Changing Academic Life

Anirudha Joshi is a lecturer, teaching interaction design in the Industrial Design Centre at IIT Bombay in India. Anirudha discusses his career path from engineering, to working in design, to coming back to university to teach and later doing his PhD. Many of his stories point to his particular ‘self-taught’ learning style, of learning first by doing then building on that learning in whatever way he needs. He also talks about developing HCI capacity and community in India and the particular challenges, as well as design in an Indian context, and what we can learn from India.  At a personal level, Anirudha also reflects on what he learnt from a recent sabbatical - how he is shaping his research to focus on making an impact in education in India, building up a collaborative lab culture, and making healthy life choices.“I’m happy to always be in a position where I feel like I don’t know enough about this.”“Good work happens from good people but a lot of it is just simple things…like having a regular lab meetings, having feedback sessions, having an atmosphere.”“Although we have residual time, it is not as productive as scheduled time.”Overview (times approximate) - you can also download a full transcript:02:00 On being a designer in an engineering school14:15 The importance of learning by doing and feedback21:50 Doing his PhD23:20 Growing HCI in India34:20 How he learns things by himself40:30 Doing/teaching design in India52:15 Reflecting on his insights from sabbatical01:04:20 Wrap upIn more detail, he talks about…[On being a designer in an engineering school]02:00 Anirudha talks about being in a design school surrounded by engineers and being in the oldest design school in one of the IITs; doing his undergraduate in electrical engineer, and realizing he didn’t want to do this; then discovered design and making educational videos – around 1992-93 after his Masters, and at the time that multimedia was coming to the fore. Practicing until 1998. Ahead of curve in industry e.g., making websites, multimedia content, before many others started. But saturated fairly quickly.05:25 Thought so much cool stuff that happens in academia in this area. Then decided to go back to do teaching. When all the confluence was happening with psychology, design etc. coming in. So design education has always been predominantly about self-discovery – developing own design sensibility, just trying things out e.g., drawing horizontal lines for a hundred pages to develop a certain sensibility to shape and form and colour. A skill and also brings attention to detail. More recent times, last 20 years, a whole thoughtfulness of research. Comes from Bauhaus.08:10 Second German design school, Ulm, that brought in whole intellectual angle, social angle, methods and so on. Also brought in rigor and quantitative methods. Now a much wider canvas for designers. And this got him into academics. Compares this to being in industry with its short timeframes in one place and here he is 20 years in academia.09:40 PhD at IIT Bombay, from Computer Science, so completely different. PhD about integrating HCI with software engineering, looking at design process and integrating process into software development. A very slow journey but interesting as never really attended a course on any of this until much longer after he needed it. An interesting way of learning things.12:00 Being self taught? On the one hand all the courses he has taught, whatever he learnt he learnt on his own. Then thinks he needs to find out more about them if he wants to teach them. Challenged him in unique ways. A lot of literature in design came from 60s 70s, started by Ulm writing about design. IIT founder came from Ulm design. Can see the depth in his work as a result of the intellectual background that comes from this tradition. In practice-based profession like design need all sorts of people. Who can design stuff, and who can also reflect and think about it. [The importance of learning by doing and feedback]14:15 How do you teach students other skills? Interviewing is one skill and then converting that into actionable design. Can be learnt but takes time and practice and feedback. Building up sensitivities is also an important skill. Growing up in a developing country you see lots of problems all around you. Human way of dealing with it is shut yourself off from it particularly if a sensitive person. But that is not going to help you solve problems as a designer. So you need to be open to this without messing your own thinking. When you do things in practice that is when it hits you that this is so hard. So talking about skills is very important but the best way is actually to do it. An important role as a design teacher is to give feedback, one-on-one connect with every student in the class. When it comes down to doing it you actually mess it up. And that is when feedback is very important.17:10 Any particular technique for giving feedback? In teaching creates situations where feedback is necessary, gives feedback early rather than late, and tries to set it up as a feedback session to be ready to receive critique. Gives an example of teaching interviews. Set it up as a safe place where you can get critiqued. Later doesn’t give much feedback, more ideas. Class sizes ~15-55 students. Interesting challenge, how do you teach design in a large class situation? Most important learning point in design is when you get feedback. Some colleagues trying peer feedback but he doesn’t like it so much particularly if lot of peers are in same boat. If you can involve 2nd year students to give feedback – from position of more experience, and distance as an outside person helps in being a bit more balanced in what you say.[Doing his PhD]21:50 Did PhD while also working at IIT Bombay. Part time, started 2005, about 7 years after becoming a faculty member. At one time teaching 3 courses and attending 3 courses. Now he would think it is very hard to do but at the time didn’t think it was hard. Value of being naïve. [Growing HCI in India]23:20 Challenges working in India and engaging with broader interaction research community? Someone suggested industry would be interested and he started conducting courses for industry people, now doing this for 19 years. Very popular as a course. Thought, why are they coming to learn this stuff as could just read books. Then realized it was more about feedback. Also about the community effect it had – people from different companies coming together and staying in contact, swapping companies. Then formed a mailing list and in those days very active discussion. 2700 people on it. A lot of discussion has now shifted to other platforms.25:50 Then met a few colleagues internationally. Andy Smith from the UK and at that time looking for HCI partners for a EU project to help grow collaborations. That’s how he met people like Jan Gulliksen, Steven Brewster. Way before his PhD. His first CHI conference was 2004 in Vienna – first exposure to an international conference. And in the same year, before attending CHI, he organized the first India HCI conference, alongside Andy Smith. This is what has always happened. Had never been to a peer-reviewed conference before organizing one! His learning model. Then went to CHI, thought it was interesting. Then got on TC-13 (international committee for HCI) and went to first Interact conference in 2007 and by this time was already doing his PhD. But still trying to understand how should I do this myself and how should we do this as a country and how to grow it in the country as a whole. Thought conferences was a good idea. 2010 onwards got act together again to do an annual India HCI conference.28:30 Looking on it as a community development work. 10 years ago people couldn’t even afford to go to a conference. How to have properly inclusive conferences? Need to have multiplicity of conferences. There was a recent exercise on thinking about how to look at CHI 2030. CHI growing and fabulous but growing itself out of smaller venues very fast and not sure we need to have just one big conference every year, could have smaller conferences and a big one. Lots of possibilities.29:45 What does India HCI do towards that community development? Provides a local platform to find out about conferences. For students to see what it is. To younger PhD students to publish their first paper and the opportunity to be part of the process e.g., reviewing. A good mentoring opportunity. A good opportunity to mess up things in a safe enough way. Also a platform for people to try out things. One thing that happens in India that he doesn’t see elsewhere – got 52 submissions and accepted 15, a large number for India HCI but always get 250 participants. Proportion of submitters to participants. A lot of networking. Gives industry people a chance to keep in touch with research. Borrowing words from Paula Kotze’s talk yesterday, there are business and technology and executive people – similarly academically inclined and doing-oriented people. In India, number of people in industry is huge, about 30-40,000 people somehow doing some stuff in IUX (interaction user experience). Interested in looking at challenging work. When they ran INTERACT in 2017, they also had a lot of focus on courses. In India HCI conferences, courses are really popular. People want to learn things. [How he learns things by himself]34:20 How he does this for himself? He has learnt to be a self-taught person and continues to be self taught. Wants to pass this on to his kids. Have to learn things by yourself. Keeps him on his toes. “Happy to always be in a position where I feel like I don’t know enough about this” and know I can find out if it is important. Love of learning, being comfortable with not knowing, and asking stupid questions, and knowing how to know; also about taking initiative, having meta-thought ‘what is it that I am missing here and what should I be doing next’ and constantly asking myself to do that. Gives an example of starting out doing a lot of qualitative work, then for PhD had to do quant stuff, never did a research methods course, and read about principle components analysis then after 2 months supervisor saying he just needed regression analysis – one of the challenges with being self-taught, not knowing what you should be looking at in the first place. Tends to read books from the middle of the book as doesn’t have much patience and usually things that matter are in the middle of the book not the beginning. That’s what he did with quant. Now going back to first few pages.  Reading ‘The book of Why’ on causality as he thinks he needs to understand causality if he is going to teach research methods in the future. 37:50 Serendipitous or targeted e.g., finding that book? Not completely serendipitous. Talks about being in Sussex for some months last year and someone there at the same time, giving a talk. Impressed. He mentioned this book and it being difficult to read. So he thought he should read it as well. The book looks at the different rungs of causality – first one is causality, but then interventional and third one is counter-factual. Very powerful arguments and very relevant in current context of AI and machine learning. Learning in response to the new wave of technology. And meeting smart people and thinking about it and learning from them. “I’m always looked for, who can I learn this from?” In a sense it is serendipity but also looking for sources.  [Doing/teaching design in an Indian context]40:30 How to do this as a country, when many resources situated in western contexts? Many answers. Historically design school has done this. Founded by an Ulm School graduate. So it has strong western design tradition in it. At the same time it has a lot of responsiveness to the problems around you, and also a lot of response to the cultural heritage you bring. Talks about a design teacher he had – used to teach a course called Indian Design Tradition. Language, typography, art. Rooted in respective culture. The other side of it – the technologies are penetrating our societies all over the world fairly rapidly and an opportunity to respond to those opportunities. And there is another part to this issue of how we do this as a country. One of the challenges he felt when he started teaching 20 years ago - all very bright people but don’t think they have taken a leadership role in design in the country. Need to contribute back to the field itself. Didn’t have a strong research tradition until drawing from HCI.44:00 Issues of emergent users and opening different approaches to design? Design schools tend to attract very creative people. A lot of competition to get in. And creativity given. The question is does it get channelized? How do people learn to do text input – you can have an idea that is nice as a concept but just doesn’t work in practice? Text input makes you the most humble person. So yes there is a lot of creativity but it needs to be backed up with a rigorous evaluations and assessment and other critical approaches that is perhaps a little less in design.46:45 Pressure to publish? Yes. IITs in general have expectation re publications and having effect. Most difficult bit is travel. Still reasonably well supported. Can get to 1-2 conferences/year. That is another reason to start India HCI for domestic travel as about 1/10th of costs.48:10 Anything else particular to the Indian context? Have a lot to learn from the international community and a lot to give. People talk about emerging markets and developing countries. But most countries in some way are uniquely positioned. If you look at our telecom sector, we have the highest wifi penetration rates and data consumption rates per capita in the world. What have we done to make this possible? Compares to African context. In India people have data to waste, cheaper than water. Would never have thought his parents would be tech consumers, e.g., watching TV on his phone. Would never have imagined. It changes society in very unique ways. Many societal factors. Can learn a lot from what can happen. Get amazed with amount of plastic we use when I travel. Maybe we can learn how to be frugal from India. Priorities seem different to different people. [Reflecting on insights/changes from his sabbatical]52:15 Big challenges for Anirudha personally? Just came back from sabbatical. Now 52 years old and probably have another 12-13 years left. “What would I want to do with the next few years.” So he has picked on a few themes to work in. Education is one of them. Education numbers lagging in India. Lot of opportunities. Something he always loved. So a lot to achieve in that space. All media including tv, youtube etc haven’t really lived up to full potential for education. Difference? Would like to have made some real difference to educational outcomes, how education could be scaled up. Talks about comparing number of people working in restaurants in different countries. But in a classroom, 50 kids to one class with one teacher. What tools can help the teacher do better work? That might be an example. Or a different way of engaging with learning, especially for kids who aren’t so proactive or a bit behind with learning. And challenge of multiple languages. 2000 self-reported languages, of which 43 languages spoken by a million or more, and 22 official languages plus English that India supports.58:00 Any deliberate practices to support his reflection? First took a sabbatical. Went to two labs, where he knows good work happens. Getting out of his comfort zone. Good work happens from good people but a lot of it is just simple things…like having a regular lab meetings, having feedback sessions, having an atmosphere. So he is trying to build that culture back in his lab. One of the big changes he is trying to make is to bring in this lab culture. Had many interesting people but most of them worked independently so one of the big changes is bringing in this lab culture, collaboration, group meetings and so on. The other thing he realized was that 20 years ago with certain levels of responsibility he developed a certain teaching culture but he has not updated it or responded to the changes that have happened. Life has become easier. And a huge amount of travel. Which means the amount of time he is giving his students is less and less. Talks about he would block out teaching, travel, research then students can be met in the remaining time. Now the lab has a schedule and then also do free other time. Although we have residual time, it is not as productive as scheduled time. These are simple things. Not sure why he couldn’t have figured it out on his own, but it helps to see such things.01:01:00 How does he look after himself? That’s another thing he did in his sabbatical. Started picking up weight, a lot of diabetes in the family. Doctor said he had to lose weight. Now on a diet plan that gives him enough energy to exercise. Schedule that in. Now wears a fitbit – seeing the delta changes are the ones that motivate you. Gives an example re his running. Never been a runner. Also got back to cooking. The brain doesn’t stop thinking, on auto-pilot. When cooking or running, the brain can’t just wonder off and that’s useful. Mindful cooking and mindful running.[Wrap up]01:04:20 Wrap up. And complementing him on giving so much acknowledgement to his students and collaborators.EndRelated LinksPeople: Andy Smith – Case study on Institutionalising HCI in Asia: an impact focusing on India and ChinaConference/keynotes: Interact2019 conferenceSlides from Anirudha’s keynote talk: Designing technology for adoption by emergent usersPaula Kotze’s keynote talk: Is HCI ready for the 4th Industrial Revolution?Book: The Book of Why: the new science of cause and effect. by Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie, 2017, Basic Books.

An “in-between” podcast - where I reflect on my own experiences being COVID-stranded in Australia. You can download a full transcript here. There are numerous resources being made available to help us all navigate life and work at this time. Interactive Webinar: "Creating the New Academic Normal for Informatics Researchers" Offered by Informatics Europe Thursday, 25 June 2020 from 10:00 to 11:30 am CEST Registration Deadline: Tuesday, 23 June 2020, 12:00 pm CEST Registration FormSome links that I’ve found useful recently include:Action for Happiness - 10-day program to boost wellbeing. Simple light weight evidence-based activities.UQ Wellness: Navigating the disruption - insights. Video 57:47 mins. Explains from a psychological perspective why we might be feeling like we are and tips for what we can do about it.Anna Cox and team’s ‘E-Worklife: Remote workers and digital self-regulation for effective productivity‘ site - full of evidence-based useful strategies to try out

This is the Part 2 of a discussion with Pejman Mirza-Babaei. Pejman is an Associate Dean, Industry Partnerships and an Associate Professor of User Experience Research in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. In the Part 1 he talked about his research and getting to tenure. In this second half we explore Pejman’s experiences in navigating life post-tenure, working out how he can have the biggest impact, and learning to become an academic leader, in particular what it is useful to focus on and how to get the best out of people.“I need to constantly remind myself that I can take a break [at evenings, on the weekend, taking holidays]… It’s becoming more normal now and I’m actually enjoying it.”“I know what I don’t want to do but too many things that I want to do.” “I try to understand the impact of the choices that I make but also knowing that I cannot predict the future so the thing that I decide to do at the time is probably the best.”“It sometimes takes years to understand if a decision you made at some point was a good decision or a bad decision.”He talks about (approximately): [You can download a full transcript here]1:30 Until his tenure he always had very clear goals. Then suddenly it’s ‘what do I do now?’. He really enjoyed preparing his tenure application because it was an opportunity to step back and look at what he had done and figure out the story to tell. Thought about it for 2-3 weeks without writing anything. Then in a matter of a few hours he drafted a couple of pages. Found it very rewarding to see what he had done and think about them. But afterwards no clear task. How to prepare to be a full professor? Tries to figure what gives him satisfaction, that have a bigger impact. And what are those? Not only to figure out which ones he cares about but how fast do you see that impact to get the satisfaction?5:20 One reason that the academic job is so challenging is that the feedback loop [re the impact] is quite long. Cares about having an impact on someone’s life eg for a student. “That’s my highest priority. What I also found myself being interested in is how can I help others like a junior faculty.” More papers, he will be happy but not sacrificing the other things for another paper. Now more selective, which student to accept, what paper to write or what grant to apply for. Now feels better about the papers he submits now. Tries to submit papers with a good chance of being accepted vs all accepted. Now only go to conferences he cares about. So a change in strategy.9:10 Aim is trying to bring that balance back in his life. All positions come with sacrifices until you reach a level where you feel more stable. He talks about working really hard up to tenure and now not working so hard, not weekends or evenings any more as he used to do up to tenure. Used to neglect relationships with people he cared about. Now trying to rebuild those relationships. Trying to have his life back.When he tries not to work on the weekend can feel bad but has to constantly remind himself that he can take a break. Becoming more normal now and actually enjoying it.13:55 Talks about scuba diving that he used to do, that he has returned to post-tenure.15:00 Discusses moving into admin and postponing his sabbatical for this. Wanted to see if he could have a different type of impact. Also trying to figure out if uni admin leadership role is something he wants to do as a long term career path. Still trying to figure that out. Still works closely with industry partners and really enjoys solving industry problems through lends of academic research.  “I know what I don’t want to do but too many things that I want to do.”17:40 How will he make choices? Tells story of not being able to decide re Masters – what if I choose the wrong thing? Advice from cousin about you are only making a choice on the information you have at that time and that will be the best choice you can make. And if you don’t make that choice, other factors will make it for you. A factor that shouldn’t be determining your choice. Now one of his decision-making strategies. Tries to understand the impact of the choices he makes but knowing he cannot predict the future. One thing he tries to do is try to influence or manage his manager to make that decision together. Talks about book on how to get a PhD with a chapter on how to manage your supervisor.  Very helpful to know how to get what you want from other people.21:30 Key skills learnt as a manager? First thing he learnt is that he doesn’t know anything about academic leadership so started training himself. Sees a big difference between academic and industry leadership positions. In industry have duties and power. In academic set up the power balance doesn’t exist. ‘I am one of the faculty members similar others. Some are higher ranked and now I have to ask them to do something.” In the company call a meeting and everyone comes. In the university, call a meeting and 2 out of 10 come and you can’t do anything to the other 8. Still learning. Most managers try to figure out how to do tasks and processes more efficiently but you can’t be efficient with people. Efficient way might not be the effective or best way.  The other thing, we often aim for perfection. But you realise soon to aim for ‘good enough’.25:30 How to judge good enough? At the beginning he thought if he could do everything himself he would achieve the perfect result. Very soon he realized it is not doable. One of the weaknesses he tries to improve is how to delegate to people. And give them the space for how they would do it and then accept the result. It might be different to what he wanted but it does the job. Needs to keep reminding colleagues we are not trying to run the best faculty or ideal … we are not trying to be a modern democracy but still need to decide what tasks are important and where to put the effort because we don’t have unlimited resources. That’s the role of a good leader.At the time we all make decisions hoping for the best result.29:42 Finally highlighting that sometimes listening to people’s stories feels like they make all the right decisions because we usually tell the successes. But it sometimes takes years to understand if a decision you made at some point was a good decision or a bad decision. Looking back you can then realise the things you can learn and the dots you can connect. And that’s the exciting part. He always asks for feedback from mentors. The things he wants to do and things he should do. Choices as part of the job you want to do.36:40 End

Pejman Mirza-Babaei is an Associate Dean Industry Partnerships, and an Associate Professor of User Experience Research, in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Pejman’s story spans Iran, the UK and Canada as he discusses his path from Masters to working in industry to doing a PhD closely tied with a start-up, and then his experiences moving into a tenure track position immediately post PhD, well in fact before his PhD, and later taking a break to work back in industry before working out that academia is what he wants to. What’s particularly interesting in his story is how strategic he has been in exploring his options and making decisions, leading to him getting tenure in very quick time. And what else is interesting is how he is always seeking feedback and open to learn. There is a Part 2 of this conversation (coming next) where he talks about the uncertainty of life post-tenure and how he has navigated these new choices, as well as what he has learning moving into more faculty leadership roles. “One thing I do a lot is ask for feedback… The important thing about feedback is to listen carefully but not necessarily do all of them… Ultimately it’s your decision and you know what is good for you.”“Going to a faculty position with mindset that you are doing everything is the fastest way to burnout. “ He talks about… [You can download a full transcript here]2:05 Pejman talks about his background, doing a Computer Hardware Engineering undergrad degree working in a bank as a network manager, finding it boring and deciding to continue his education and ended up at Sussex Uni doing a Master of IT for Commerce and took an HCI course there. But never knew what he wanted to do.5:05 Being fascinated by computer games as a kid, but never thought of it as a career. Working in a college back in Iran then coming back to Sussex to start a PhD. The teaching part got him excited about a PhD. Originally wanted to study something to do with technology to support people with visual impairment but ended up working with Graham [McAllister] doing games user research.7:20 Geri provides background on the serendipity of it and Graham being new at Sussex, bringing an interest in games and starting a games user research company. 8:15 Pejman talks about his PhD being relatively unique, working with a start-up games company and working on real cases. Changed his understanding of approach to research questions and how to communicate results back. Applied research. What was challenging then but he benefits from it now was that many academic papers couldn’t be applied to the commercial work they were doing which was more formative evaluation and usability studies, similar to papers but needing to think more on how to apply it.10:35 Did it feel stressful then? No. Didn’t have stress that this one study had to be the best. Had loads of opportunity to iterate as always new game to test next week. And supportive supervisor. Both understood no-one had done this before, no recipe to follow. Now very proud of what they did in the projects. 12:50 Turning this into a thesis? At some point it felt like a job he was doing. Learning a lot. End of second year [of a 3 year program], tried to capture what he learnt from each project – wrote a page for each and put them on the floor to look for connections. Knew broad aspects eg physiological measures etc but not sure how the story would be. Last year of PhD then more focused on how to visualize this data. So only finding story at end of second year. Ran close to 30-40 studies but only included 4 in the thesis, picking relevant ones. Not a common PhD training. 16:15 Stressful about finding focus? Not that particularly. The whole experience was stressful. But being able to run lots of studies and having a supportive group helped a lot. Benefited a lot from Ben [du Boulay] he would run surgery sessions as open office door and spending a lot of time with him. And the advice about creating the one page of each project to help find the connections. Was also under pressure to publish as were presenting a lot in industry conferences and didn’t want others doing academic publishing on his ideas. 18:55 Went from Sussex to Canada before he finished his PhD. Never thought he would live in Canada. Always thought he would end up somewhere in Europe. But did 3-4 months as a visiting position in Canada in 3rd year of PhD. They had an open position so he joined the interviews to see what was going on. It was a failed search so they re-advertised at the end of his visiting for a researcher job there. So he applied. The only position he has applied for. The intention was to get experience with job interviews only.20:30 Ended up being offered the position. Big part was his unique experience. They had a games program and wanted to build the HCI/UX part of the program and he came from experience of working on real games plus experience of starting a spin off at Sussex Uni. In line with the vision of the Dean for that position. Applied in Oct, offer in April. Difficult decision. Partner working full-time. And he had an almost full-time job. Had a nice comfortable life in the UK. Talked to Graham for advice. He said Pejman could always go back and work in the company. Unique situation. Didn’t have a PhD. 23:05 Deciding factor to go to a tenure track position rather than a post-doc? Salary. Knowing that he had a safety net back in the UK. And the position was something he was excited about. While some disadvantages of not doing a post doc (more experience, more papers, higher citation number before tenure track). Once he knew he accepted the position, put 100% focus on writing up PhD. Defended in Oct and started position in July before, submitting in August. Didn’t get many corrections but strategic in taking his time to make the corrections to delay the start of his tenure track time, which would have started if he submitted before Jan. So getting one extra year. Submitted final thesis in Jan. 25:55 Tenure track in North America very demanding. Dean was also very supportive. No teaching load in first term and could also write grant. Didn’t negotiate anything! She was just a good Dean ad provided the support he didn’t know he needed.27:05 So he joined Uni of Ontario in 2013 and now 6 years. Did get his tenure submitting his application 2017, a year early so he didn’t need the extra year. Proud of it. Started PhD 2009. Tenure in 2018. 28:15 Key things important for getting there? Being a UX researcher comes with some benefits ie understanding the stakeholders. Even as a PhD student, he went to sessions in the second year on how to defend a viva and what a thesis looks like, so knowing what he needed to prepare himself for. In tenure track position, went to a workshop in second year on applying for tenure. People laughed but too late to do this in the 5th year. So knew in his second year what he needed to do to get tenure and had a clear strategy for what he needed to do to achieve those. Plus what he does a lot is ask for feedback – couple of meetings with Assoc Dean at the time to show what he was doing. The important thing about feedback is to listen carefully but not necessarily do all of them. Good to get feedback but also important to make your decision. Listen carefully, think about it. Ultimately it’s your decision and you know what is good for you.31:25 Pejman gives an example about deciding to edit a book. Strategic decision. Thought there was a need in the field to have a book. Majority of suggestions though were right. Talks about another decision re publishing at CHI conference and getting advice to also publish journal papers as important for tenure, which he listened to. Another suggestion re establishing himself as an independent researcher and important to show independence in the tenure process so tried specifically not to collaborate with the people he used to collaborate with. These are the types of things he learned by going to the workshops early.35:20 Managing those relationships? Talked to them about his need to show his independence and they understood. The tensions between the work being collaborative but review processes wanting to see individuals. Important for his uni was being an independent researcher and the other was cross-faculty collaboration. So purposely joined projects with people from other faculties. Again being strategic.37:20 Also continued working with industry. In 2015 after first year, wasn’t sure if an academic job was something good for him. The first year in survival mode, no real training for transition from PhD to faculty and that caught him. As PhD expected to do all yourself. Going to faculty position with mindset that you are doing everything is the fastest way to burnout.  In his first year he was trying to teach, set up his lab, literally setting up cabling, and thought he had to do everything himself. At the time it felt too much. And lost all the industry connections he had in the UK. So thought he wanted to go and work for industry. 39:35 Again Dean was supportive of his going to work for a company and allowed him to buy out his teaching. He moved to Montreal from Toronto. Started a position as UX Director for a gaming company. After few months realized he missed his academic life. Missed the flexibility and the freedom of doing the research the way you want to do. Used to flexible working hours and in company had to be there by 8:30. And missed opportunity to do his projects, And missed his own office to be able to focus; company had open office. Did this for 4-5 months. Told company he this wasn’t something he wanted to do full-time, and re-negotiated role to be an on-call advisor for UX. Gave him the industry links he wanted. Looking back partner also didn’t like the experience. But it was really important for his career, both in knowing what he wanted to do and in having connections.44:05 So back to Uni and things started working out. Got a house, permanent residency. Tells the story of buying his first house and the dream of the sort of house he always wanted to live in leading to his second house on a lake, inspired also by Saul Greenberg’s podcast interview about how living further from the uni gave him opportunity to work from home and focus on his research some days and live in the countryside and do stuff in between. Now working from home he will take a 20-30 min walk a few times a day – thinking walks. Also enjoys the drive to uni as his time. 48:50 Made a mistake initially by deciding to work from home Mon-Wed and only going to campus Thurs-Fri. Not a good idea. People not able to get to him. Going to change it next semester to Tue and Thurs at home. People ok to wait for one day to come and talk but not three days. 50:52: End Related LinksPeople: Graham MacAllister, Ben du Boulay, Saul Greenberg podcast  Companies:Vertical Slice startup article Indie game company, Execution LabsPapers/articles:Book: Drachen, Mirza-Babaei, & Nacke, Games User Research, 2018Book: Phillips & Pugh, How to get a PhD: a handbook for students and their supervisors.

Welcome to 2020! This is a short podcast reflecting on the past two years.You can download a full transcript here.Related links:This page collates lots of links for donating to the Australian bushfires: ACM-W Greece June 2019 conference talk on “Superchickens, superpowers, and small actions with a big impact"Personal letter to the CHI CommunityCAL podcast chat with Anna CoxAnna Cox’s blog article on her commitment calendarAnd some of Anna’s subsequent reflections: CAL podcast chat with Amy Ko

Rosa Arriaga is a developmental psychologist who transitioned into computer science as a senior research scientist in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech in the US. She talks about the journey becoming a computer scientist and applying the toolkit she brings from her psychology background to technology problems around chronic disease management and the reward of seeing real impact in people’s lives. She has also recently taken on the role of Chair of Graduate Affairs and talks with passion about her role in making processes and expectations clear and easy, and in promoting the importance of whole selves.We don’t know what we are going to prepare our students for. We can’t even imagine. So what we need to do is train them on a toolkit that they’re going to be able to problems we can’t even imagine.I have a toolkit, I have a way of understanding the world. And then I apply this toolkit to these (CS) problems (that) are very different to what I would have encountered as a psychologistIt is a powerful thing to feel like you could change the world, could make things better. And if that’s what you can do it is worth it.Those who can do, and those who care become administratorsIt’s not failure, it’s feedback. How do we give you the feedback that you are doing well or that this is not the right place for you and that is fine too.Overview (times approximate): [You can also download a full transcript here]01:40 Becoming a computer scientist from a PhD in developmental psychology and the transferrable toolkit09:44 How she applies her toolkit to computer science problems19:00 More on finding her way into computer science32:40 Being in a research faculty rather than an academic faculty position38:10 Her role as chair of graduate affairs In more detail, she talks about…01:40 How someone with a PhD in developmental psychology ended up in a computer science department? Related to a question of quality of life for the family, her husband, a theoretical computer scientist, getting a job offer at Georgia Tech (GT) and GT putting out a call for who could use a psychologist. Gregory Abowd responded as doing work with autism. He’s been a friend and mentor since 2006. 04:48 Her favourite quote from Pasteur - “Chance favours the prepared mind”. The kind of training she received taught her how to think. And we don’t know what we are going to prepare our students for so need to train them on a toolkit.05:45 The thinking initially was that she would be there for a while and she would decide what she would do in 3 years and then go to a different uni where she felt more at home. But in those 3 years she came to appreciate HCI, doing the same things, just using a different lexicon. 06:45 Her worldview is still very post-positivist and has also learnt to appreciate all the other approaches that her colleagues bring, when you are trying to answer back to that toolkit to solve problems. Talks about the differences between psychology and computer science, in approaches, publishing and speed. She brings her strengths as a psychologist to a different set of problems. And one of the things she brings to CS is her desire to have these systems work in the real world for extended periods of time. Not as if she came from an applied background. But when you get to CS and see the power to have, “I see the applied work really calls to me”09:44 Playing out a post-positivist approach in fieldwork? Mentions a replication study on text messaging improving lung function. Her interest is in why. Why did it work? And will it scale? And looking for the underlying theory. And if it works for asthma, will it work for other conditions? So ran the study again. Then looks at scaling the program so others can run these studies. Technology that can be transformative for other fields.11:30 What is CS about this? Why not health psychology? Health psychology won’t develop systems or think about scale. Whereas HCI is about the human, the user, providing toolkits to other domains. Finding what technology will help them do their job. How to make the technology better. It’s about the interfaces, being useful and usable.13:30 Did she think this way in the beginning or has it been a journey? Has been a journey. A way of understanding. Learning what the right way is to talk to colleagues (lexicon). But even more it is learning different paradigms. Took a long time for her to internalize and find terms to speak about what these methodologies were. First 6 years. Feeling like she got another doctorate. 14:36 Talking about identity in two different ways? Psychologist and computer scientist. Talks about meeting with Bob Kraut and he said he has never felt more like a psychologist. But she feels like an HCI person, a CS person. But she also asks different questions. Goes back to training. “I have a toolkit, I have a way of understanding the world. And then I apply this toolkit to these problems (that) are very different to what I would have encountered as a psychologist.” And she has augmented her toolkit over the last decade.16:55 Had she thought about her skillset as a toolkit before? No, it’s like when a fish in water, what do you know. Only when she came to CS that she was forced to understand what she brings to the table. She is all about requirements gathering/needs assessment but had to learn that these were the terms to use. 19:00 She talks more about the difference between CS and psychology. In psychology, defining things is important. But it seemed to be more taken for granted in CS/HCI. In CS/HCI we talk of the ‘user’ but the only user she had heard of before was a drug user – a weird term to use. And then reading monographs like Yvonne Roger’s on theory that made sense. “Serves a purpose to have a definite understanding of what it is we mean.” And for working with different disciplines – and what the expectations are, what CS does eg not going to build instagram for X. Back to the practice of articulating what we do so we’re clear about what is a deliverable.24:10 Practical things that helped getting into CS/HCI? What it means to do a dissertation – how many papers have you read. So had to immerse herself and read the papers and working with grad students to provide references for terms eg cognitive walkthrough, contextual enquiry. Had to find a lot of structure. Could also ask Gregory. Risky but has a good temperament and doesn’t mind asking and being vulnerable. Authenticity is important. Were times that the reception wasn’t positive but had much more to gain than lose at this point. Comes back to wanting to be a member of the community, to values. Believed that CS can really help support the betterment of mankind. How could I not fight this fight, “my little app that could make kids better”.29:00 Finding her why? It is a powerful thing to feel like you could change the world, could make things better. And if that’s what you can do it is worth it.29:30 Mentoring relationship with Gregory? Informal, gracious, direct. Respected her intellect and feedback. Tells of an ‘alpha male’ experience and giving feedback that it was inappropriate. A decade working together, changes over time. Have different values but ok – “I have become my own person”. ‘Become’ a verb, we are changing and a good thing.32:40 Working in same college as husband? In different areas. No issues that they came up with. Others might have had some comments. But she shows she is a good colleague, has something to offer (stats, quant eval). There were times she tried to sign up for things but told she couldn’t as it was for academic not research faculty.35:00 Describes her research faculty position. She also does teaching. Says ‘why not’ when told she can’t do something and asks for the policy on this. Doesn’t take no for an answer just because.  Got into some of those roles. Now the assoc chair of graduate studies, from a research position. Nominated by colleagues. They could see she did care. Able to work out a situation where funding comes from different streams. Doing this for 10 years in research position. Only thing in being an academic position is being a professor. Can’t be called prof. Ok with this. “I get to do all the things I now love so I am happy.”38:10: Chair of graduate affairs work? Says ‘those who can do, and those who care become administrators’. I do care. Had an incredible graduate experience at Harvard where they cared about the whole person eg creative outlets, learnt to row, play frisbee. ‘We know you are going to do great work if you can say sane so here are some ways of staying sane’. Sets the tone that it is ok to be a whole person, need to be doing these things. So she sends out emails to grad students and reminds them about their whole self and need to actively engage other parts of their life. What does it mean to be a grad student, to develop a toolkit, how do we make it clear to students what it means to be doing well and the department are behind them? Grad students weren’t on the org chart. 42:00 We have policies that will work for them. Importance of clearly articulating what milestones are and what it means to progress through these milestones and what it means for people to be successful. It’s not failure, it’s feedback. How do we give you the feedback that you are doing well or that this is not the right place for you and that is fine too. Reminds grad students of responsibilities, milestones, and things like meeting regularly with supervisor, documenting work etc. And where to go to when things are not working out. 45:00 Send out emails. Met with all incoming interactive computing students. Have a student appreciation, lunch, puts milestones up to make them visible. That’s my role, to keep the trains moving, the signposts up, and remind people of rights and responsibilities and that includes faculty.46:35 Onboarding new faculty? At a retreat. Started from the beginning to remind everyone of things coming up that need their attention. The reminder in chief. My pleasure, this is my role. Here’s what it means for us to all be on the same page. Have two-yearly PhD reviews. In the calendar. Reminders re the structure.49:10 Reminding re whole self? Give them permission. Had a lot of students come back and say that was so nice to get permission to be whole person. We set the tone. Mental health and students is so important. Emails - what are you going to do to stay healthy in mind and body? First onboarding of all grad students. Used to do it in separate areas. This was the first year everyone came together. First think I said was welcome. Second was you belong here. 53:10 Literary magazine article on female faculty and dearth and statistics. Back to a set of values and way of moving forward. How do we systematically provide a structure for women to have their place, eg that they don’t do more service, don’t cite themselves? How to make service in the lab more transparent and accountable? Who will make up the sheet? She decided to do this, to model this behavior. Best practices, we can quantitatively evaluate them to see if things are getting better. Need to be reminded that we’re not doing as well as we think. 58:30 Now is the time where she can think about these issues as an administrator. Plans coming up? Putting in structures so people know where they are in the academic year. Eg qualifying exams timeline and what’s expected so it is fair. Fairness is a big value for her.  Lucky because she can speak up. And becomes a model for speaking up. Role-modelling. 1:03 Family while both working full time? Article talks about men vs women in relationships. Men say no my career first so the woman does second best. Statistics are that females will take a back seat. No wrong or right. A set of values that you have and have to do what is right for you. 1:05:10 Later phase in life? Plans to retire in India. Have a radio show where we talk to interesting academics in the town about their research. Husband as native language sidekick. J An issue about what we do for last 20 years. And the moral responsibility re training PhD students and what jobs they can go to.1:08:12 Works in the mHealth space, patient engagement and continuity of care. Will give links.1:09:52 EndRelated LinksResearchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rosa_Arriaga/publications Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosa-i-arriaga-19aa44143/New NSF grant to improve treatment for PTSD patients:Write up: https://www.ic.gatech.edu/news/627023/new-12-million-nsf-grant-aims-improve-treatment-ptsd-patientsPodcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-interaction-hour/id1435564422People: Gregory Abowd - http://ubicomp.cc.gatech.edu/gregory-d-abowd/Robert (Bob) Kraut - https://hcii.cmu.edu/people/robert-krautPapers/articles:ReplicCHI award paper: A text message a day keeps the pulmonologist away. Yvonne Rogers, 2012, HCI Theory: Classical, Modern, and Contemporary. Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics, Morgan& Claypool.Ann Blandford, 2019, Lessons from working with researchers and practitioners in healthcare, Interactions, Vol 26, 72-75.Polson et al, 1992, Cognitive walkthroughs: a method for theory-based evaluation of user interfaces, IJMMS, Vol 36:5, 741-773.Troy Vettese, Sexism in the Academy: Women’s narrowing path to tenure. N+1, Issue 34, Spring 2019.Arriaga, R. I., and Abowd, G. D. (In Press) The Intersection of Technology and Health: Ubiquitous Computing and Human Computer Interaction Driving Behavioral Intervention Research to Address Chronic Care Management in Strategies for Team Science Success Handbook of Evidence-based Principles for Cross-Disciplinary Science and Practical Lessons Learned from Health Researchers. Hall, K. L., Vogel A. L. & Croyle, R.T. Eds.

Alex Taylor is a sociologist and a Reader in the Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design at City, University of London. Alex moved into academia in Sept 2017, having worked at Microsoft Research Cambridge prior to this for over a decade and as a post doc researcher at Surrey University before this. Alex talks about his work at the boundaries of disciplines where he doesn’t feel like he has a clear disciplinary home, and about his experiences working at Microsoft. He explains his very conscious decision to then move into an academic position. The trigger for this conversation was a twitter post where he commented on the many different skills that he had to draw on as an academic. He reflects on the labours of academia, and the need to prioritise and make choices. He also talks about generative resistance in the face of the demands of the academy, taking principled stands, saying no and offering alternatives. And he talks about doing this as a collective endeavour and the power of small everyday actions. In all he does Alex is deeply reflective and values-driven and asks How do we create the opportunities and the spaces to do the academy differently? He shows many of the practical ways we can all be part of this.“I never felt I had a [disciplinary] home and that took a while to come to terms with. … maybe that’s just the kind of person I am, the work I thrive in.”“We all have to make choices within our lives about what we prioritise. And I realised for me being a parent and partner were very important.”“[Recognising] the sheer number of skills that were required of me in one day. … It’s a very clear indication of the labours involved in being an academic. And the recognition that you can’t be good at them all.““How do we create the opportunities and the spaces to do the academy differently?”“Important for me in the Centre is how do collectively say no to that? … It’s not just about saying no, what other things might we offer up as a solution?”Overview (times approximate):  [You can also download a full transcript here]02:07 Research background and dealing with the press/impact13:49 How he decided to work at Microsoft & sticking to his guns34:24 Consciously deciding to move from MSR to university43:40 The labours involved in being an academic57:42 Collective generative resistance In more detail, he talks about…Research background and dealing with the press/impact02:07 Alex talks about working at University of Surrey and Xerox Europarc and then going to Microsoft Research. A sociologist with an interest in the sociology of technology and he did his PhD on teenagers and mobile phones, a long time ago when it was still a surprise to the industry because SMS was originally something to be used a back channel for engineers. Fortuitous in a way that he realized young people might be the thing to look at. 07:55 Alex reflecting on his use of words like fortuitous and luck. “It was just about meeting the right people at the right time. I fully recognize I’m in a privileged position.” And the topic was an important one at the time, how youth were using mobile phones and SMS at that time. Talks about being on the Radio 4 today program as a PhD student and wondering what he was doing there.11:12 We discuss more on his experience engaging with the press over the years, especially having worked at Microsoft and their PR machine. Told throughout his career about the need to make his writing more accessible. Part of him as resisted/struggled with that, making it accessible to a public audience. He has written pieces for a journalism context and been on radio and TV but doesn’t find it easy. Attuned to the demands of UK’s academic impact from his years at Microsoft.How he decided to work at Microsoft & sticking to his guns13:49 We discuss his decision to go to Microsoft Research. At some point he recognized he was going to be in academic life and he did do a post-doc at Surrey straight after PhD. Then Microsoft approached him to work for a couple of years as a contractor, he asked for something ludicrous thinking they wouldn’t take it up. He was uneasy working for a big institution working for a profit. But they said yes. Then Richard and Abi set up this group together and he ended up swapping 6 months in into full-time employment. 17:57 So how did he reconcile working for a big corporate profit driven company? A very particular institution when he joined it – he understood it as driven by a philanthropic attitude to research and scholarship. There was scope to do what you wanted to do as an academic. “We’re hiring you to be a good researcher.” Didn’t believe it but gave it a shot. And for 8-10 years it was like that. Prior to starting at MSR he had already turned attention to studying the home. This was a point of departure for MSR but they encouraged it. So research and papers about how the home becomes the place it is. A mutual relationship where you are also aware of working for a company with particular concerns. So was able to justify this slightly uneasy relationship as work was about scholarship.22:23 Was there too much freedom? Still not that different to writing grant proposals etc asking what you might like to do what was the context we are working in and how to scope our conversations there. Privileged – absolutely compared to the academy. “Many of us who believe in what we do and enjoy what we do don’t have a problem finding things that interest us.”24:39 Alex discusses how he was always testing out the boundaries and came to realise that he sees himself as inhabiting the boundaries. Now it has become a conscious thing in his research. But it takes time and looking back to recognise the red threads of interest. “Played out in sense of uneasiness in the periphery and how to reconcile this space I’ve made for myself, along with colleagues, but it is peripheral to HCI, Computer Science, Sociology. I never felt I had a home and that took a while to come to terms with. … But in recognising that I thought that maybe that’s just the kind of person I am or the work I thrive in.”26:43 We discuss the challenges then in communicating his work across these boundaries. The obvious challenge is that it is a work of translation. Feels that he stuck to his guns, that there were things that mattered to him, that he knew would get kicked back (proposals, papers, teaching specifications). All these things are where the tensions get played out. He tries to resist the formula and tries to encourage his students that they can do this too. Discusses how the CHI research community is now letting in other forms of scholarship, a gradual change, and that’s good.29:55 Being reflective about sitting at the boundaries. Through his academic training, reflexivity is built in. Our thinking, the lived experiences we have both within academia and outside pervade everything. He doesn’t feel dissimilar in the way he lives his live, his family life in London as a peripheral mode of living. Pervasive identities. And always asking questions and putting oneself somewhere else occasionally. 32:44 Any costs to sticking to his guns? Has been lucky, working with the right people, and working in an organisation where it was ok to try things out. The choice to be in the periphery is a privileged position. Costs in that the work has been subject to criticisms of various kinds. But probably not more than others. Important for him that the work does make a difference.Consciously deciding to move from MSR to university34:24 We discuss his thinking then in moving from MSR to a university position. Microsoft was changing and MSR in the Cambridge Lab became much more business focused and product driven – topics and methods shaped by something else that made him feel uncomfortable. Doesn’t begrudge Microsoft making those decisions but it made those tensions in himself out of kilter and he didn’t want to work in the spaces that were being set. They weren’t meaningful to him. A profit driven approach to research.  Two years before he left he knew he was thinking in this way and that things need to change for him. Realised it didn’t feel right to him.37:27 Talks about having a young family, two kids. At MSR, serious scholars but demands weren’t the same as in academia (though changing now). The changes aren’t detached from one another. So spoke to a few people, advised never to go into academia (by people who were in academia)! Points to the twitter discussion that triggered me talking to him. One comment that wasn’t framed in a positive way was ‘what right do you have to comment on the academy coming from industry’. Not meant spitefully but didn’t feel like it was part of the rest of the generative discussion of others. But an important question to ask. Didn’t feel outside of the academy in MSR. All colleagues/peers were in academic positions. Cared for them. Their concerns were my concerns. And shifts in MSR and the academy not accidental. Decision to come back to academia was an intentional effort to come back to a place he knew needed more people and recognising many people get worn out and coming to it fresh might just be one more way to make a difference. So a very conscious decision despite many warnings against it. 41:52 Saw a position at City. Met with people at the centre. Immediately felt like a generative place. Experience has told him that the people and place is worth more than anything. That outweighed anything. Geography mattered as well with a young family. Felt the centre was open not just to welcoming but change. “I had in my mind, could a place be made that felt different, that made an effort to resist many of the pressures we feel subject to.” An ongoing project. The labours involved in being an academic43:40 We discuss his experiences now having worked at City for a year and a half. Returns to the twitter discussion. The tweet he sent out commented on the sheer number of skills that had been required of him in one day, from working on a grant to prepping for a class to preparing for an exam script etc. And required to be good at them all. So not intended as a political statement but at the shock of recognition at the skills expected of us. Felt like he had a sense of it before but coming to work at it on a daily basis, moving between tasks, and trying to be good at them all, a clear indication of the labours involved in being an academic. And the recognition that you can’t be good at them all. 45:42 “That was another realisation I had, […] that we all have to make choices within our lives about what we prioritise. And I realised for me being a parent and partner were very important. And that was going to take away from academic life. And the people I aspire to in the academy I might not ever be able to live up to in my own practice.” According to what criteria? Recognition of one’s work and position within the fields. Who are the influential people in your field of practice? Why those names? And what choices have they made? And on a daily basis we are continually making choices and it’s not a simple equation.48:42 We discuss negotiating those choices within a group and faculty context (and family context) in light of their pressures. What are the limits of the work he was willing to invest, stretched by moral and functional demands? Not willing to put some things in jeopardy e.g., picking kids up two days a week. Choices made on routine daily basis. “There’s a value system that’s important for me in the work that I do here in the Centre and I want to stick to that. The trouble is that it takes work.” If you say no, no comes with its costs too.52:05 Alex talks through a specific example of saying no, and sticking to his values/ethical system. As a program director for a Masters course in HCI he was up against the pressure to increase numbers without extra resources. “A neoliberal project of extracting labour for the same or less.” He stood up for that. Said no. Something has to give, either the number you are giving us or the resources. They got resources! And now pressures for the next year. He made clear to his department head he is not in this to further the neoliberal project. Laying his cards on the table.55:07 He is in a tenured position but it still means they can’t shut the department down. Standing up is important to him though, from his position of privilege. “I’m in this for a collective project of resistance and I use resistance carefully. […] Those no’s are not just for me.” Alex talks about how the Centre has engaged with this notion of resistance. “How do we create the opportunities and the spaces to do the academy differently?”Collective generative resistance57:42 Alex talks about listening to Ali Black’s podcast. “I think we forget that to resist is also its own project.” The easy answer is to maintain the status quo. How would be define generative? He points to books he has on the table (see below for names and links). Inspired by feminist forms of resistance and generativity. How do we make possible other ways of becoming? Links back to Ali Black’s work. And the power of small things like a writing group to lay the seeds for a critical reading of where we are and how we might be something else. A collective source of making a difference. It’s deeply structural. If you say no it goes to someone else. It’s a divide and conquer regime. “Important for me in the Centre is how do collectively say no to that? … It’s not just about saying no, what other things might we offer up as a solution?” An unending project. Reflects on what he enjoyed about the twitter discussion and having all types of scholars involved in the discussion. For early career researchers, advises finding the right people who won’t subject you to pressures. But of course a non-trivial recommendation.01:04:56 Other key lessons moving into academia – no easy answers but the sense of having people with you and creating an environment where everyone can be the best they can be. And it gets done in small ways. Meetings that allow thinking to flourish. Writing group and new person setting a tone. A reading group to think about content and also introducing these layers of thinking and criticality. A research group run by Simone Stumpf. These things all take time. Not everyone comes. About giving a sense of the environment we’re in. Also thinking of writing retreats. Have a once/week seminar. All start to add up and set the conditions for what we’re in business about. All very collective. 01:10:16 So has this been a good move for him? He asks himself that on a regular basis! The sheer weight and demand of the academy on all of us upsets him. But he is determined to change something and make it better in the small ways any one person or collective can. Seeds for other things. 01:11:43 Final reflections. So much of thinking inspired by many different people. So many good people. 01:13:18 EndRelated LinksAlex Taylor’s blog https://ast.io/about-alex-taylor/Richard Harper https://www.rhrharper.com Abi Sellen https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/asellen/ Simone Stumpf https://www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/simone-stumpf Xerox EuroPARC https://wiki.cam.ac.uk/crucible/Xerox_EuroPARC HCID Centre https://hcid.city The Feb 25 2019 twitter post and following discussion https://twitter.com/alxndrt/status/1100110754248908801 Ali Black podcast - http://www.changingacademiclife.com/blog/2017/3/20/ali-black Books:Donna Harroway, Staying with the trouble.Sarah Ahmed, Living a Feminist LifeIsabelle Stengers et al, Women who make a fuss: The unfaithful daughters of Virginia Wolf

Tom Erickson is a cognitive psychologist by background and was a researcher (social scientist and designer) at IBM Research since 1997, having previously worked in the early days of Apple and their Advanced Technology Group, and at a start up. Tom reflects on his experiences working in industry research, some of the pivotal work he has been involved in. He has also telecommuted most of his work life and he talks about how he made this work. Tom has also recently retired and he managed his transition to retirement in a really thoughtful way, being very deliberate in thinking about how to make a better life for himself and in what he calls ‘practising retirement’. “I have a limited amount of time and do I want to spend it all working?”“What is it that I do during the day that I love? And for me it’s design, it’s interviewing people, it’s reading interview transcripts. I just love the details of stuff.”““How I am perceived and what I am valued for within the corporation and [keeping] that separate from how I am perceived and valued professionally.””“As scientists or designers… we need to be mindful that the ultimate thing we’re doing is we’re shaping ourselves and how we see the world, so that we can help the field collectively move in a good direction.” He talks about (times approximate) … [You can also download a full transcript here]01:30 Tom talks about his psychology background, how a better climate was a factor in deciding where he wanted to do his PhD in cognitive psychology and human cognition. PhD with McClelland. Published one paper as a grad student in late 70s early 80s. One paper has had a resurgence of popularity in the last years because of a mention without reference in Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast Thinking Slow book.06:16 Ended up dropping out of grad school and many people do not know that he does not have a PhD. Combination of things – personal reasons, not really passionate about what he was doing, supervisor being away, getting involved in a small start-up, funding ran out and start-up then wanted to pay him. Became their UI tsar for a company making software for first IBM PCs. Competitor was Lotus. Did that for 5 years. In the good times he was the design guy, in the bad times he might be writing marketing, or manuals (Software Products International).10:15 Towards the end of that time got married. His wife was in Stanford. So he got a job at Apple by sending in a resume for a job in the paper. Word got around during the interview process and Joy Mountford said ‘you should be in our group’. That led to a job in Apple in the Human Interface Group. It was like a quick course in design school. Learned three rules of design: cheat, steal and keep it simple!14:57 Started off in Stanford but then his wife graduated and got a job in the Uni of Minnesota. Was looking for a new job but then got a contact by Don Norman who was a new Apple fellow and wanted Tom to work with him. He suggested telecommuting. So Tom switched to Don’s group. Some face time in Stanford for about 6 months then transitioned to Minnesota. 16:57 Lasted 5 years until second coming of Steve Jobs. Jobs was against Apple having a research organization. Tom moved to the Advanced Technology Group (ATG). Talks about some of the innovative products they were working on in the early 90s. 22:02 But Steve came back. His team ended up getting laid off about 3 months before the rest of ATG which gave them a shot at the market. Had previously gotten to know Wendy Kellogg, they started talking and he ended moving to IBM Research. Had a 3 day break between jobs. Initially hesitant about moving to New York because of his wife’s work. In the end he was hired as a telecommuter. And they made a plan for how to make it work. One condition of his contract was having to work 15-20% of his time building up connections with other groups at IBM and that ended up being really good for the first period. Talks about how they made the telecommuting work and the telecommuting culture at IBM.27:54 Tells people there are three things to think about re telecommuting: needs to work for you; has to work for the group and working out ways to pay your own dues; and navigating the organization since at a distance and not visible. And thanks to his manager Wendy Kellogg for always helping to make him visible. And he used his time on site to make himself more visible, e.g., design sessions, working one-on-one with people, sitting in public spaces.33:16 Retired 6 months ago (when recorded in November 2018). Did a lot of work to prepare for it. Was anxious about it. Practised for retirement. Thought about what he would be losing. Did his greatest invention, despite being shy and introverted, ‘the pleasant chat’. The pleasant chat is a repeated meeting with someone called a pleasant chat. Has 5-6 people he has ‘pleasant chats’ with to keep in touch. “Big challenge is how do I get these new channels of ideas and stimulations coming in. […] You have to figure out what works for yourself and that kind of structure works for me.” Been at IBM for almost 21 years. Cast of characters has changed entirely. Only known 1 person from beginning to end. 38:55 What else he has been doing to practise retirement. Explains how the practice came about. Period of 6 months where he and his wife lost three remaining parents, plus a couple of friends who passed away, shifted the notion of being immortal. Limited time. Oldest generation. A head shift. Sees generation losing ability to do things eg always like to hike. Might not be able to do that later. “I have a limited amount of time and do I want to spend it all working?” Reflects on an exec who died two weeks after retiring. This shifted him to thinking about retirement, as well as an IBM reorganization to focus on AI that he doesn’t believe in. Took advantage of an IBM program to allow him to work 60% to figure out what else he would like doing. And started restricting work to 8 hrs a day on work days. 43:52 Would have worked previously 10-14 hrs/day but never felt resentful. “Work segues into play for me. […] Pretty much wrote all the papers out of working hours. And I love to write. … mostly seems more like fun than work.”. Reflects on roles of organisations and not being dependent on the individual and not expecting the organization to care for him.46:25 Shifting to 8 hrs not a hard transition. Not excited about the AI focus. Started thinking about “what is it that I do during the day that I love? And for me it’s design, it’s interviewing people, it’s reading interview transcripts. I just love the details of stuff.” When he moved into the AI area, got into interviewing scientists and it was doing what he loved even though he didn’t care for AI. But didn’t write this up. 47:54 Instead started figuring out “What do I need that will keep me happy afterwards?” Did a couple of things. The main thing that worked better than he expected was he started taking piano lessons. Hard to start with but loves practising. And can see himself getting better. Would play for 2 hrs before starting work, Which means that when he retired, he still got up had his coffee, did 2-3 hrs piano practice. The routine. Also runs as a routine – took this up when he turned 50.  “The piano was probably the best thing I did for myself.”. So taking up piano, the pleasant chats. And began working on developing some individual friendships. “I think friendships and one-to-one relationships are crucial.” But needing to put in more deliberate effort on this.53:02 I reflect on him being very self aware and deliberate in creating his good life. He reflects on one of his strengths in both being self aware and then sitting down and developing a strategy to achieve what will make his life better.54:05 Advice to younger clueless self? Thinks the younger self did a lot of things right. Industry getting more and more applied and topic for research changes because every 3-4 years you get someone new in the executive changes and they want to make their mark. He did well fitting into this while maintaining a consistency of themes by choosing themes at the right level. Also occasionally took on side projects that weren’t funded. Some of the work he enjoyed the most had not funding. 58:30 Advice – would encourage younger self/younger people to be mindful – you do have to follow the corporate agenda but if you are doing a good job there can be opportunities on the side.  And taking a dual approach – “Thought about how I am perceived and what I am valued for within the corporation and kept that separate from how I am perceived and valued professionally.” Ie how he depicts the type of work he does to which communities. 1:01:45 Always driven by his personal situation. Tries to draw inspiration from things he sees in the world, problems he faces. Don Norman as inspiration. Having experiences, making them into stories, turning them into constructive research. 1:05:10 Wrap up – one thing he is grappling with now he is retired is how does he remain involved in the field or does he? What ways to continue activity in the field? One idea is writing a blog or column, maybe called ‘Late reviews’ reviewing books and making them accessible to the field eg mentions ‘Governing the commons” by Elinor Ostrom and ‘Seeing like a state’. The other thing he is thinking about I show to stay connected without being full-time. Maybe a workshop as people are aging out of professional roles? Are there ways they can remain available to the community? Also thinking about what impacts has he had.01:11:53 Talks about HCI Remixed book with David MacDonald – importance of reviewing older research. And changing how researchers see the world. “As scientists or designers…we need to be mindful that the ultimate thing we’re doing is we’re shaping ourselves and how we see the world so that we can help the field collectively move in a good direction.” 01:14:16 EndRelated LinksSome of the people he mentions:Joe Konstan - http://konstan.umn.edu Joy Mountford - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Mountford Don Norman - https://jnd.org Austin Henderson - http://rivcons.com Paul Dourish - https://www.dourish.com Wendy Kellogg - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Kellogg Christine Halverson - https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/author/christine-halverson Elinor Ostrom - http://www.elinorostrom.com Apple Advanced Technology Group CSCW – Computer Supported Cooperative Work Tom’s highly cited 1981 cognitive psychology paper – Erickson & Mattson, ‘From words to meaning: a semantic illusion’ :Poem: Theory Theory: a designer’s view Book: HCI Remixed

Jennifer Mankoff is an endowed professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at University of Washington in the US.  Jen’s journey to this position though hasn’t been straightforward because she has been dealing with ongoing chronic health issues since her PhD days. Jen talks about managing disability as an academic and in particular the ways in she positively frames her experiences and points to the support of family and colleagues. She also has interesting experiences about being part of an academic couple as well as managing parenting and extended family caring roles. While considering herself a private person, she recognises it is important for people like herself to share their experiences, not just of successes but also about what is hard, and to give the message that we all go through these hard times and can find ways forward.  “It was a really positive learning experience in the end to have gone through [dealing with repetitive strain injury during grad school].”“[Learning] how to parent slowly…not to measure parenting success by the amount that is accomplished but instead by the quality of time I spend with the kids” “Every day I feel full energy all day long I get to feel grateful for it because I have enough reminders in my life of what else it could be.”“I’m respected for the fact that I manage my career with a disability.”“It’s really important for anyone to share not just what their successes are but also what’s been hard to let everyone know that we all go through these hard times and find ways forward.”Overview (times approximate): [You can also download a full transcript here]01:40 Dealing with repetitive strain injury in grad school - having a supportive supervisor, writing 30 mins twice every day, still getting published, making it work, gaining excellent time management and self-care skills because of it.08:10 Dealing with Lyme disease - talking about working 55 hours as low compared to colleagues, shifting to 35 hrs when having children, dealing with the disease, and still being able to progress tenure case with a supportive department and spouse, and learning how to work with the fluctuations in health, to write when intellectually active, and how to parent slowly  12:30 Talking about the many ways in which faculty and colleagues were supportive despite it being an invisible chronic illness14:56 Describing the impacts of Lyme disease, the process of getting diagnosed, starting treatment, still trying to see through teaching commitments and dealing with the unpredictability of the disease. Diagnosed in 2007 and the positive progression of both lifestyle management techniques and illness, feeling grateful, and creating visibility of the disease with a cane.22:00 The positive framing, and reflecting on how she has come to this, dealing with imposter syndrome and also with the knowledge that you are not performing in the way you are capable of if you were healthy, the difficulty of accepting second best constantly, and the question of whether she was choosing illness, and learning to love herself26:40 Doing research on assistive technology, moving to Berkeley, getting educated on disability rights movement, eventually embracing an identity as a woman with a disability, and the challenges of studying and talking about her own situation, and the value of support from mentors and colleagues35:04 Managing situations day to day, not being good at separating work and family, needing to prioritise children or students at different times, putting out a personal newsletter every week to communicate what’s going on in her personal and professional life and how that week will be juggled, modelling time management.39:00 Reflecting on being part of a couple in the same research area. Moving from Berkeley to CMU and then to Washington. Having a partner as head of department and the challenges this entails. Now being in different departments. The importance of explicitly dealing with potential conflicts of interest between partners, and setting boundaries by not communicating through partners.50:52 Talking about her current research directions, doing a lot of work now around making, discrimination, sexual assault, gender and medical interactions especially with chronic disease patients, and a study with students to understand their major life events and stressors and how to support them.59:30 Final comments about learning to expose her experiences and to allow people to see this sort of diversity in faculty life. Encouraging others to share: “It’s really important for anyone to share not just what their successes are but also what’s been hard to let everyone know that we all go through these hard times and find ways forward.” And that you are not alone in experiencing these.1:02:43 End Related LinksPeople Jennifer mentions:Anind Dey - https://ischool.uw.edu/people/faculty/profile/anind Gregory Abowd - http://ubicomp.cc.gatech.edu/gregory-d-abowd/ Scott Hudson - https://hcii.cmu.edu/people/scott-hudson Gillian Hayes - https://www.gillianhayes.com James Landay - https://www.landay.org WISH - https://wish-symposium.org Articles about or by Jennifer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Mankoffhttps://www.cs.washington.edu/people/faculty/jmankoffhttps://news.cs.washington.edu/2017/06/28/allen-school-set-to-amplify-uws-leadership-in-human-computer-interaction-with-new-hires-jennifer-mankoff-and-jon-froehlich/Jennifer’s story around disability and chronic disease as an academichttps://www.lymedisease.org/disability-community-mankoff/ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-00112-7https://www.geekwire.com/2018/working-geek-uw-computer-scientist-jennifer-mankoff-channeled-adversity-career-path/ Publication: Early et al, 2018, Understanding Gender Equity in Author Order Assignment

Moshe Vardi is a Professor of Computer Science at Rice University in the US and holds numerous honours and awards. This is the second part of our conversation where we focus more on the changes and challenges in academic life. Moshe reflects on: the increasing pressures to publish, the seduction of big data on how we evaluate research, and the increasing pressure and stress on students for these and other reasons; how we need academics to get more involved in social issues but that we are instead training people to be self-centred focusing on their own careers just at a time when we need then to get more involved in social issues; whether we should be focusing mentoring more on post-tenure people because of how hard it is to sustain an innovative research agenda over time; and why we need to have more conversations about our obligations as academics to take more social responsibility.The first part of the conversation (separate podcast) discusses the social implications of technology & our responsibility not just computer scientists but all academics.“Now people feel that if they don’t graduate with 10 papers they are not competitive in the job market.” “Assessing research is like assessing art. History will decide what is important, what is not important. We have to make some judgement now but we have to be incredibly modest about the quality of our judgement. … data gives the illusion it is measurable.” “We are basically telling people, just be self-centred, then we’re discovering very often after they have received tenure of full professor, oh my goodness they are really self-centred! … We’ve selected them for being self-centred. This is the paradox of academia.” “We expect people to be innovative now for 45 years. That’s incredibly difficult.”He talks about (times approximate) … [You can also download a full transcript here]01:35 Reflecting on changes in academia over time – an inflationary process going on, publication expectations. And the expectation of having many papers now is corrupting the system. There is increasing pressure on PhD students now.06:35 Technology making it easier now for more transparency re number of publications, citations. Not convinced it is helpful. Talks about being asked to talk at an EU conference about how to use big data to help in evaluation of research and innovation and he gave a cautionary account – can we be sure we know what to measure. How do you assess research? Data giving the illusion it is measurable. But significance doesn’t always translate into h-Indexes. 11:07 He has been told that 40% of students at his university are going to counselling services to ask for help. Discusses reasons why this might be the case. Economic anxiety. Crisis in the humanities because of rising cost of tuition and wanting to get a well-paying job. So increasing engineering students. Needing humanities to be involved in the discussions about technology and human life and dignity, answering questions about what is the good life, understanding lessons from history. Learnt a new phrase recently, lawnmower parenting – holding and pushing. So partly how we raise our children. Talks about ‘snowflakes’ and this generation of students being much more fragile. Needs to be more sensitive to this, teaching his students where they are. Tries to be more gentle and encouraging.17:40 How he wasn’t always like this. Growing up in Israel in a very direct culture.19:30 My question about late career stage and more freedom to become involved in social issues and ethics? Discusses how he was never on a tenure track. But wouldn’t advise someone on a tenure track to do what he is doing now. First have to show you can do research and scholarship, telling people they have to be self-centred but then finding we have self-selected for self-centredness – the paradox of academia. Discuss22:06 Discusses that we are mentoring the wrong people, shouldn’t be focused on assistant professors (though of course should be mentoring young people). The biggest risk to the institution is that people will get tenure and have another 30-35 years to go … and not stay productive. People don’t realise how hard it is to keep coming up with new ideas. Most people want to feel they are useful, to contribute. But the challenges of trying to mentor senior people and so it doesn’t happen much. And personally feeling awkward having this sort of conversation with a fellow full professor.28:30 Shifting the language from mentoring to coaching? Talks about a surgeon in New York who wrote an article about having coaching. We don’t have coaches but maybe we should. The culture of success makes this a bit more difficult to have such conversations though. Discusses his experiences as a chair doing evaluations of full professors in his department. Could only do them easily for the people who don’t need them. Going away from annual evaluations in the business world, instead feedback on a continual basis. Needing training. More about asking questions than giving answers. The difficulty when people don’t want to recognize what’s not going well, and even not admit it to themselves.35:50 Needing more of a conversation about our social responsibility as academics. But focus instead is on career, show us you are smarter than the other one. We need to talk more about privileges and obligations. Do faculty have an obligation for public service? We usually stop the thinking about service at faculty, school, university, profession. But need to have a conversation about what are our societal obligations. Gives as an issue, how technology is impacting society. We are public servants, what does it mean. We need to open this conversation.41:00 Practical measures? Launching an initiative at Rice to discuss exactly this. Rice found itself on front page news with CRISPR. The students are now saying we need more ethics training. Maybe the biggest impact on the future is education. Discusses how he talked about this topic recently with first year students. Thinks we have a chance with the next generation. And being careful about not leaving people behind (mentions Dream Hoarders book).48:25 Goes back to his religious background. Lots of ‘do this, don’t do that’. ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. The rest is commentary’. Beyond getting on with people as social skill, it is social justice as part of the value system. Somehow it’s not part of the conversation. 51:49 EndRelated Linkshttps://www.acm.org/articles/people-of-acm/2017/moshe-vardiCarol Greider: Carol Greider - Same day, a Nobel prize and a grant rejection ...Donna Strickland: Female Nobel prize winner deemed not important enough for a Wikipeadia entry.Atul Gawande The Coach in the Operating Room | The New YorkerRice Uni & CRISPR in the news Rice University Professor Helped Generate CRISPR'd Babies | The ...David Hendry – Uni of Washington https://faculty.washington.edu/dhendry/Richard Reeves, Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About ItA PhD is not Enough