Chairholders
Profile
Sheelagh Carpendale
Department of Computer Science
University of Calgary
Chair title
NSERC/AITF/SMART Industrial Research Chair in Interactive Technologies
Chair program
Industrial Research Chairs program
Role
Associate Chairholder since 2007
Summary
Modern society demands that people manage, communicate and interact with digital information and digital devices at an ever-increasing pace. The problem is not with the information itself, but rather with its sheer volume and the unwieldy ways now provided to present, exchange, view and interact with it. Consequently, the overall objective of the Chair is to: design, develop and evaluate interactive technologies so that they support the everyday-world practices of how people view, represent, manage, and interact with information and how they collaborate with it.The Chair will realize this objective through two inter-related research themes. First, interactive visualization investigates the possibilities the digital world affords for peoples' exploration of dense and complex information spaces. The overall goal of this theme is to promote comprehension by providing people with appropriate interactive technologies and digital displays that help them transform information into knowledge. Second, embodied interaction considers how the technology that displays this information can be designed as a truly integral part of the real world environment. The overall goal of this second theme is to create new displays and devices that fit, support and participate in - rather than ignore - the everyday-world social practices of people and their surrounding environment. Both themes are tightly intertwined: Interactive visualization considers the fundamental nature of information and how people can effectively interact with it through technology, while embodied interaction considers how these technologies manifest themselves in ways that exploit the everyday practices and routines of people.
As Chair partners, Carpendale and Greenberg's combined expertise leverage one another's abilities to reconsider novel designs of interactive technologies. Both have a strong history of collaboration with their industrial sponsor, Smart Technologies, Inc., a sponsorship that includes an Industrial Chair co-funded by Smart Technologies, Inc. and Alberta's iCORE agency.
Partners
- Smart Technologies Inc.
- iCORE - Informatics Circle of Research Excellence
Contact information
Department of Computer Science
University of Calgary
2500 University Dr. NW
Calgary, Alberta
T2N 1N4
Tel.: 403-220-6055
Fax: 403-284-4707
Email: sheelagh@ucalgary.ca
Website:
http://ilab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca
