HCII News

The Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University seeks faculty candidates with a strong track record in research, outstanding academic credentials, and an earned Ph.D. They should also have a strong interest in graduate and undergraduate education.

• What: Challenge to redesign the HCII website
• Due: February 15, 2012
• Prizes: $1,000 first prize and $300 second prize

The Human-Computer Interaction Institute website is showing its age and needs a facelift or more serious redesign.

On December 2, 2011 a group of appreciative students and colleagues gathered to dedicate the new HCII Social Space as the Kiesler-Kraut Commons in thanks to Sara Kiesler and Robert Kraut for their years of dedicated service and incredible contributions to the HCII.

Robert Kraut, the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, is among 46 leading computer scientists and one of two School of Computer Science faculty members named 2011 Fellows by the Association for Computing Machinery.

Julia Schwarz, a PhD student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and David Klionsky, a recent master’s graduate in the Computer Science Department now at Microsoft, took first place in the Most Useful category of the UIST 2011 Student Innovation Contest.

The 230-foot-long Randy Pausch Memorial Bridge is both a well-trod connection between the Gates Center for Computer Science and the Purnell Center for the Arts and a symbol of the collaborative, creative spirit of the late Carnegie Mellon University professor.

Researchers at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University have devised a system called SideBySide that enables animated images from two separate handheld projectors to interact with each other on the same surface.

Tiramisu Transit, an iPhone app developed by Carnegie Mellon that uses crowdsourcing to help transit riders know when their bus will arrive, won second place in the Best New Innovative Products, Services, or Applications category of the 2011 Best of ITS Awards.

Smartphone and tablet computer owners have become adept at using finger taps, flicks and drags to control their touchscreens. But Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found that this interaction can be enhanced by taking greater advantage of the finger’s anatomy and dexterity.

OmniTouch, a wearable projection system developed by researchers at Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University, enables users to turn pads of paper, walls or even their own hands, arms and legs into graphical, interactive surfaces.

The Siebel Scholars Foundation has announced that Preethi Raju, a master’s student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and four other Carnegie Mellon graduate students are among the 85 members of the 2012 class of Siebel Scholars

Justine Cassell, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, will be among four Carnegie Mellon University faculty members who will make presentations and be part of a mini-documentary being filmed at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of New Champions, Sept. 14–16 in Dalian, China.

Big congratulations to PhD student Jason Wiese, who has just won a Yahoo! 2011 Key Scientific Challenges Program Award. Jason won for his work on Internet Experience. He is the 3rd HCII student to have won this prestigious award, and we’re proud of him!

Everybody who waits at a bus stop wants to know one thing: Where’s the bus? Thanks to Tiramisu, a new iPhone application developed at Carnegie Mellon University, transit riders in Pittsburgh will soon be able to get the answer by using crowdsourcing to share arrival times with each other.

Computers may be a common part of modern life and work, but the languages and methods used to program those computers continue to confound most people.

A team including HCII PhD student Will Odom won an International Design Excellence Award for their poster about Technology Heirlooms.

Digital imagery, Facebook updates, online music collections, email threads and other immaterial artifacts of today’s online world may be as precious to teenagers as a favorite book that a parent once read to them or a t-shirt worn at a music festival, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers say.

Brad A. Myers, professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, is one of 10 recipients chosen by Microsoft Research for its 2011 Software Engineering Innovation Foundation (SEIF) Awards.

Justine Cassell, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, will join experts from the news media and industry to discuss how technology is transforming our culture during a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Town Meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 28, in McConomy Auditorium.

Congratulations to two of our current PhD students, Beka Gulotta and Chloe Fan, for receiving NSF Graduate Research Fellowships! Samanatha Finkelstein, who will be joining the HCII in the Fall as a new student in our PhD Program, also received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.