Chairholders
Profile
Tovi Grossman
Department of Computer Science (St. George Campus)
University of Toronto
Chair title
University of Toronto NSERC-Autodesk Industrial Research Chair in Human-Computer Interaction: Hybrid Interactive Systems for Design and Fabrication
Chair program
Industrial Research Chairs program
Role
Associate Chairholder since 2019
Summary
In the last several decades, digital technologies have had an immense impact on the design, construction and manufacturing industries. With the increasing power of computing systems, we are slowly seeing a rise of generative design tools, where designs are created automatically by the machine. Similarly, digital fabrication tools, such as industrial robots, CNCs and 3D printers, have had a transformative effect on the manufacturing and construction industries. These rapidly evolving technologies are forcing individuals within these industries to work in new and unfamiliar ways, creating new challenges in human-computer interaction. It is critical to our future that new interactive systems are developed to allow users to work efficiently with these automated design and fabrication systems, and to also support their learning, training and retraining to keep pace with the rapidly changing needs for their skill base.
The Chair’s research program focuses on the development of human-computer interaction approaches to support hybrid interactive systems for design and fabrication. In these systems, human workers can work alongside automated technologies to produce efficient work patterns and ensure humans maintain agency within the context of their design and fabrication tasks. Specifically, the Chair will explore how modern interactive technologies, such as wearable devices, augmented reality, collaborative robots and mixed-initiative systems, will allow us to work and learn in ways that were never before possible. The research program will focus on two important yet contrasting domains: digital design using complex software, and collaborative construction and fabrication in the physical world. Advances in the proposed program will have far-reaching implications in diverse areas, such as in the education, manufacturing and construction industries, and will pave the way for broader collaborative interaction with AI and machine learning systems across a range of domains.
Tovi Grossman is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, having joined the faculty in July 2018. He received a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Toronto in 2008. His research is in human-computer interaction, focusing on input and interaction with new technologies. Most recently, he has been exploring how emerging technologies, such as wearables, the Internet of Things and automation, can be leveraged to enhance learning and knowledge-sharing for both software applications and real-world physical tasks. The research problems that will be investigated in the proposed research program directly relate to Prof. Grossman’s most recent works.
Prof. Grossman is an internationally recognized leader in his field. He has published three book chapters, six journal papers and more than 100 refereed conference papers. His work has been cited over 5,000 times. Prof. Grossman has received numerous awards in recognition of his research achievements, including 14 best-paper awards and nominations at the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) and Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conferences, two of the top international conferences in the field of human-computer interaction. He served as the Technical Program Co-Chair for the 2014 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, and the Program Committee Co-Chair for the 2015 ACM UIST Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. He is currently serving on the ACM CHI steering committee, which is the premier international human-computer interaction conference.
The goal of the Chair’s research program is for the University of Toronto and Autodesk to join forces, leveraging a long-standing relationship, to stabilize the university’s leading research capability and enable Autodesk to maintain its competitive edge across its product line.
Partner
- Autodesk Canada Co.
Contact information
Department of Computer Science (St. George Campus)
University of Toronto
Email: tovi@dgp.toronto.edu
Website:
http://www.tovigrossman.com/
