I am new faculty. I started in August (2018). My background is in electrical computer engineering and then I worked for Intel for a couple of years in Boston, Massachusetts. And then while I was there I got very interested in education and how my engineering background can kind of meld into something that the social inequities I was seeing in the education system. That led me to reading research articles and then deciding to go back to school. Then I ended up in Georgia Tech in their human-centered computing program focusing on learning sciences and technology. And then more specifically on computing education.

Can we backtrack a bit and find our where your are from? We would love to know about you as a person as well as your educational background.

I grew up in Columbia, Maryland which is the suburbs between Baltimore and DC. I pretty much lived there my whole life until I went to college and then I was like, "I'm getting out." So I went to New York for college and that was awesome.

It must have been nice to go to a big city from a small town.

Actually, I went to Ithaca, NY. I was in Cornell. It's a small town! It's really tiny but it's beautiful. Ithaca is gorgeous because there are lots of waterfalls and hiking around there which is awesome. When I was done my four years there I was like, "I need to get to a city." From there I moved to Boston, which is where I worked for Intel. Ithaca is somewhere you might have a summer home but not good forever.

I was working in Intel in Boston and after that  I went to Atlanta to go to Georgia Tech. That was really awesome. Atlanta is a fantastic city. It is weird though since it doesn't snow. But I guess I got great summers and falls. I can bike a lot there which is cool. That is when I went back for my PhD. The degree was called Human-Centered Computing which is like a UX  (user-experience) degree. And that's basically similar to UX or HCI (human-computer interaction). I had a concentration on learning sciences and technology which is the education part.

Why did you join LTXD?

One of the main things that I was always looking for was having a group of people I enjoyed being around. That was a huge part. The program does a great job of mixing the technology and education together. It was just a really cool environment because Georgia Tech doesn't have an education school. While [education] was something you could work on while you were there, it wasn't a core focus. Coming to NYU was really awesome not only to see [education] ingrained in the work the professors are involved in, but also it is the interests of the students. Just having this great focus as well as being in MAGNET with the engineering school and people from the IDM (Integrated Digital Media) program. [DMDL is] really great just in terms of being that interdisciplinary space that I feel that education should be. And so, as an engineer coming into it, I feel that it offered a lot of opportunity for me to grow in the education space. I hope I complement the program as well. Everything kind of fit. When I got here I really enjoyed all the different types of work the faculty was engaged in. They are all a great people!

What is your position at LTXD?

My title is: Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Learning Sciences. It's a giant one! It doesn't fit on all the forms I have to fill out.

What does that encompass?

In general, it is how to study the design of technology, all the way from low-level interactions until how it fits into society in general. It is kind of the overlap of [technology design] and how people learn. It's broad in a lot of ways but I think it is a nice niche to be in.

Which classes do you teach?

I started teaching the UX course in the fall. Then I taught Design Process for Learning this past spring. I am hopefully going to continue teaching those.

What other positions have you held in the last 10-15 years?

I worked at Intel as a validation engineer. I tested server processors as my job while I was working there. I did that for about three years. I also did some internships. I worked for Adobe Creative Labs doing research on video processing software. That was [for] a summer in The Bay [area]. Before that I was in college.

So when you came to LTXD you came straight from finishing your PhD?

Yeah. It worked out well. It was a great fit.

Can you tell me about some of the research projects you are working on?

I am doing a couple. One of them is called "DIVAS for Social Justice". They have been around for about eight years doing after-school STEM programming for Title 1 schools. They recently acquired a storefront in Bed-Sty. I have been working with some of the students here, like Joey and Shiri, to try to figure out how to make it into a maker-space that serves the needs of the community. We have been doing some work with the organizational leaders, some of the students who participate in their programming, and some of the people who work in organizations just around the area. That has been really interesting because if you look at some of the maker-spaces that exist they really only service people who already know how to build things. There are a lot of engineers and people who are already working in those disciplines and [typically maker-spaces] don't do a great job of getting new people in and learning new things. We actually just had a kickoff this past Saturday. It was pretty cool! We had everyone from [children who are] five years old to the elderly soldering different LED boards. That is one of the projects.

Another project I am working on is trying to understand how we can create more equitable learning environments with computing by creating interdisciplinary spaces between the arts and computing. One of the groups that we are just starting to work with is called "STEM from Dance". They already started doing some computing and dance workshops for students. They are trying to expand what they are able to do in these spaces as well as improve what they are already doing. Some of the biggest problems is that sometimes the tech is unreliable, they take on projects that are too big for them to actually accomplish, or they might start going down the wrong path and they don't necessarily know until it's too late. There is a lot of work that I think needs to be done from an educational side of things. Like, how to create computing tools that you can integrated better for these other disciplines [which will] then offer a more seamless educational experience for the student.

Can you explain what computing and dance mean?

Part of it we are trying to figure out! I can give you an example from some of the work that I did in my dissertation which is a project called the MoveLab. In the project the students reflected on issues they encountered in their lives and then created dance moves and also electronic interactions that would help them represent these ideas. [For example,] one of the groups did it on bullying and standing up to the bully. They had these dance moves where they were miming bullying and they would put capacitive touch sensors on their clothing and they had LEDs and a buzzer that would be triggered when they were being pushed down in the dance. By the end of the dance they made it so they actually became friends with their bully. Then the lights changed colors. It's this idea that you can create another medium for expression through the use of computing in dance, which itself is already an expressive medium.

We are looking at that and we are also starting to work with Yoav (Bergner, Ph.D.} trying to improve their practices. He is looking at video capture to overlay skeletons of the body so [the dancers] can tell if [their] arms weren't in the right position or if [they] weren't stepping on cue with the rest of the dancers. I think there are lots of different ways computing can help dancers not only to represent what they are doing but to also reflect on their own practices and become better dancers.

How do students at NYU get involved in your projects?

We did a research pitch last fall, and through that some students approached me and said they were interested in what I was doing. At that point the research was not that well formed and I was just starting to create relationships with the organizations that I am now working with. The students approached me and I [informed them that], this was the state [of the project], this is where we could go and these are some of my ideas. Let's work together and see what we can do.

Are the students doing the work as an internship or just for experience or knowledge?

They are just doing it for their own knowledge because I was at the point where I didn't yet have funding to pay them. I also offered some of the students to do an independent study if they wanted. But most of them wanted to do it for the experience and so they work with me when they could and when they have other obligations they kind of faded in and out.

What would you say is unique about the LTXD and G4L programs?

There's a lot, really! One of the things I thought was awesome was the different types of students you get in the program; everyone from lawyers to teachers to engineers to entrepreneurs. I feel that one of the things [that's unique] is that the students themselves bring such a wide spectrum of knowledge and experience to the program. Not only professors like myself can learn from them but, also, they offer experiences for everyone to learn from each other. And then I love that there's a Games for Learning program. There are not that many programs across the US that [teach] the engineering concepts as well as the education literature at the same time. I feel that the DMDL program is doing a great job in general at strengthening the tie between technology and education through the programming and how it's designed. A lot of the schools that offer programs in this field, either focus on engineering with a specialization in education or focus on education with an option to take classes in technology. I feel like this [program] is strongly emphasizing both of them. It does it both in the course requirements and in the projects that everyone does.

Do you have any advice for those in the middle of or about to begin pursuing their degree in this program?

I think one of the great things about being at NYU is that you get some elective courses that allow you to push your interests in different directions. So I would say, definitely take advantage of some of the different courses that are offered around NYU for those electives. And take advantage of the students around you. Get to know them, get to know their experiences. I think those things are really important. Most of the people here are already passionate, so it's not necessarily finding your passions but it's about being able to carry through with them. I think that NYU has a lot of resources to make that happen. It's about understanding that they are there and taking advantage of them.

Any final thoughts?

It's awesome so far being here. I feel that I am learning a lot and developing my career. I am just happy to be here!