Education

Master of Human-Computer Interaction
December 2008, GPA 4.0/4.0
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Bachelor of Computer Science
May 2008, GPA 3.51/4.0
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Project Highlights

Self-Interruption on the Computer

Researcher, Senior Thesis, August 2007–present

For my honors thesis I conducted 13 user studies and used the collected data to define types of self-interruption, validated using inter-rater validation.

Contextual Web History

Researcher, Academic Research, January 2007–present

My partner and I identified the most memorable aspects of a web page through 17 interviews and experiments. We then built several Firefox extension prototypes that improve the visibility and usability of browser history and tested them through a total of 42 think aloud studies.

Resident Recommendations for Second Life

Technical Co-Lead, Capstone Project (Linden Lab), January 2008–August 2008

Our team of 5 worked with Linden Lab to leverage social networking concepts to improve Second Life. We conducted contextual inquiries, interviews, surveys, and think aloud studies to understand the current experience. We then designed, prototyped, and tested a recommendation system that encourages user contribution and lends the experience of expert users to novice users.

Deghosting High Dynamic Range Images

Intern, Google Summer of Code (Panotools/hugin), May 2007–August 2007

I developed a command-line C++ program using and improving Khan's algorithm in removing ghosts when combining low dynamic range images into a single high dynamic range image.

Improving Blogger

Coursework, January 2007–May 2007

Our team of 4 analyzed contextual inquiries and think aloud studies, and performed keystroke level modeling, cognitive walkthroughs, and heuristic evaluations to evaluate the user experience of Blogger. We then reported several design recommendations based on the data to improve the user

Web Application Development
Computational Photography
Computer Graphics
Computer Networks

Designing for Service
Multimedia Authoring II
Contextual Practice
OO Analysis & Design