Past Seminars
The HCII Seminar Series has been a weekly tradition at CMU since 1990. Details of our seminars from 2014 to present, as well as many of their recordings, are available below. A few years ago, we held a year of special programming in celebration of the seminar's 25th anniversary.
| Date | Title | Speaker | Talk title and Abstract |
|---|---|---|---|
| HCII Seminar Series - Alvitta Ottley | 
Associate Professor, Computer Science and Engineering Department, Washington University (St. Louis, MO) |
"Bridging AI and Visual Analytics"Visualization research has long been dedicated to finding innovative approaches to represent complex data sets and convey insights to analysts. However, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) introduces a paradigm shift, presenting new opportunities for visual… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Narges Mahyar | 
Assistant Professor, Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst |
"Harnessing Data for Social Impact: Empowering Communities through Visualization and Social Computing"Abstract: Today’s world faces several complex problems, such as climate change, transportation, infrastructure, education, and healthcare. Technology, if designed right, can play an essential role… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Jorge Ortiz | 
Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers University |
"Advancing Human-Machine Interactions: Multimodal Learning in Densely Sensed Spaces"The proliferation of ubiquitous computing and instrumented environments has catalyzed multimodal learning as a pivotal paradigm for enhancing real-world applications and interactions. From autonomous vehicles… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Astro Teller | 
co-founder and Captain of Moonshots (CEO) of X, Alphabet's moonshot factory |
Astro will speak on what makes "moonshot" innovation; how organizations embrace or resist innovation; and what leadership may look like in the age of AI. Come prepared to ask questions and engage in conversation! | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Noboru Matsuda | 
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University |
"Learning by Teaching a Synthetic Peer: Lessons Learned, Now, and Then" A teachable agent (TA) coupled with an online learning environment where students learn to solve problems by interactively teaching the TA while receiving adaptive scaffolding is a unique implementation of an intelligent… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Edward Wang | 
Assistant Professor at UC San Diego, Electrical and Computer Engineering and The Design Lab |
"Elevating Access to Remote Health Monitoring Fairly" Many of today’s healthcare solutions do not provide access to the poor and are not racially fair. To address this, my group is leveraging the proliferation of mobile technology, particularly smartphones, as a ready-made sensor infrastructure to… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Gregory Abowd | 
Dean, College of Engineering, and Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University |
"Ubiquitous Computing Considered Harmful: A Two-Act Story of Getting Things Right for the Wrong Reason" I have been speaking and writing about the idea of an Internet of Materials for nearly a decade. It started as a way to rethink Mark Weiser's vision of ubiquitous computing in a more modern… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Tamara Kneese | 
Senior Researcher and Project Director, AIMLab, Data & Society Research Institute. Visiting Scholar at the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society at the University of California, Berkeley |
"From Socially Useful to Responsible Tech: Learning From Histories of Environmental Justice and Labor Rights in Silicon Valley and Beyond" At a time when “climate tech” has attracted the interest of venture capitalists and disaffected, laid-off tech workers alike, it seems prudent to offer some… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Chris McComb | 
Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University |
"A Tool, A Teammate, A Coach: Human+AICollaboration in Design" Increasingly powerful artificial intelligence (AI) resources are accelerating the pace of engineering and design. At the same time, interacting with these AI resources stands to fundamentally change the way that we, as humans,… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Fei Fang | 
Associate Professor, Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D), School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University |
"Game Theory and Machine Learning for Addressing Societal Challenges: From Theory to Real-World Impact" Societal challenges spanning security, environmental sustainability, food security, and transportation often involve complex decision-making by multiple self-interested agents. In our research… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Amy Ko | 
Professor, The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle |
The Sujeath Pareddy Memorial Lecture and HCII Speaker Series Presentation Talk: "Searching for Justice in Programming Language Design" From its earliest days, computing has been an eclectic project of capitalism, war, colonialism, and white supremacy. Its central Western values of utility,… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Hari Subramonyam | 
Assistant Professor (Research) at the Graduate School of Education and Computer Science (by courtesy), Stanford University |
"Rethinking the AI-UX Boundary for Designing Human-AI Experiences" In conventional software development, the boundary between user experience (UX) design and engineering is well defined: designers create specifications based on end-user needs, then engineers build to those specifications. However… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Katie Davis | 
Associate Professor, University of Washington Information School |
"Technology's Child: Digital Media's Role in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up" Abstract: What happens to the little ones, the tweens, and the teenagers, when technology, ubiquitous in the world they inhabit, becomes a critical part of their lives? Technology’s Child brings clarity to what we… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Ding Wang | 
HCI Researcher at Technology and Society Collective (TaSC), Responsible AI, Google Research |
"The Work of Data Annotation and Annotator Diversity" 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… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Danny Pimentel | 
Assistant Professor of Immersive Media Psychology, University of Oregon |
"Changing Tides: Using Technology to Bridge Human-Nature Gaps and Spur Environmental Advocacy" Despite heightened societal awareness of climate change and its impact on biodiversity loss, human efforts to mitigate such threats remain stagnant for various reasons, namely the psychological distance… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Pedro Lopes | 
Assistant Professor in Computer Science, University of Chicago |
"Integrating Interactive Devices with the User's Body" The main question that drives my research is: what is the next interface paradigm that supersedes wearable devices? I argue that the new paradigm is one in which interactive devices will integrate with the user’s biological senses and… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Eleanor O'Rourke | 
Assistant Professor in Computer Science and the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University |
"Why Do Students Think They're Bad at Programming? Towards Intelligent Systems to Support Motivation and Learning in CS1" In this talk, I will introduce a surprising motivational challenge in the domain of computer science education: students often think they're bad at programming, even when they… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Mustafa Naseem | 
Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Michigan School of Information |
"Challenges and Opportunities for Designing Health Technologies for Men in Religiously Conservative, Patriarchal and Low-Income Societies" This talk will address the design challenges and opportunities in creating health technologies for men to improve the lives of women in religiously… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Carol J. Smith | 
Sr. Research Scientist, Human-Machine Interaction in the AI Division, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University |
"UXR for Responsible, Human-Centered AI" AI-enabled systems that are responsible and human-centered, will be powerful partners to humans in the very near future. User experience research (UXR) is necessary to create systems that people are willing to be responsible for. This talk describes the UXR… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Lace Padilla | 
Assistant Professor in the Cognitive and Information Sciences Department at the University of California Merced |
"Making Uncertainty Cognitively Accessible" We live in an uncertain world. From extreme weather events to pandemic forecasts, we are confronted with uncertainty every day. Unfortunately, uncertainty is highly challenging for both the general public and trained experts to understand, which is why… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Nica Ross | 
Director, Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry & Associate Professor of Video & Media Design, School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University |
"Invitations and Intentions: A Creative Practice informed by Queer Autonomy" Through the format of an artist talk Nica Ross will share select projects from their body of work through the lens of Queer cultural production. In addition they will discuss how their socially engaged practice applies… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Chancey Fleet | 
Assistive Technology Coordinator at the New York Public Library and the Dimensions Project |
“De-Visualizing Images and Data: A Community-based Approach to Tactile Graphics Creation and Exploration" Tools and processes for creating tactile graphics (raised images usable by Blind and low vision people) have been available for decades, but the equipment and practices used to produce them –… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Julian Brinkley | 
Assistant Professor of Human-Centered Computing, School of Computing, Clemson University |
“(De)evolving Towards Inaccessibility? Exploring the Evolution of In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS) and the Implications for Human-Machine Interfaces in Emerging Self-Driving Vehicles” Fully autonomous or “self-driving” vehicles have been described as a potentially transformative advance in… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Daniel Epstein | 
Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics, University of California at Irvine |
"Towards More Meaningful Personal Tracking" 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… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Steven Dow | 
Associate Professor of Cognitive Science, UC San Diego |
"Advancing Socio-Technical Systems for Community-Driven Creativity" As the world’s problems increase in scope and complexity, the practice of design has been shifting. Designers are seen less as saviors and more as facilitators of problem-solving processes. As the practice of design evolves, so… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Stevie Chancellor | 
Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Minnesota |
"Human-centered Machine Learning for Dangerous Mental Illness Behaviors Online" Research and industry both use machine learning (ML) to identify and intervene in physically dangerous health behaviors discussed on social media, such as advocating for self-injury or violence. There is an urgent need… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Rich Caruana | 
Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA |
"Friends Don’t Let Friends Deploy Black-Box Models: The Importance of Intelligibility in Machine Learning" In machine learning sometimes tradeoffs must be made between accuracy, privacy and intelligibility: the most accurate models usually are not very intelligible or private, and the most… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - George Aye | 
Cofounder and Director of innovation at Greater Good Studio. Full Professor (Adj) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago |
"That Quiet Little Voice: When Design and Ethics Collide" The design industry’s relationship to the field of business has long been established and continues to become further entangled each year. But designers aren’t just satisfied with only disrupting the business sector—they’re keen to disrupt… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Ken Koedinger |
Ken Koedinger Hillman Professor and METALS Program Director, Carnegie Mellon University |
"Opportunities Matter: Hybrid Human-Computer Tutoring Toward Educational Equity" Across 27 datasets of students learning online, we find an astonishing regularity in the rate they learn. That’s the good news. When given quality practice opportunities with feedback and as-needed instruction, all… Full Details | |
| HCII Seminar Series - Andrew Begel | 
Associate Professor, Institute for Software Research at Carnegie Mellon University |
"CodeWalk: Facilitating Shared Awareness in Mixed-Ability Collaborative Software Development" COVID-19 accelerated the trend toward remote software development, increasing the need for tightly-coupled synchronous collaboration. Existing tools and practices impose high coordination overhead on… Full Details |