three components of Mutual Theory of Mind in human-AI communication: the construction, recognition, and explanation of AI’s Theory of Mind. I will then describe in detail about one of my studies that leveraged linguistic cues in human-AI dialogues to construct a community’s understanding of an AI agent.
Speaker Bios:
Nivedita Arora is a computer science Ph.D. candidate in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, advised by Prof. Gregory Abowd and Prof. Thad Starner. Her research focuses on re-imagining the future of mobile and ubiquitous computing by embracing an alternative view of computing where the physical surfaces would be covered with self-powered computational material. Her research has won an ACM IMWUT distinguished paper, two best poster awards (UIST, MobiSys), research highlight (SIGMOBILE GetMobile magazine, Communications of the ACM), and Fast Company Design Innovation Competition (Honoree Winner). In recognition of her work on sustainable computational materials, she was named the winner of the ACM Gaetano Borriello Outstanding UbiComp Student Award and Georgia Tech’s GVU Foley Award for the year 2021. In addition, she was recently part of the 2021 cohort of Rising Stars in EECS at MIT.
Upol Ehsan cares about people first, technology second. He is a doctoral candidate in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech and an affiliate at the Data & Society Research Institute. Combining his expertise in AI and background in Philosophy, his work in Explainable AI (XAI) aims to foster a future where anyone, regardless of their background, can use AI-powered technology with dignity. His research has a personal origin story – he was wrongfully detained at an airport due to an automated system’s error, which no one could explain or hold anyone accountable for. Focusing on how our values shape the use and abuse of technology, his work has coined the term Human-centered Explainable AI (a sub-field of XAI) and charted its visions. Actively publishing in top peer-reviewed venues like CHI, his work has received multiple awards and been covered in major media outlets (e.g., MIT Technology Review, Vice, VentureBeat). Bridging industry and academia, he serves in multiple program committees in HCI and AI conferences (e.g., DIS, IUI, NeurIPS) and actively connects these communities (e.g, the widely attended HCXAI workshop at CHI). By promoting equity and ethics in AI, he wants to ensure stakeholders who aren’t at the table do not end up on the menu. He graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Washington & Lee University with dual-degrees in Philosophy (B.A.) and Engineering (B.S.) followed by a MS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. Outside research, he is an advisor for Aalor Asha, an educational institute he started for underprivileged children subjected to child labor. He is also a social entrepreneur and has co-founded DeshLabs, a social innovation lab focused on fostering grassroots innovations in emerging markets.
Qiaosi (Chelsea) Wang is a 2021 Foley Scholar and a Ph.D. student in Human-Centered Computing in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research lies at the intersection of Human-AI Interaction, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), and Cognitive Science. Qiaosi’s dissertation work posits Mutual Theory of Mind as a framework to enhance mutual understanding in human-AI communication in the context of AI-facilitated remote social interaction. Her work has been published and received awards at prestigious venues such as ACM CHI, CSCW, DIS, and Learning@Scale. Qiaosi holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Informatics and Psychology from University of Washington, Seattle.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/rrfehtbq
]]>(1)Nivedita Arora, Designing for Sustainability in Computing: Self-Powered Computational Material (2)Upol Ehsan, Human-Centered Explainable AI: Thinking Outside the Black-Box of AI and (3)Qiaosi Wang, Mutual Theory of Mind for Human-AI Communication.
]]>Captioning Group Conversations on Smart Glasses for People Who Are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing, Gabriel Britain
People who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) tend to avoid group conversations with hearing people, as they find it difficult to follow along and participate. Smart glasses could help people who are DHH participate in group conversations in a discreet way. This research investigates how people who are DHH prefer to be shown captions in group contexts. The work presented today is part of the student’s Master’s Project requirements.
Facilitating Self-Management Practices in Type 2 Diabetes Patients, Jason Dong and Kaavya Singhal
This project is in conjunction with Emory Hospital and aims to examine self-management practices in low socioeconomic status Type 2 Diabetes patients. Ultimately, this project strives to design a mobile technological intervention to facilitate this process. The work presented today is a part of Jason and Kaavya’s Georgia Tech Master’s Project.
HerHeart, Aayahna Herbert and Tymirra Smith
The goal of the HerHeart project is to create a version of the Healthy Heart Score Tool that helps increase awareness of cardiac health for African American teens. The students are developing a mobile phone version of this tool that is engaging for teens and encourages them to take action to reduce their heart risk. The work presented today is part of the students’ HCI studio class project with their industry partner Georgia CTSA.
Netflix Master’s Project, Aditi Bhatnagar, Suyash Junnarkar, and Neha Khandavalli
Netflix viewers want to experience newly released shows and movies in an interactive social setting that will enable them to deeply engage with the entertainment content of their choice. This project explores avenues through which viewers can learn more about shows and movies in an interactive setting. The work presented today is part of the students’ Master’s Project, done with guidance from industry partners from Netflix.
SOFT -- Sea Otter Foraging Tech, Josh Terry
Can sensor-instrumented toys be used to monitor health and improve enrichment for sea otters at the Georgia Aquarium? This project looks at the design requirements of computer-driven otter enrichment devices and how we can help otter trainers derive meaningful health insights from the data pulled from such devices. The work presented today is part of the student’s Master’s Project.
Speaker Bios:
Captioning Group Conversations on Smart Glasses for People Who Are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing
Gabriel Britain is a second-year student in the Interactive Computing track of the MS-HCI Program. Before entering the Program, Gabriel graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in Computer Science.
Facilitating Self-Management Practices in Type 2 Diabetes Patients
Jason Dong is a second-year MS-HCI student in the Psychology track. Before entering the program, Jason graduated from UC Santa Barbara, where he majored in Biopsychology.
Kaavya Singhal is a second-year MS-HCI student in the Interactive Computing track. Before entering the program, Kaavya graduated from UC Berkeley, where she majored in Cognitive Science.
HerHeart
Aayahna Herbert is a first-year student in the Interactive Computing track of the MS-HCI Program. Before entering the program, Aayahna graduated from Clemson University with a degree in Computer Engineering.
Tymirra Smith is a first year student in the Industrial Design track of the MS-HCI Program. Before entering the program, Tymirra graduated from Georgia Tech and then worked at Brown Toy Box as a toy designer.
Netflix Master’s Project
Aditi Bhatnagar is a second-year student in the Psychology Track of the MS-HCI Program. Before entering the Program, Aditi graduated from University of California, Davis and then worked at SRI International’s neuroscience program as a research assistant.
Suyash Junnarkar is a second-year student in the Interactive Computing Track of the MS-HCI Program. Before entering the Program, Suyash graduated from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute in India and then came to Georgia Tech for a Masters in Industrial Design for a certificate year.
Neha Khandavalli is a second-year student in the Interactive Computing Track of the MS-HCI Program. Before entering the Program, Neha graduated from Georgetown University with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Computer Science and then worked at Data Innovations as a Software Engineer.
SOFT -- Sea Otter Foraging Tech
Josh Terry is a second-year student in the Digital Media track of the MS-HCI Program. Before entering the Program, Josh graduated from Georgia Tech's BS Computational Media Program and worked with Adult Swim Games as a Production Assistant.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/kpqapgza
]]>(1)Captioning Group Conversations on Smart Glasses for People Who Are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing, (2)Facilitating Self-Management Practices in Type 2 Diabetes Patients, (3)HerHeart, (4)Netflix Master’s Project, and (5)SOFT -- Sea Otter Foraging Tech
Richard L. Henneman, Director of the Master's Program in Human Computer Interaction will serve as moderator.
]]>Facilitated by Robert Knotts, Executive Director, Georgia Tech Federal Relations; Kari McCarron, Senior Principal, Lewis-Burke Associates; Emily Durham, Associate, Lewis-Burke Associates; Eve Granatosky, Principal, Lewis-Burke Associates; Naomi Webber, Senior Principal Consultant, Lewis-Burke Associates
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]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>Despite this basic fact, there is a surprising lack of research at the intersection of mental health and minority populations to characterize to what extent populations are affected.
This ongoing study utilizes real world data (i.e. patient health claims data) to assess the granular characteristics of minority populations afflicted with depression, bipolar disorder, or suicidality.
In doing so, the study will answer the questions of what populations with these conditions look like (i.e. how they are characterized), how they differ from populations without these diseases, and the characteristics of patients with these conditions who do not seek follow-up to care.
Additional discussion will touch on how this study has been built, potential areas for future work and collaboration, implications for large scale network research at GTRI, and composition of studies.
Facilitated by Jacob Zelko, Research Engineer, Health Data Analytics and Informatics Researcher, Georgia Tech Research Institute
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]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>How can we design research that informs technology policy debates?
How can research help advance human rights advocacy in those debates?
And at the same time how can that research be novel and offer a contribution to the field?
These are some of the factors that guide research in advocacy organizations. In this talk I will discuss some of the ways we address these challenges drawing on practical experiences as well as my research. I will refer to our research in three broad areas - content moderation, surveillance, and disinformation. Specifically, I will share our experiences addressing problems such as detecting harmful content in end-to-end encrypted messaging services, understanding the extent to which school issued devices monitor students and in what ways, and an ongoing project examining the potentially disproportionate impacts of disinformation on women of color political candidates in the U.S. These diverse examples will also demonstrate how we bring together interdisciplinary teams of researchers to tackle these problems and how we create spaces for researchers and policy-makers to learn from each other.
Speaker Bio:
Dhanaraj Thakur is Research Director at the Center for Democracy & Technology, where he leads research that advances human rights and civil liberties online. Over the last 15 years, he has designed and led several research projects aimed at tech policy audiences and ranging in scope from multi-national studies to community level work. He has been interviewed and his work quoted in several news media, including WIRED, CNN, the WSJ, the Economist, the Guardian (UK), and the Financial Times, among others. In addition, he has published over 35 peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers; as well as reports for several civil society organizations, multilateral development banks, and governments. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), and is a graduate of the London School of Economics, the University of the West Indies, and the University of Technology in Jamaica.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/sxxypyvz
]]>During this Thursday Think Tank, we will:
Facilitated by Russ Clark, Director of GT-RNOC, Senior Research Scientist, School of Computer Science; Matt Sanders, Director of Research Operations, Institute for People and Technology; and Faith Sumpter, Program & Operations Manager, Institute for People and Technology
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]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>NSF has recently established a National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) headquartered at Georgia Tech. The AI-ALOE Institute seeks to address the societal challenges of lifelong learning, workforce development, and reskilling and upskilling of millions of American workers. Online education offers an affordable medium for taking education to workers where they live. AI-ALOE will develop new AI technologies that enhance cognitive engagement, teacher presence, social interaction, and self-directed learning in online education, and thereby improve its quality for adult learners in STEM disciplines. In addition to these use-inspired AI techniques, AI-ALOE will conduct foundational AI research on personalization of learning at scale, interactive machine teaching, mutual theory of mind, and participatory design of sociotechnical systems for responsible AI. I will describe AI-ALOE’s vision, goals and plans, using examples from my research laboratory for illustration.
Speaker Bio:
Ashok Goel is a Professor of Computer Science and Human-Centered Computing in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology and the Chief Scientist with Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities. He is also the Executive Director of NSF’s National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (https://aialoe.org). Ashok is a Fellow of AAAI and the Cognitive Science Society, an Editor Emeritus of AAAI’s AI Magazine, and a recipient of AAAI’s Outstanding AI Educator Award.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/gpdkvqgw
]]>Virtual Conferencing Details:
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]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>AI models seek to intervene in increasingly higher stakes domains, such as cancer detection and microloan allocation. What is the view of the world that guides AI development in high risk areas, and how does this view regard the complexity of the real world? In this talk, I will present results from my multi-year inquiry into how fundamentals of AI systems—data, expertise, and fairness—are viewed in AI development. I pay particular attention to developer practices in AI systems intended for low-resource communities, especially in the Global South, where people are enrolled as labourers or untapped DAUs. Despite the inordinate role played by these fundamentals on model outcomes, data work is under-valued; domain experts are reduced to data-entry operators; and fairness and accountability assumptions do not scale past the West. Instead, model development is glamourised, and model performance is viewed as the indicator of success. The overt emphasis on models, at the cost of ignoring these fundamentals, leads to brittle and reductive interventions that ultimately displace functional and complex real-world systems in low-resource contexts. I put forth practical implications for AI research and practice to shift away from model centrism to enabling human ecosystems; in effect, building safer and more robust systems for all.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Nithya Sambasivan is a sociotechnical researcher whose work is in solving hard, socially-important design problems impacting marginalised communities in the Global South. Her current research re-imagines AI fundamentals to work for low-resource communities. Dr. Sambasivan's work has been widely covered in venues like VentureBeat, ZDnet, Scroll.in, O’Reilly, New Scientist, State of AI report, HackerNews and more, while influencing public policy like the Indian government’s strategy for responsible AI and motivating the NeurIPS Datasets track. As a former Staff Research Scientist at Google Research, she pioneered several original, award-winning research initiatives such as responsible AI in the Global South, human-data interaction, gender equity online, and next billion users, which fundamentally shaped the company’s strategy for emerging markets, besides landing as new products affecting millions of users including in Google Station, Search, YouTube, Android, Maps & more. Dr. Sambasivan founded and managed a blueprint HCI team in Google Research Bangalore, and set up the Accra HCI team, in contexts with limited existing HCI pipelines. Simultaneously, her research has received several best paper awards at top-tier computing conferences.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/dbksvxcy
]]>
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]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>Industrial knitting machines are used to fabricate many complex objects, including gloves, sweaters, layered cloth, and shaped fiber reinforcement for composites. But, fundamentally, what is it that knitting machines are actually making?
Well, in a topological sense, knitting machines don't make anything at all. Any knit object, fresh off the machine, can be unraveled (continuously deformed) back into straight segments of yarn.
But that's not a very satisfying answer, so in this talk I will eschew such topological nihilism using two different approaches. Viewing knitting through a high-level lens (thinking of stitches as lying on surfaces) one can show that knitting machines can create arbitrary arrangements of 2D tubes and sheets, limited only by a resolution/depth complexity trade-off. Taking a lower-level view, one can freeze certain parts of a knit structure in order to safely deploy the tools of topology and braid theory to explore and transform knitting programs without changing their meaning.
This will be a richly-illustrated, reasonably self-contained romp through the world of knitting design tools and representations, based on both completed and ongoing work in the Carnegie Mellon Textiles Lab (https://textiles-lab.github.io/), with no knitting or computer graphics background required.
Speaker Bio:
James (Jim) McCann is an Assistant Professor in the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute. He is interested in systems and interfaces that operate in real-time and build user intuition; lately, he has been applying these ideas to textiles fabrication and machine knitting as the leader of the Carnegie Mellon Textiles Lab. He received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon in 2010, and worked at Adobe research, as an independent game developer, and at Disney research, before joining Carnegie Mellon as Faculty. He lives about 500ft from the Forbes Ave / Fern Hollow Creek bridge, which collapsed two days before he wrote this bio.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/kerphxrd
]]>
This IPaT Thursday Think Tank facilitated by Tim Lieuwen, Regents Professor, David S. Lewis J. Chair in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, and executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute, will focus on a conversation discussing the previous work in phase 1 of the Commission on Research Next and the upcoming phase two work of the six goal teams.
Virtual Conferencing Details:
Meeting URL: https://bluejeans.com/330471123/2261?src=join_info
Meeting ID: 330 471 123
Participant Passcode: 2261
Want to dial in from a phone?
Dial one of the following numbers:
+1.404.458.0105 (United States)
(see all numbers - https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers)
Enter the meeting ID and passcode followed by #
]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>Facilitated by Sonia Alvarez-Robinson, executive director of Strategic Consulting, this think tank will highlight the G.T. Love initiative, focus on potential future research directions, and our shared mission and achieve the goals envisioned through the Georgia Tech strategic plan.
Virtual Conferencing Details:
Meeting URL: https://bluejeans.com/330471123/2261?src=join_info
Meeting ID: 330 471 123
Participant Passcode: 2261
Want to dial in from a phone?
Dial one of the following numbers:
+1.404.458.0105 (United States)
(see all numbers - https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers)
Enter the meeting ID and passcode followed by #
]]>Overview:
The Institute of People and Technology (IPaT) invites you to join us for our annual Town Hall on February 10, 2022 at 3:30pm. This year's Townhall will be virtual and hosted via BlueJeans. We want to hear from you and invite your participation and input on the search for the next IPaT Executive Director. Julia Kubanek, Georgia Tech Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research, will join us to kick off this important discussion.
Come prepared to also hear highlights on IPaT’s recent accomplishments, new opportunities for engagement and collaboration, and upcoming spring activities. An agenda for the town hall will be distributed next week.
- - - - - - -
The town hall will be hosted virtually on BlueJeans at https://bluejeans.com/792691417/1610
Meeting URL
https://bluejeans.com/792691417/1610
Meeting ID
792 691 417
Participant Passcode
1610
Want to dial in from a phone
Dial one of the following numbers:
+1.404.458.0105 (United States)
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Enter the meeting ID and passcode followed by #
]]>The world is becoming increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that collect, store, and analyze our data. Such technologies improve our quality of life, but they also (re)inforce inequities and harm marginalized populations. As digital technologies become more ubiquitous, it will become critical for all young people to have a deep understanding of AI that empowers them to enact change in their local communities and globally. In this talk, I discuss how researchers and children collaborated to develop a critical machine learning after-school education program, in which children explored the social and ethical consequences of large-scale algorithm deployment and applied machine learning content knowledge. Findings show that children were able to 1) explain how biased training datasets could be harmful and 2) build robots for social good that used their own designed classification algorithms. Reflecting on these findings, I argue for the benefits of participatory design methods in designing critical machine learning educational environments, as well as the unresolved tensions that emerge.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Arastoopour Irgens is Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences at Clemson University, Director of the IDEA lab, and Vice President of the International Society for Quantitative Ethnography. She is a former middle school computer science and high school mathematics teacher. Her research focuses on (1) designing inclusive digital learning environments focusing on engineering and computer science and (2) using quantitative ethnography to make sense of how learners engage with digital technologies. In her design-based research, she engages in participatory methods that actively involve teachers, students, and community partners working together to co-design digital learning environments that serve their communities.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/vbtaraeg
]]>About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Convergence areas are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>faith@gatech.edu
]]>As part of the Convergence Innovation Competition, a panel of industry and campus partners will review teams’ submission materials virtually.
About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Convergence areas are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>
About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Convergence areas are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
]]>
https://wearabletechwebtool.ipat.gatech.edu
Researchers on the project include:
Virtual Conferencing Details:
Meeting URL: https://bluejeans.com/330471123/2261?src=join_info
Meeting ID: 330 471 123
Participant Passcode: 2261
Want to dial in from a phone?
Dial one of the following numbers:
+1.404.458.0105 (United States)
(see all numbers - https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers)
Enter the meeting ID and passcode followed by #
]]>About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences with the support of campus and industry resources and guidance. Convergence areas are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model.
As part of the competition, one team is awarded a Golden Ticket to participate in the Create-X Startup Launch program during the summer! Winning team members and runner up team members receive a prize for participating. The prizes vary each semester and typically include electronics and other unique items. The winning CIC teams go on to launch, commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC runs in the Fall and Spring semesters and is produced by GT-RNOC in the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
Virtual Conferencing Details:
Meeting URL: https://bluejeans.com/330471123/2261?src=join_info
Meeting ID: 330 471 123
Participant Passcode: 2261
Want to dial in from a phone?
Dial one of the following numbers:
+1.404.458.0105 (United States)
(see all numbers - https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers)
Enter the meeting ID and passcode followed by #
]]>Whom does computing serve, whom does it underserve, and do we even know whom we’re missing? Human-computer interaction has matured as a research community with a goal of understanding the effects of technology on people; through that maturity, the research methods we use in the field have mostly stabilized around a familiar and reliable set of qualitative and quantitative methods that help us to take a broad human-centered perspective. But these methods also have limits for what they can tell us about how people might engage with technology, and if we as a field fail to inspect those limits we run the risk of systematically ignoring the needs of end users.
In this talk I explore methodological limitations we have encountered in my research group’s recent projects, including work with individuals who have had a spinal cord injury and a project examining air quality data with parents of asthmatic children. In both cases, there were relatively obvious considerations we needed to make to accommodate research with these participants. However, there was something more subtle lurking underneath: in both cases there were also deeper methodological challenges that would have led to an incomplete picture of those user populations. I argue that researchers and practitioners in human-computer interaction, and more broadly across computing, have a responsibility to interrogate ourselves; to ask in earnest “How do our methods fall short, and whom do we harm in those shortcomings?”
Speaker Bio:
Jason Wiese is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah where he leads the Personal Data and Empowerment Lab (PeDEL). His research takes a user-centric perspective of personal data, everyday computing experiences, and end-user empowerment. His work spans personal informatics, accessibility, privacy, user-centered design, and real-world deployments. Dr. Wiese’s research excellence has been recognized by paper awards at DIS, CHI, and EICS, and through individual awards, including: recognition as a Yahoo Fellow in 2014, the Stu Card Fellowship in 2012, and the Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges Award in 2011. He publishes work in top Computer Science and HCI venues including CHI, DIS, CSCW, and IMWUT. He received his Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University in 2015.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/fbqyfvhy
]]>In this talk, I’ll share my new book, Design as Democratic Inquiry. This book discusses a series of projects grounded in collaborations with communities and institutions. In these collaborations, I explore the potentials and limitations of design to participate in democracy through what I call design experiments in civics. In particular, I explore how, as engaged designers, we might contribute to the work of communities and institutions who explore alternative civic imaginaries, which keep our democracies vibrant. This requires rethinking the stories we tell about design, how we practice design, and how we theorize design. Rather than repeating the heroic tales of innovation, I argue for embracing design as fragile, contingent, partial, and compromised: designing becomes a way to care for our collective futures together.
Speaker Bio:
Carl DiSalvo is an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His work explores the political qualities of contemporary design, and he is particularly interested in participatory and critical approaches to making and using technology. He is the author of Design as Democratic Inquiry and Adversarial Design, co-editor of Participatory Design for Learning, and an editor of the journal Design Issues.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/pbupsckv
]]>Education research frequently calls for theory-building work to better explain the mechanisms of how people learn. This talk discusses two theories developed based on a synthesis of work across multiple education-related fields to explain phenomena frequently seen in STEM education. The first theory, Spatial Encoding Strategy theory, proposes a mechanism to explain how spatial skill training improves generalized problem solving while other forms of brain training produce only localized results. It draws upon work in discipline-based education, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and learning sciences. The second theory, Multiple Conceptions theory, proposes a mechanism to explain how both direct instruction and constructivist instructional approaches can be designed to guarantee successful results. It draws upon instructional approaches from various STEM fields and educational psychology.
Speaker Bio:
Lauren Margulieux is an Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences at Georgia State University. She received her Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in Engineering Psychology, the study of how humans interact with technology. Her research interests are in educational technology and online learning, particularly for computing education. She also coordinates an initiative in Georgia State’s teacher preparation programs to integrate computing into pre-service teacher training in all disciplines and directs a computer science endorsement to certify in-service teachers to offer computing courses.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/tsfwavvq
]]>Personal informatics refers to information individuals can collect about themselves, such as food intake, physical activity, sleep, and mood. Current personal informatics tools have been designed primarily for personal use, focusing on quantitative measurements that are easy to collect via sensors or manual input. These systems often overlook the changing nature of everyday life, the social contexts individuals live in, the variety of goals and values they have, and the constraints and preferences associated with these contexts and values. My research has examined the collaborative use of personal informatics data and co-constructed experience in various contexts. In this talk, I will share a few recent studies unpacking ways to rethink personal informatics technology that considers the changing contexts of health behavior, shifting values and priorities, as well as the social roles and relationships that often deeply intertwine with health decisions.
Speaker Bio:
Christina Chung is an Assistant Professor in Informatics and the Luddy Faculty Fellow 2020/2021 at the Indiana University Bloomington. She is also the director of the Proactive Health lab. Her research focuses on how ubiquitous computing and personal informatics data can be designed and shared to support relationships, motivate health behavior, and support collaborative care. She has published in top HCI conferences and medical journals; receiving a Best Paper Award, Honorable Mention, and Impact Award. Her research has been featured in mainstream media, such as CNN and Geekwire, and is supported by the National Science Foundation, IU Luddy Faculty Fellowship, and IU Precision Health Initiative.
Christina received her Ph.D. in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington while she was a member of the Design. Use. Build (DUB) group. Previously, she was also a software engineer in IBM Research Collaboratory Taiwan conducting service innovation research in health and wellness. She holds an M.B.A and B.B.A in Information Management from the National Taiwan University.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/vtqxzcwt
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2021
]]>In the U.S., COVID-19 messaging and policy implementation (i.e., school closures and stay-at-home orders) are largely administered at the state level. This can be problematic, as functional metropolitan areas can straddle multiple states, and a single state may have subregions that are not well-connected. Much of our messaging for emergencies (such as hurricane warnings) is not at the state-level but at the county-level for these reasons. Such state-level policies have already resulted in friction in local communities—especially in Georgia. To define units for which it is reasonable to apply homogeneous rules, we construct regions that capture core geographies of social and movement behavior.
To create effective geographic regions for policy implementation, we apply community-detection algorithms to five large networks of mobility and social-media connections to construct geographic regions that reflect natural human movement and relationships at the county level for the continental United States. We measure COVID-19 cases, case rates, and case rate variation across adjacent counties and examine these dynamics along the boundaries of functional regions and state boundaries.
We find that regions constructed using GPS-trace ("trip") networks and commuter networks are the most effective natural partitions for capturing COVID-19 'hot spots.' Conversely, regions constructed from geolocated Facebook friend connections resulted in the least effective partitions. Regions derived from migration flows, Twitter connections, and state boundaries showed mixed results. This analysis reveals that functional regions derived from mobility data are more appropriate geographic units than states for making policy decisions about opening areas for activity, assessing vulnerability of populations, and allocating resources.
Speaker Bio:
Clio Andris is an assistant professor in the School of City & Regional Planning and the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She directs the Friendly Cities Lab and conducts research in the fields of spatial social network analysis, urban planning, GIS, and geovisualization.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/sfzwejwa
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2021
]]>The Art and AI "Vertically Integrated Project" (VIP) course brings together histories and concepts of visual culture and image making with explorations of technology and artificial intelligence. We are an artist and AI researcher exploring approaches to applying machine learning to create artistic images.
Our team is analyzing the application of machine learning to the creative act of image making. Participating students collaborate in the areas of art, research, digital technology, and popular culture, with experiments in a range of visual renderings starting with 2 dimensional and eventually 3 dimensional and animated results.
Moderators: Ethan Trewhitt, GTRI, Research Engineer &
Mark Leibert, Professor of Practice, LMC
Virtual Teleconference Details:
To join: https://bluejeans.com/676296358/1383
If you would like to call into the conversation using a phone, you can access using the phone numbers below:
+1.408.419.1715 (United States (San Jose))
(see all numbers - https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers)
Meeting ID: 676 296 358
Participant Passcode: 1383
Enter the meeting ID followed by #
]]>The Art and AI "Vertically Integrated Project" (VIP) course brings together histories and concepts of visual culture and image making with explorations of technology and artificial intelligence. We are an artist and AI researcher exploring approaches to applying machine learning to create artistic images. Our team is analyzing the application of machine learning to the creative act of image making. Participating students collaborate in the areas of art, research, digital technology, and popular culture, with experiments in a range of visual renderings starting with 2 dimensional and eventually 3 dimensional and animated results.
With the rise and proliferation of gig economy platforms providing ride hailing, food delivery and other app-based services on-demand in major urban centers of the world, there have been major transformations in work and life globally. Gig platforms have certainly disrupted and redefined the discovery and allocation of casual work through algorithmic management, creating grave concerns for regulating the future of work. Simultaneously, especially in the global South, gig platforms have also emerged as important avenues for gaining temporary paid work and socio-economic mobility for low income individuals, women and migrant workers. Drawing on over five years of ethnographic research with a variety of stakeholders in the gig economy including workers, managers, consumers and regulators, my work shows how platformization produces heterogeneous effects on the lives, livelihoods and productive and reproductive capacities of different individuals in urban India. This talk will draw on multiple case studies of gig work to show these heterogeneous effects and how everyday technology practice also informs platform design in return. I will also offer some considerations for HCI scholars looking to study the effects of emerging technologies in global South settings.
Speaker Bio:
Noopur Raval is a postdoctoral researcher at the AI Now Institute and an adjunct professor at the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University. She received her PhD in Informatics from UC Irvine in 2020 and is a tech ethnographer and interdisciplinary scholar at the intersection of HCI, Communication and Media Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Postcolonial History. She has written extensively on gig work, platformization and the future of work in the global South. Her new work extends to studying the cultural labor and subjective decision-making by global South data annotators in order to train AI/ML systems. Her work has appeared in CSCW, CHI, ACM Interactions among other venues. She has also worked in UX research at multiple Microsoft Research labs. Noopur is an alumna of the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Center for Tech, Society and Policy at UC Berkeley.
Watch via Zoom Meeting: https://washington.zoom.us/j/98578905160
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2021
]]>To live in data is to be incessantly extracted from, to be classified and categorized, statisti-fied, sold and surveilled. Data (our data) is mined and processed for profit, power and political gain. Our clicks and likes and footsteps feed new digital methods of control. In this talk Jer will propose a variety of answers to a crucial question of our time: how do we stop passively inhabiting data, and become active citizens of it?
Speaker Bio:
Jer Thorp is an artist, writer and teacher living in New York City. He is best known for designing the algorithm to place the nearly 3,000 names on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. Jer was the New York Times' first Data Artist in Residence, is a National Geographic Explorer, and in 2017 and 2018 served as the Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress. Jer is one of the world's foremost data artists, and is a leading voice for the ethical use of big data.
Jer’s data-inspired artwork has been shown around the world, including most recently in New York’s Times Square, at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, at the Ars Electronica Center in Austria, and at the National Seoul Museum in Korea. His work has also appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Scientific American, The New Yorker, Popular Science, Fast Company, Business Week, Popular Science, Discover, WIRED and The Harvard Business Review.
Jer is a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, and an alumnus of the World Economic Foundation’s Global Agenda Council on Design and Innovation. He is an adjunct Professor in New York University’s renowned Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), and is the Co-Founder of The Office for Creative Research. In 2015, Canadian Geographic named Jer one of Canada’s Greatest Explorers.
Jer’s book 'Living in Data’ is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and is in bookstores now.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/xevxxyap
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2021
]]>Artificial Intelligence technologies are increasingly used to make decisions and perform autonomous tasks in critical domains. The need to understand AI in order to improve, contest, develop appropriate trust and better interact with AI systems has spurred great academic and public interest in Explainable AI (XAI). The technical field of XAI has produced a vast collection of algorithms in recent years. However, explainability is an inherently human-centric property and the field is starting to embrace human-centered approaches. Human-computer interaction (HCI) research and user experience (UX) design in this area are increasingly important especially as practitioners begin to leverage XAI algorithms to build XAI applications. In this talk, I will draw on our research and broad HCI work to highlight the central role that human-centered approaches should play in shaping XAI technologies, including to drive technical choices by understanding user needs, to uncover pitfalls of existing XAI methods, and to provide conceptual frameworks for human-compatible XAI.
Speaker Bio:
Q. Vera Liao is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research Montreal. Her current interest is in human-AI interaction and explainable AI, with a focus on bridging state-of-the-art AI technologies and user-centered design practices. She serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief for Springer HCI Series, on the Editorial Board of IJHCS and ACM TiiS, and has been on the Organizing Committee for IUI 2019 and CSCW 2021. Before joining MSR, she worked at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/wxgexbkb
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2021
]]>The session will be held via BlueJeans (https://bluejeans.com/676296358/1383). It will be moderated by Matt Sanders, Director of Research Operations for the Institute for People and Technology and Richard Starr, Research Scientist for the Institute for People and Technology.
Virtual Teleconference Details:
To join: https://bluejeans.com/676296358/1383
If you would like to call into the conversation using a phone, you can access using the phone numbers below:
+1.408.419.1715 (United States (San Jose))
(see all numbers - https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers)
Meeting ID: 676 296 358
Participant Passcode: 1383
Enter the meeting ID followed by #
]]>In this Think Tank we will review how to get started with and grow research efforts working with protected healthcare data at Georgia Tech.
]]>While video game accessibility for people with disability has been given serious thought and been addressed by video game developers since the early 2000s, representation of disability in video games has been less well addressed. How children’s perception of disability is established and maintained or altered through playing video games in which characters with disabilities are represented has received no attention at all. The most instrumental type of representation of disability in games should provide children with exposure to and engagement with new video game schemas that add understanding and help create meaning about the disability represented.
Video games differ significantly in how they represent disability. Representation can be cosmetic, providing exposure but not gameplay utility; it can be incidental, used as a device that provides purpose for the narrative; or it can accurately represent the disability and show how the character copes with their disability. How representation is perceived by children, i.e. the message that is received, depends on what stage a child may be in in their cognitive development, the society of which they are a part, and their exposure to disability in games previously.
This talk shares a current EU research project in which nineteen games (1994-2020) with a PEGI 3 rating, and seventeen games (2004 to 2020) with a PEGI 7 rating, were reviewed and characters analyzed to consider how representation of disability maps against cognitive development and psychomotor and cognitive needs and abilities of children ages 3 to 12.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Krystina Madej has recently retired from Georgia Tech after ten years as Professor of the Practice. She continues her research at GT and at the University of Lower Silesia, Wroclaw Poland, where she has also taught since 2015. Her work examines children’s emerging narrative intelligence as they develop and how humans have adapted their narratives to changing media throughout the centuries. Key research includes children's interaction with digital games, interactivity and collaboration in social media, and Disney's approach to stories across media, and has been documented in the books Physical Play and Children’s Digital Game; Interactivity, Collaboration, and Authoring in Social Media; and Disney Stories: Getting to Digital 2nd Edition (published in fall 2020). She has also edited Engaging Imagination and Developing Creativity. Previous to her work in academia, she was principal in a communications and industrial design business for 15 years, where, as design strategist, she planned and created successful branding programs and exhibits for government, business, industry, and museums.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/pbjcarvu
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2021
]]>Leigh McCook, Deputy Director of the Institute for People and Technology, and Division Chief of the Socio-Technical Division within the Georgia Tech Research Institute Information and Communications Laboratory (GTRI-ICL)
Virtual Teleconference Details:
To join: https://bluejeans.com/676296358/1383
If you would like to call into the conversation using a phone, you can access using the phone numbers below: +1.408.419.1715 (United States (San Jose))
(see all numbers - https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers)
Meeting ID: 676 296 358 Participant
Passcode: 1383
Enter the meeting ID followed by #
]]>
About the Competition
The CIC encourages students to create innovative, viable products and experiences whether they are projects for classes, individual classes or even beyond that. Convergence areas are determined by our campus, industry, and community partners. Winning entries will include a working end-to-end prototype which operates on converged services, media, networks, services, and platforms as well as a value proposition model. CIC winners go on to commercialization, other competitions, as well as internship and job opportunities strengthened by their competition experience. CIC is an annual event produced by GT-RNOC and the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).
Learn more about the competition at the Convergence Innovation Competition website.
Virtual Teleconference Details:
To join: https://bluejeans.com/676296358/1383
If you would like to call into the conversation using a phone, you can access using the phone numbers below:
+1.408.419.1715 (United States (San Jose))
(see all numbers - https://www.bluejeans.com/numbers)
Meeting ID: 676 296 358
Participant Passcode: 1383
Enter the meeting ID followed by #
]]>The finalist projects from the Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC) will be featured during this week’s Thursday Think Tank. Student teams are encouraged to attend the session to learn more about projects and network with campus and industry partners.
]]>October 20 | 3-4:30pm EDT
Registration: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/register/kkccrfev
The mission of the institute is to develop collaborative AI partners-in-care that help support a growing population of older adults, helping them sustain independence, improve quality of life, and increase effectiveness of care coordination across their care network.
AI-CARING is sponsored by NSF and is a collaboration between Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon University, Oregon State University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Oregon Health & Science University.
The event will feature a series of talks outlining the key research challenges and innovations that the Institute will pursue.
We hope you can join us! Please register at the above link to receive the meeting link, and feel free to share with any colleagues who might be interested.
Thank you,
Sonia
]]>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 health. However, it is critical for design in this space to engage with issues of agency, marginalization, and trauma. In this talk, I will share two projects in which I have grappled with these issues. The first explores challenges of coordination across clinical, school, and home contexts in support of children’s behavioral development. Collaborative technologies are needed to help stakeholders cross these organizational and disciplinary boundaries, so they can reduce tensions and work together. The second project I will share involves the coordination of strangers. UnityPhilly is a community-based intervention that uses a smartphone app to coordinate life-saving layperson response to an opioid overdose. Just prior to the pandemic, we completed a one-year pilot study with 112 participants who helped to revive 74 victims of overdose. Across these two projects, I will reflect on how we can design mobile and collaborative technologies to fill gaps in care coordination and provide supplemental interventions for behavioral and mental health.
Speaker Bio:
Gabriela Marcu is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. She studies the delivery of behavioral health services and the use of digital health interventions. Her expertise is in designing and evaluating use of systems for health through qualitative methods, participatory design, community-based approaches, and field studies. She involves undergraduate researchers in all of her projects, and has been the recipient of a NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award as well as an Early Career Mentor Award from the Council on Undergraduate Research’s Math and Computer Science Division. She holds a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.S. in Informatics from the University of California, Irvine.
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/vwwcduqc
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Spring 2021
]]>We anticipate that AI will play a pivotal role in supporting the goals of older adults to “age in place” and sustain quality of life and independence. However, designing these technologies requires supporting the actions of older adults alongside their caregivers, spouses, adult children, and healthcare providers while being able to draw on a longitudinal understanding of routines, habits, norms, and values. In this talk, I draw from several projects to reflect on the challenges incumbent in designing for informal care networks. These challenges include establishing trust, respecting privacy, retaining autonomy, and combatting disparities. While these challenges are significant, the benefits of designing for care networks are substantial and this multi-stakeholder approach has the greatest potential for long-lasting care. This work now grounds the “use inspired” research for the new NSF AI Institute for Collaborative Assistance and Responsive Interaction for Networked Groups (AI-CARING).
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Elizabeth Mynatt is a Regents’ and Distinguished Professor in the College of Computing and the Executive Director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology that pursues innovative research to promote healthy, productive and fulfilling lives on a global scale. Over the past two decades, Mynatt’s research has focused on the role of ubiquitous computing in health. She currently leads the NCI funded MyPath project, creating an application that provides breast cancer patients with personalized recommendations during their cancer journey. Mynatt co-leads the Emory-Georgia Tech program to empower people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). She is also one of the principal researchers in the Aware Home Research Initiative; investigating the design of future home technologies, especially those that enable older adults to continue living independently as opposed to moving to an institutional care setting.
Mynatt has been recognized as an ACM Fellow, a member of the SIGCHI Academy, and a Sloan and Kavli research fellow. She has published more than 100 scientific papers and chaired the CHI 2010 conference, the premier international conference in human-computer interaction. Prior to joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 1998, Mynatt was a member of the research staff at Xerox PARC..
Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/xvvjcaye
Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2021
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