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2009 SIGCHI Awards

2009 SIGCHI Awards

CHI Academy

The CHI Academy is an honorary group of individuals who have made extensive contributions to the study of HCI and who have led the shaping of the field.

This year we have elected seven new Academy members. In alphabetical order, they are:

Mark Ackerman

Mark Ackerman is an associate professor in both the School of Information and the Division of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Mark is well known for his research in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and social computing, first gaining acclaim for his Answer Garden expertise sharing system. Mark’s research includes systems dealing with expertise finding and sharing, collaborative information access, privacy, and, increasingly, pervasive computing. Throughout his work, he has examined how to incorporate elements of the social world within software systems (such as with collaborative systems) and also to consider how those systems will affect their social settings in return. It is this expertise in both system design as well as the social analysis of system use that sets Mark apart.

Bill Gaver

Bill Gaver is a Professor of Design at Goldsmiths University where he heads the Interaction Research Studio. Bill’s early work pioneered the utility of audio in the interface. He also made central contributions in early work on media spaces and informal communication at a distance. His recent contributions have illustrated the value of Design approaches to Human-Computer Interaction. The groundbreaking and provocative work of his studio has produced a range of thought provoking artifacts, leading to conceptual contributions and innovative design methodologies that have been widely adopted in the HCI community.

Clayton Lewis

Clayton Lewis was manager of the Human Factors Group at the IBM Watson Research Center in the early 1980s where he led and inspired some of first HCI projects on iterative, user-centered design. He co-led a 1980 IBM Corporate task force that identified usability as a key challenge and opportunity for research, which directly led to the establishment of the IBM User Interface Institute, effectively doubling IBM’s research commitment to usability. His 1985 paper with John Gould, “Designing for Usability: Key Principles and What Designers Think” is still widely cited. In the early 1990s, with Peter Polson and others, he developed the cognitive walkthrough, a theory-based usability inspection method that has had wide and continuing impact on HCI practice. Since 1984, Clayton has been professor of computer science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he has worked on visual programming languages, cognitive assistive technology, and computer science education. He currently serves as Scientist in Residence at the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities at the university.

Wendy Mackay

Wendy Mackay is currently a Research Director at INRIA, in France, and is in charge of a research group called in|situ|. She also has a joint appointment at the University of Paris-Sud, where she is Vice President for Research, Computer Science. Her previous positions included the University of Aarhus, Rank Xerox EuroPARC, and Digital Equipment Corporation. Her research has engaged a number of important areas in human-computer interaction, including augmented reality, multimedia, awareness, computer-mediated communication, video analysis, and participatory design. One of the enduring themes of her work has been the importance of context in design, and developing design methods that take this into account. She has been very active in ACM, SIGCHI, and other professional organizations, chairing several conferences and serving on a number of important boards and committees.

Aaron Marcus

Aaron Marcus is President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., a user-interface design/analysis firm he founded in 1982. For 40 years, he has been a leader in the theory and practice of information-oriented graphic design applied to computer graphics. Among the first designers to use computers, Aaron has been designing user interfaces since 1969 when he began programming a page-layout application for AT&T’s Picturephone™. As a Research Fellow at the East-West Center, Honolulu, 1978, he designed visualizations of global energy interdependence. As a co-principal investigator in 1982-85 under a DARPA grant, he designed more effective visualizations of the C-programming language. He taught at Princeton, Yale, University of California at Berkeley, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He co/authored five books, two monographs, and more than 250 articles on topics such as cross-cultural communication, graphic design, information design, semiotics, symbol design, typography, and mobile user-interface design. In 2007, the American Institute of Graphic Arts named him a Fellow. He has been Editor-in-Chief of User Experience for six years and written a regular column for Interactions for five years. His computer graphics are in the museum collections of Princeton University and the Victoria and Albert Museum/London. Through his writings, tutorials, and consulting, Aaron introduced principles of functional and aesthetic visual design to the software industry. He bridges the worlds of visual design and computer technology and is recognized around the world for his contributions to the theory and practice of HCI.

Elizabeth Mynatt

Beth Mynatt is Professor in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is Center Director of the GVU, an interdisciplinary research center that studies human computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, graphics, wearable computing, and computer supported cooperative work, among others. GVU is recognized as one of the best such research units in the world. She co-chaired the effort to create a program at Georgia Tech in Human Centered Computing, a term and concept that has spread internationally and is a focus area at the National Science Foundation. Beth is a pioneer and an internationally recognized expert in ubiquitous computing and assistive technologies. She directs the program in “Everyday Computing” and is one of the principal researchers in the Aware Home Research Initiative, where she investigates ways to allow older adults to age in place instead of moving to get care in an institution. She has made major contributions to technology support for chronic health care and cognitive prosthetics. She has served as conference chair for ICAD, UIST, and Ubicomp, and is the conference chair for CHI 2010.

Tom Rodden

Tom Rodden is Professor of Interactive Systems at the Mixed Reality Laboratory at the University of Nottingham. Tom’s research focuses on the development of interactive technology that emerge from mixing physical and digital interaction. This research has provided new perspectives on pervasive and ambient computing by identifying realistic contexts where they can be applied to the benefit of users. From 2001 to 2007 he was director of the influential Equator project that brought together 8 different research institutes in the UK in a multi-disciplinary endeavor to address these technical, social and design issues. His earlier work at the University of Lancaster was influential in defining the role of ethnomethodological approaches in the design of systems for CSCW design. He has published widely in the areas of CSCW, HCI and Ubiquitous computing.

Congratulations to this year’s Academy.

Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award is the most prestigious award SIGCHI gives. The criteria for achievement are the same as for the CHI Academy, only more so.

This year we present the CHI Lifetime Achievement Award to Sara Kiesler

Sara Kiesler

Sara Kiesler is Hillman Professor of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction at the Carnegie Mellon HCI Institute. She is a well-known social psychologist who has worked on group dynamics, decision-making, and communication. Sara’s research in HCI has illuminated many of the most significant social impacts of computing, such as: “flaming,” social equalization, open communication, electronic groups, information sharing, and distributed collaboration. She brought concepts from social psychology and HCI to robotics, helping to create the new interdisciplinary field of human-robot interaction.

Her books Connections (with Lee Sproull), Culture of the Internet, and Distributed Work (with Pam Hinds) have had a wide influence on both researchers and practitioners. Sara’s study, with Bob Kraut, of the impact of the Internet on the sociability of the home environment has received national attention. Recently, with Jonathan Cummings she has studied two multidisciplinary research programs at the National Science Foundation, articulating factors that lead to success. Her own work is a model of collaboration, as she has worked with numerous colleagues and students.

Sara also serves on a number of national boards and panels, and has received numerous awards for her research and service.

Lifetime Service Award

The CHI Lifetime Service Award goes to individuals who have contributed to the growth of SIGCHI in a variety of capacities. This award is for extended services to the community at large over a number of years. Criteria for this award are: Service to SIGCHI and its activities in a variety of capacities; extended contributions over many years; influence on the community at large.

Clare-Marie Karat

Clare-Marie Karat is a research staff member at IBM TJ Watson Research Center. Across the last two decades, she has volunteered to support SIGCHI through service on the Executive Committee, committees supporting the SIGCHI EC such as the SIGCHI US Public Policy Committee, the CHI conference program, the SIGCHI Bulletin, Editorial Boards of several journals in the field, NSF committees, and numerous other volunteer efforts for the community with the goal of recognizing and communicating the value of HCI and SIGCHI to the international community. Throughout her volunteer efforts, Clare-Marie has worked to bring new people into the CHI community and has mentored them to move into leadership positions themselves. Her service to the community has provided long-term benefits to SIGCHI.

Steven Pemberton

Steven Pemberton is a researcher in the Information Systems department at the Centrum voor Wiskunde & Informatica, and HTML and Forms lead at W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium. Steven has a long history of service to the SIGCHI conference and organization. He was editor-in-chief of the SIGCHI Bulletin from 1993 -1999 and editor-in-chief of interactions from 1998 to 2004. Steven was the local arrangements chair for INTERCHI in 1993, the student volunteers chair for CHI 1995 and the conference co-chair for CHI 1997. He was a member of the SIGCHI Executive Committee for a decade, from 1994 to 2004. He was also a founding member of SIGCHI.NL and the Amsterdam New Media Association.

Social Impact Award

This award is given to individuals who promote the application of human-computer interaction research to pressing social needs.

Helen Petrie

Helen Petrie is Professor of Human Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York. For the past 15 years she has conducted internationally-recognized research on the use of computers and new technologies for people with disabilities and older people. Helen has been involved in more than 30 British and international projects in this area and has over 100 publications. Projects include location-based services for blind people to help them navigate streets, facilitating the use of mobile technologies for people with visual impairments, and multi-media and multi-modal reading systems to encourage access to books. Her team conducted the largest study in the world of web accessibility for people with disabilities, which emphasized the importance of user testing in this area and was awarded the British Interactive Media Association “Expert’s Award” for 2004. She has received a Royal Television Society Technical Innovation Prize, a Best of CHI award for her research into remote usability evaluation methods with disabled people, and is a trustee of FAST, a UK charity that brings innovative products to market and improves services for disabled and older people.