UCI Informatics

Congrats to Gillian Hayes for being inducted to the ACM SIGCHI Academy Class of 2024, an honorary group of individuals who have made substantial contributions to the field of HCI! 🎉

Hayes — vice provost for graduate education, dean of the Graduate Division at UC Irvine and a professor of informatics — creates technologies that empower people to leverage data in responding to human needs in sensitive and ethically responsible ways in her research. 📊🤝

Read: bit.ly/3WWkrC6

Graduate Student Spotlight: Vitica Arnold ✨

In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, learn about how informatics Ph.D. student Vitica Arnold blends psychology and tech to design technology that better supports people with cognitive disorders such as ADHD and Alzheimer’s! 🌐

Read: bit.ly/3K2G5Nx

The Master of Software Engineering professional program, housed in the Donald Bren School of ICS, has never had a student basketball player, but Moulayna Johnson Sidi Baba wanted to explore her options outside of basketball. 🏀💻

A year earlier, she feared she might never play again. Instead, she found herself helping the UCI women’s basketball team head to its first March Madness game since 1995. “UC Irvine women win Big West Championship, end long NCAA Tournament drought,” announced a March 16, 2024 AP News article. Sidi Baba contributed to that Big West victory with 13 points and nine rebounds. 👏

So how did Sidi Baba end up at UCI, studying software engineering? Learn about her story: bit.ly/4d0fkq5

Join us for the talk led by Dr. David Turner III, senior advisor at the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, on Friday, April 5, 2024 at 2 p.m! 📢

Turner will discuss how he has led efforts to develop internal infrastructure as well as campaigns that uplift community schools by transforming discipline and decriminalizing youth and communities of color.

will take place in DBH 6011 as part the Informatics Seminar Series of UCI’s Donald Bren School of ICS. It also serves as the keynote for DCA 2024, the third Datafication and Community Activism workshop at UCI.

Read: bit.ly/3PGEgck

Student Spotlight: Rebecca Agyapong ✨

Agyapong is a third-year student in UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of ICS who has conducted research through the IoT-SITY program, networked at the Tapia Conference, a gathering focused on diversity in computing, and is an executive member of UCI’s National Society of Black Engineers.

Read about her journey exploring the field of software engineering: bit.ly/4bYddmi

Shalini Bhakta is furthering her passion for information and computer sciences – from one Orange County to another. The third-year UCI informatics major and Southern California native flew to Orlando, Florida, in September for the Grace Hopper Celebration, a conference and job fair for women in the computing industry. 🍊👩‍💻

“It was so refreshing getting to hear from two women software engineers and about their work, the tools they use and build, and more,” she wrote in a blog post.

Calling GHC an “incredibly rewarding experience,” Bhakta says she also learned about new technology and various career niches to explore.

Photo credit: Steve Zylius / UCI

Read: bit.ly/48h4ZU0

A teacher or mentor can make a difference in a student’s life, recognizing an interest or talent and channeling that energy in a positive way. ⭐

“That can be a really transformative moment, putting a student on a different trajectory,” says Informatics Professor Kylie Peppler of UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of ICS. “Maybe we do that for one or two kids a year, but what if each teacher could do it for 40 or 50 kids a year?” 🚀

This was a motivating question for Peppler and some of her colleagues at UCI’s Connected Learning Lab as they started a collaboration with STEM Next a few years ago. STEM Next was looking for support for its Million Girls Moonshot, a project aimed at engaging one million girls in STEM learning opportunities through afterschool and summer programs.

Read: bit.ly/3GlqlDh

For nearly 20 years, Anne Marie Piper has been studying accessible computing and how groups of people with varying abilities, such as those who are blind, deaf, or neurodivergent, work together. 🔍👩‍🏫

“A lot has changed over that time,” says Piper, a professor of informatics at UC Irvine, “but we still do not have widely known work practices and technologies that guarantee equal access for all workers.”

Piper and some of her colleagues in the Donald Bren School of ICS are working to address that with a recent $2M National Science Foundation award. The NSF project, “Building an Inclusive Future of Work: Accessible Collaboration for Visually Impaired Information Workers,” aims to develop more equitable and inclusive collaboration tools. 🌐

Read: bit.ly/40BnzTC

To address industry needs in cloud security while also supporting students, UC Irvine’s Cybersecurity Policy & Research Institute and the Donald Bren School of ICS partnered with Southern California industry leaders to create a new cloud security course as part of UCI’s Master of Software Engineering (MSWE) program. ☁️🔒

“It has added a much-needed cloud security angle to MSWE’s curriculum, something that every software engineer needs to know," says Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics Crista Lopes, who serves as MSWE director in ICS. “It has added a much-needed cloud security angle to MSWE’s curriculum, something that every software engineer needs to know.”

Read: bit.ly/3QQEpL1

Bill Tomlinson, an informatics professor at UCI, and Andrew Torrance, a law professor at the University of Kansas, have gained a much better understanding of how to leverage ChatGPT for academic papers since their initial experience with using the AI-based chatbot to generate some text related to their research.

They’re now sharing what they’ve learned in a series of papers written in collaboration with Rebecca Black and Donald J. Patterson. The papers cover AI as it relates to everything from scholarly writing and carbon emissions, to fake news and knowledge production, to issues of governance and AI training. 📝📰

Read: bit.ly/3QuuzNs

After advancing to the semi-final round of the NSF VITAL Prize Challenge in July, informatics Ph.D. student Ariel Han continues to expand StoryAI, an AI-based learning platform that aims to help decenter English-only practices by better engaging parents fluent in other languages. 📚🌍

Han and her team submitted a minimum viable StoryAI prototype on Oct. 16, 2023, which includes three different demos: creative writing, argumentative writing, and an interactive storytelling game.

In November, Han will learn whether AIStory will be one of 18 teams selected to advance to the final round of the VITAL Prize Challenge.

Read: bit.ly/3RYaIZz

Congrats to informatics Ph.D. student Eunkyung Jo for receiving the prestigious Google Fellowship for her work on personal informatics systems for mental health! This program recognizes “outstanding graduate students doing exceptional and innovative research." 🎉🏩

Through her research, she hopes to design technology that more effectively aids individuals seeking mental health support.

“Knowing that a renowned industry leader like Google recognizes my efforts and potential is truly humbling and validating,” says Jo.

Read: bit.ly/3rRba12

Melissa Mazmanian (Professor, Chancellor’s Fellow and Chair for the UC Irvine Department of Informatics) delivered the 2023 State of the Informatics Department talk on September 29, 2023, to kick off the new academic year and the Fall 2023 Informatics Seminar Series.

Watch her talk: bit.ly/3tk9f5u

2023 State of the Informatics Department with Melissa Mazmanian Melissa Mazmanian (Professor, Chancellor’s Fellow and Chair for the UC Irvine Department of Informatics) delivered the 2023 State of the Informatics Departme...

Congratulations to Informatics Professor André van der Hoek and his team for securing a new $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation: “Improving the Mental Well-being and Productivity of the Software Development Workforce of Tomorrow.” 🎉

“Software development can be a very stressful endeavor, with serious negative consequences on one’s mental well-being,” says Informatics Professor André van der Hoek, who is the principal investigator. 👩‍💻🧠

His co-investigators are two colleagues from the Donald Bren School of ICS, Iftekhar Ahmed and Madhu Reddy, and Stephen Schueller from the School of Social Ecology.

Read: bit.ly/46yma2d

Assistant Professor of Informatics Daniel Epstein has received the prestigious National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development award to advance his research into meaningful self-tracking experiences. 👏

The five-year funding of $616,000 will support Epstein and his Ph.D. students as they explore how best to design tracking technology to improve data engagement. Although more than 40% of U.S. adults use self-tracking technologies, such as a digital pedometer or food journaling app, they often fail to benefit from the data being collected. 📱

Read: bit.ly/3EJRFdq

What should universities be doing to educate students about how to responsibly use generative artificial intelligence technologies in college and after they graduate?

"What I try to teach my students about AI-generated text is that they cannot rely on it being correct. It may be useful if they are not confident about their grammar, but that’s about as far as it goes," says Paul Dourish, Chancellor’s Professor, Steckler Endowed Chair of Informatics in UCI’s School of ICS.

Dourish, who is also Director of the Steckler Center for Responsible, Ethical, and Accessible Technology, adds, "We already train students, when using material from the internet, to assess the sources; AI technologies are the same except that we can no longer see the sources!"

Read the rest of his insights on AI and education: bit.ly/3PstjeC

Yarn isn’t something most people associate with computer science curriculum, but “ICS 190: Recrafting Soft Technologies” isn’t your typical computer science course.

Students start by building an open-source, software-enabled robotic loom kit, called Robo-Loom, and they conclude the course with a team-based weaving project.

“The curriculum foregrounds the inherently interdisciplinarity nature of computational thinking,” says Informatics Professor Kylie Peppler, “and encourages critical reflection with respect to the role of women and people of color in computer science, robotics and art history.”

Read: bit.ly/3EvwnAx

“How does play become industrialized as part of the larger practice of a culture industry?” This question is central to the research of William Dunkel, an informatics Ph.D. candidate in UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of ICS.

“To explore this question, I examine a particular regional subsection of the global esports industry: Korea,” says Dunkel. As one of the biggest esports markets in the world, and as a global exporter of pop culture (owing to the Korean Wave known as “Hallyu”), Korea is an ideal focal point for Dunkel’s research.

Now, thanks to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Dunkel will spend the 2023-24 academic year in Seoul.

Read: bit.ly/3Kt9Ur8

Meet Nenad Medvidović, a 2023 Hall of Fame inductee. 👏

Medvidović (Ph.D. 1999, M.S. 1995 – Information and Computer Science) is an ICS alum and a professor and chair of USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Department of Computer Science. He is an internationally recognized leader in software engineering and recently completed a five-year term as editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, his field’s leading journal.

Watch his spotlight video: https://youtu.be/FaqERZtbclM

Meet Leysia P***n, a 2023 Hall of Fame ICS Inductee. 🌟

P***n received her Ph.D. and M.S. from UCI's Donald Bren School of ICS in 1998 and 1995, respectively. She is a crisis informatics pioneer and the founding chair of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Department of Information Science. P***n brings her training in human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work and social computing to bear on understanding and advancing socio-technical issues of societal import.

Watch her spotlight video: https://youtu.be/N2lxDns8kbw

ICS Hall of Fame Spotlight: Leysia P***n ICS alum and Hall of Fame inductee Leysia P***n (Ph.D. 1998, M.S. 1995 – Information and Computer Science), who is a 2022 Distinguished Professor of Computer...

The Accessibility Research Collective brings together scholars and practitioners of diverse abilities focusing on contemporary social issues related to computing, disability and design. Housed in UCI’s Department of Informatics, its work is funded by the National Science Foundation, Toyota, Microsoft and a UCI Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award.

“Understanding the social aspect is as important, if not more important, than developing accessible technology when it comes to empowering people with disabilities and creating justice for them in the world,” says Stacy Branham, an associate professor of informatics in the Donald Bren School of ICS. Branham co-founded ARC with her ICS colleague, Anne Marie Piper.

Read: bit.ly/3Q2Io7s

One in three Internet users worldwide is a child, and what children see and experience online is increasingly shaped by algorithms. Though children's rights and protections are at the center of debates on digital privacy, safety, and Internet governance, the dominant online platforms have not been constructed with the needs and interests of children in mind.

The editors of the new book "Algorithmic Rights and Protections for Children" — Mizuko Ito, Remy Cross, Karthik Dinakar, and Candice Odgers — focus on understanding diverse children's evolving relationships with algorithms, digital data, and platforms and offer guidance on how stakeholders can shape these relationships in ways that support children's agency and protect them from harm.

Read: bit.ly/3NWaLkK

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has published a new study in partnership with the Department of Informatics at the University of California – Irvine highlighting significant gaps between university game development programs and industry recruitment expectations and hiring needs. 🎮

The principal researchers are Nika Nour, current Ph.D. candidate at UC Irvine and former Executive Director of the IGDA Foundation, as well as Dr. Constance Steinkuehler, Professor of Informatics and Co-Director of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center, and Garrison Wells, current Ph.D candidate.

Read: bit.ly/3psd5YS

Photo by orva studio/Unsplash.

Around 100 people gathered at UC Irvine on Friday, May 26, 2023, for the Southern California Software Engineering Symposium.

The half-day event, hosted by the Institute for Software Research, brought together industry leaders, technical practitioners and researchers to discuss software engineering trends and potential research collaborations. Students also had the opportunity to network with experts in industry and academia.

“The key topic was AI in software engineering, with a lot of attention to ChatGPT and its impact on software engineering research and education,” says Informatics Professor Mohammad Moshirpour of the Donald Bren School of ICS.

Read: bit.ly/46r17PE

Join us for a Book Signing and Discussion with Chancellor's Professor of Informatics Gloria Mark, author of Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity. Through this fascinating book, discover how technology and the digital world affect our lives and what changes you can make to promote health and wellness.

The event will take place on Saturday, July 8, at 2 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at Fashion Island, Newport Beach.

Add the book signing to your calendar: bit.ly/3CWvTT1

Games as Social Platforms: Constance Steinkuehler argues in this opinion piece that online game companies can and should be included in new social media regulations.

In September 2022, the California governor signed into law sweeping state legislation (A.B. 587) demanding transparency among social media platforms as to their content moderation policies regarding hate speech, disinformation, and extremism....

For those of us working on the front lines of toxicity and extremism in games (Rachel Kowert, Alex Newhouse, Petra Regeni, Linda Schlegel, Jessica White, and others), such regulatory effort would be a much welcomed and long overdue relief, setting up the means for researchers to finally get their hands on reliable industry-side data as to the real nature and extent of the problems of toxicity and extremism in online games.

Read: bit.ly/3XrFbjw

Senior spotlight: Jumanah Almajnouni ✨

Jumanah Almajnouni’s resume lists the various programming languages she has learned throughout her years at UCI in the Donald Bren School of ICS: JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Python, Java and C++. Yet she’ll be the first to say you can’t rely on a resume alone when trying to land your first job. “Saying that you learned a certain language is not sufficient,” says the software engineering major, who will graduate on June 20. “What have you built with it?”

Almajnouni has built Songify, her own song-recommendation web app. She explains that mentioning a pet project such as this when meeting with a recruiter can make a lasting impression, which is exactly what she did at the ICS Industry Showcase last year. She made personal connections at the two-day event, talking with recruiters about her passion for coding — including when she met with a representative from CoStar. She has since secured a job at the commercial real estate data company and is ready to hit the ground running when she starts her new role there as an associate software engineer later this month 👩‍💻🌟

Read: bit.ly/3X6Jy3k

Collaborating with her advisor, Professor Kylie Peppler of the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), fourth-year informatics Ph.D. student Ariel Han is exploring how to leverage generative artificial intelligence for culturally responsive learning. In particular, Han and Peppler are working with a team of CreativityLabs researchers to design a web-based platform for AI-supported storytelling 📚

Their AIStory project, which has received recent support from the National Science Foundation and funding from UCI Beall Applied Innovation, offers personalized, interest-driven learning for elementary school students to enhance their literacy and storytelling skills in an inclusive environment.

“AIStory is an educational content-creation application that lets kids and parents co-create stories together or individually based on their interests,” says Han. “We want to make it culturally responsive, so it can translate the story into other languages for family and friends.”

Read: bit.ly/43Ukizt

On Monday, June 12, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m., attend the virtual panel "Careers in Computing and Accessibility.” Hosted by UCI Informatics, UCI Division of Career Pathways, & AccessComputing this panel will feature a discussion and Q&A session with computing experts who have found ways to promote accessibility into their jobs.

University of California, Irvine undergrads can register here: https://tinyurl.com/career-panel-sp-23

— Jazette Johnson 👩🏾‍🎓🌟

Jazette Johnson will be the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in informatics from UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences. During her sophomore year of undergraduate studies at Spelman College, she began a research project focused on developing a music therapy app for people with dementia. At the same time, her grandmother was going through the last stages of dementia at home. She died the summer that Johnson completed her research. Since then, the native of both Mount Vernon, New York, and Savannah, Georgia, has continued to explore the intersection of technology and dementia care.

Much of her research today focuses on using social media to support caregivers. During Johnson’s time at UCI, she’s worked with the nonprofit Alzheimer’s Orange County to understand the challenges they’re facing and help them find technology-driven solutions. An arm tattoo of a forget-me-not flower with her grandmother’s initials serves as a constant reminder to Johnson of the importance of what she does.

Read the full Q&A with Johnson: bit.ly/3MvwEHb

📸 by Steve Zylius/UCI