Academic Research Experience
The following are research projects which I was involved with or am currently working on.
Human-Robot Communication, Spring 2009 – Present
This research group, working out of Dr. Sarah Kriz' Human-Robot Communication Laboratory in the HCDE department, studies the communicative patterns between human users and robots. Additionally, the group is currently investigating the expectations people have about the capabilities of robots — both cognitive and social in nature — and the possible sources of these expectations.
Related Publications:
Kriz, S., Damera, P., & Porter, J. (2010). A place for fictional robots in HRI research?
Technical Report, St. Louis, MO: Washington University.
Visual Communication in Nanotechnology, Autumn 2009 (currently on hiatus)
This interdisciplinary research group works under the guidance of faculty from the Materials Science & Engineering, Human-Centered Design & Engineering, and Design departments to explore the issue of visual communication in the growing field of nanotechnology. Most scientific disciplines have firmly established visual identities. As nanotechnology is one of the most interdisciplinary subfields of the sciences, intrinsic to it is a unique challenge. Individuals entering this field find themselves suddenly confronted with myriad potentially unfamiliar graphics originating from disciplines they previously had limited (if any) exposure to. It is therefore vital to be able to understand the inherent visual styles and graphics of each core scientific discipline so that an effective means of developing graphical standardization within nanotechnology research can be explored. To that end, this group's focus is on researching the issue of visual communication across the scientific disciplines, analyzing their native styles, searching for the origins of these styles (or rather, how they are passed on to domain novices), considering the effectiveness of their graphics etc.