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Today’s software developers collaborate around the world, creating an unprecedented amount of complex software, thanks in part to improved development tools. However, as an interdisciplinary team of UC Irvine researchers points out, there’s a dark side to this work.

“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 on 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.” His co-investigators are two colleagues from the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), Iftekhar Ahmed and Madhu Reddy, and Stephen Schueller from the School of Social Ecology.

Jessy Ayala, a software engineering Ph.D. student in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), has been awarded the Eugene Cota-Robles (ECR) fellowship, the most prestigious diversity fellowship offered at UC Irvine. This award, named in honor of one of the earliest Mexican-American professors in the University of California System, puts students interested in careers in academic teaching and research on a fast-track toward completing their doctoral degree.

More than 250 students from UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) showcased their talent and mingled with industry professionals on June 1, 2022, at the Second Annual ICS Project Expo. Held in the new state-of-the-art Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building (ISEB), the event was a culmination of months of hard work, offering the students the opportunity to present projects completed for undergraduate capstone courses in informatics, computer science and data science, as well as for the Butterworth Product Development Competition. Project sponsors and students alike look forward to this annual opportunity to highlight projects they’ve labored over throughout the year.

An article published in Science Advances in June 2021, “Systemic Inequalities for LGBTQ Professionals in STEM,” outlines results from a study of 25,000 full-time employed STEM professionals, over a thousand of whom identify as LGBTQ. According to the findings, “LGBTQ STEM professionals were more likely to experience career limitations, harassment and professional devaluation than their non-LGBTQ peers. They also reported more frequent health difficulties and were more likely to intend to leave STEM.”

The article concludes that “STEM workplaces need to include LGBTQ status in their broad efforts toward diversity and inclusion, provide LGBTQ employees with opportunities to network and seek support … and ensure that LGBTQ persons have access to the full suite of formal and informal benefits enjoyed by their non-LGBTQ colleagues.”

On Nov. 16, 2021, informatics Ph.D. candidate Emory Edwards of UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) received a Public Impact Distinguished Fellowship. “I was overjoyed when I heard the news,” says Edwards, who will receive $12,000 in funding. The fellowship aims to support research that “demonstrates the potential to significantly improve or enrich the lives of people in California and beyond,” and with a focus on representing people with disabilities in technology design, Edwards is already making an impact.

Much of children’s education and social lives moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic, and while many students have since returned to classrooms, digital learning and play environments remain. How might we better design digital technologies to support youth education beyond the pandemic? This question is at the heart of a nearly $11 million grant awarded to UCI from the Jacobs Foundation, a global leader in the field of child and youth development.

An assistant professor at the University of California-Irvine, Theresa Tanenbaum is a researcher, teacher, artist, and activist. A founding member of the Transformative Play Lab, her research is centered around immersive game play; specifically, designing games and digital storytelling systems that leverage tangible objects to give people a gateway into fictional worlds, literally bringing a player into the game.

Read the full article at Advanced Science News.

Gift will support art history students, create ICS center promoting inclusiveness

This summer, informatics Ph.D. student Nika Nour was awarded $4,000 after receiving the Joseph and Dorothy Fischer Memorial Endowed Fellowship. Directors of the Trilog Corp. established the fellowship in 1982 in honor of their founder, Joseph Fischer. The first-generation American was a self-made man who embodied the spirit of entrepreneurship, and his wife, Dorothy, was a lifelong educator whose values of commitment, hard work and determination were an example to all she knew. The Fischers valued mentorship to further the education of young people and to help others, and Nour was more than grateful for the assistance.

When experts from around the country came together at the World Economic Forum last February for Raising Good Gamers, a workshop focused on exploring the myriad forces shaping the culture and climate of online game communities for youth, no one could have predicted how relevant the work would become in the months that followed. As teens and tweens turned to online games in record number in order to connect with friends, play, and explore interests while sequestered at home with their families, many of them also experienced systemic bias, hate, harassment, and disruptive player behavior. The release of a new report, “Raising Good Gamers: Envisioning an Agenda for Diversity, Inclusion, and Fair Play,” explores why this might be the case and just what might be done about it.

Read the full story on the Connected Learning Blog.