Each year, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) honors leaders in the field of human-computer interaction, and this year, Informatics Professor Emeritx Bonnie Nardi was one of two recipients of the 2020 Social Impact Award.
Continue readingMonthly Archives: February 2020
Global Game Jam 2020: A Model of Diversity and Inclusivity
February 18, 2020
For six years now, UCI has participated in the Global Game Jam (GGJ) — the world’s largest hackathon for game development. During the last weekend in January, GGJ 2020 included more than 48,700 jammers at 934 jam sites around the world, including 160 participants at the UC Irvine site, led by Informatics Professor Theresa Tanenbaum. One of the main goals of GGJ is to “bring new emerging voices and talent into the game making space,” and Tanenbaum has consistently realized that goal by building a jam site focused on inclusivity.
Continue readingNorth Carolina Public Radio WUNC: “Embodied: How Online Gaming Creates Real-Life Love” (Tess Tanenbaum mentioned)
February 13, 2020
Customizing the features of an avatar can be an intensely personal experience. It can offer fantastical escapism, an expression of a hidden self or a pixelated reflection. Tess Tanenbaum discusses how designing digital counterparts can help break players free of oppressive social norms — and why the majority choose to remain shackled. She is an assistant professor in the department of informatics at the University of California, Irvine.
Read the full story at North Carolina Public Radio WUNC .
UCI News: “UCI Esports receives $50,000 gift from top video game streamer Pokimane”
Popular gaming personality Pokimane has donated $50,000 to the University of California, Irvine for student scholarships in its esports program. An initial $25,000 gift this year will be combined with the remaining $25,000 in 2021 to create an endowment that will fund tuition and fees for gamers selected by UCI Esports.
Continue readingSecond Annual Southern California Software Engineering Symposium Builds Promising Partnerships
February 10, 2020
On Jan. 24, UCI’s Institute for Software Research (ISR) hosted its second annual Southern California Software Engineering Symposium (SuCSES). The event helps build bridges between software engineering researchers, industry leaders and technical practitioners by bringing them together to identify trends, discuss current and future research, and explore new technological directions. The daylong program featured industry keynote talks, short faculty talks, a lunch with a poster and demo session, and a career-oriented reception.
Continue readingConnected Learning Alliance: “Reflections on a Decade of Engaged Scholarship–The Final Report from the Connected Learning Research Network” by Mimi Ito
February 6, 2020
It’s rare to have the opportunity to work with a stable team of extraordinary scholars over the course of a decade. It’s even rarer for this group of scholars to span a wide range of disciplines and approaches, while sharing common concerns in research, educational practice, and social change. A long time in the making, we are at last releasing our final collaborative report, The Connected Learning Research Network: Reflections on a Decade of Engaged Scholarship, from the MacArthur Foundation Connected Learning Research Network, that grew out of a decade of the network’s work together.
Read the full story at Connected Learning Alliance.
UCI School of Education: Interview with Informatics Associate Professor Kylie Peppler
Kylie Peppler sits down with Dean Richard Arum to share her views on connected learning, the intersection of new technology and the arts, and maker culture.
Watch the interview on YouTube or embedded below.
Continue readingInformatics Ph.D. Student Jazette Johnson Wins Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship
February 3, 2020
Microsoft Research has announced the recipients of the 2020 Ada Lovelace Fellowship, which aims to “increase the diversity of talented people receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields.” Informatics Ph.D. student Jazette Johnson was one of five students selected to receive the fellowship, which comes with three years of tuition funding and a $42,000 annual stipend. This will allow Johnson to focus on her research of technologies that support healthy independent living for older adults with dementia, which she’s conducting in partnership with the nonprofit organization Alzheimer’s Orange County and UCI’s Stark Lab in Neurology & Behavior.
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