In the very first paper session at CHI 2026, I found myself thinking, “I wish I wrote this paper!” And then I found myself thinking that a few times more. Since I’m on the hunt for new research questions, it seems worth digging into why I had these reactions. I’ll do so here.
For each paper, I’ll address the following questions:
CHI 2026 in Barcelona was part of my original sabbatical plan. CHI is the premier conference spanning all areas of human-computer interaction, and Barcelona is a direct flight from the UK.
It’s been ten years since I last attended CHI 2016 in San Jose. Why so long? I had a baby in 2017, and there was a pandemic in 2020. Beyond those temporal factors, there are structural factors too. CHI is an expensive conference, and travel is expensive since the location rotates between North America, Europe, and Asia. CHI is typically scheduled for April or May, a difficult time to get away from Whitman: April is the “month of 1000 nights” chock full of final presentations and performances, including the Whitman Undergraduate Conference, running up to final exams and Commencement in May. It’s hard to justify attending a conference if I have nothing to present there, but classes to teach at home.
Continue readingAt the University of Cambridge, the academic year has three eight-week terms. I’m now celebrating a successful conclusion to my first term at Cambridge – a good time to look back and reflect.
A term goes by really fast, but it’s a bit more than eight weeks in practice. In fact, the Cambridge academic calendar is quite confusing! Lectures don’t start at the beginning of term, but rather a week or two later. “Full Term” begins two days before the start of lectures and ends two days after. Students and Fellows must be in residence in Cambridge during the entirety of Full Term, with few exceptions. The days at the beginning of Full Term are time for academic advising and settling in before lectures start. The days at the end are not for exams, as they would be at most US institutions. Instead, they allow for supervision and academic advising meetings after the last lectures are over.
My previous post was published Monday, January 19, the day before the first day of Full Term. As I write today, it’s Thursday, March 26, the day after the last day of Lent Term.
Although there are precisely eight weeks of lectures, the first lectures are on a Thursday and the last are on a Wednesday. Since my workweek is Monday through Friday, I’ll number my weeks as such below – starting, of course, from 0.
Continue readingI’m starting over again – this time at one of the oldest universities in the world.
Friends and colleagues know I’m on sabbatical this year from my position at Whitman. For once, I’m the trailing spouse: my husband has long-standing collaborations with faculty at the University of Cambridge. I came here with a need to reboot my research and an open mind about what form new collaborations might take.
Continue readingHere’s my usual report on our spring 2025 enrollments, as of week 2 of the semester.
| Number | Title | Enrolled/Cap | under Math | She:He |
| CS 167-A,B | Intro. Computational Problem Solving | 51/60 | 1:2 | |
| CS 210-A,B | Computer Systems Fundamentals | 40/40 | 3:5 | |
| CS/Math 215 | Introduction to Data Science | 26/25 | 1 | 1:1 |
| CS 255 | Computer Simulation Methods | 21/24 | 1:2 | |
| CS 267 | Human-Computer Interaction | 16/16 | 1:1 | |
| CS 270-A,B | Data Structures | 21/32 | 1:3 | |
| CS 303 | ST: Computational Exercises | 12/30 | 1:3 | |
| CS/Math 327 | Algorithm Design & Analysis | 21/24 | 1 | 1:4 |
| CS/Math 350 | Foundations of Machine Learning | 23/20 | 20 | 1:3 |
| CS 370 | Software Design | 24/20 | 1:2 | |
| CS 496 | Capstone Project II | 22/16 | 1:3 |
I spent this past weekend at The Hackers Conference, “an annual invitation-only conference traditionally held in the San Francisco Bay Area.” I was invited by my sister, a computer engineer based in Santa Clara, CA, and I was too curious not to attend.
Continue readingToday in our weekly CS Pizza talk and discussion series, the CS department hosted a panel of senior CS majors sharing their off-campus study experiences. Five juniors went abroad last year, and four were able to join the lunchtime panel. I was unable to attend because of my daughter’s early school dismissal, but I hear it went really well!
LJ Friedman, who was unable to join the panel due to a conflicting class, offered to write up his experiences. I offered to share it as a guest post in my blog, and here it is!
Hi! My name is LJ Friedman. I’m a senior Computer Science major and am expecting to minor in Psychology, Math, and Music. I chose to study in Copenhagen because of the offered classes and the location. The program had several courses I was interested in that were more niche and/or didn’t exist at Whitman, and I was excited to take a spread of both Computer Science and Psychology courses that covered topics I otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to take. I was primarily interested in the Game Design course, which focused on teaching game design, coding organization, and Unity and C#. There were also Psychology courses that I was particularly interested in, specifically a course on identity, conflict, and discrimination.
Continue reading
Here’s my usual report on our fall 2024 enrollments, as of week 2 of the semester.
Continue readingOne of the responsibilities of the department chair is to introduce new colleagues at the first faculty meeting of the new academic year. So I just wrote one-minute introductions for my new colleagues, Sachintha Pitigala and Richard Torres Molina. I thought I’d share them here:
Sachintha Pitigala joins us this year from Sri Lanka, where he is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Kelaniya. Sachintha is not a stranger to the United States, however, as he earned his PhD in Computational Science at Middle Tennessee State University. His dissertation focused on “Developing a personalized article retrieval system for PubMed.” At Whitman, Sachintha will draw on his depth of experience to teach our introductory course, CS 167, as well as a course on Machine Learning or Artificial Intelligence this spring. His most recent research applies machine learning techniques to simulating drone dynamics.
Richard Torres Molina joins us from Virginia Tech, where he just completed a Masters degree in Computer Science and Applications. Richard, too, is a global citizen. After earning a bachelors degree in Information Technology in his home country of Ecuador, Richard went on to earn a further certificate in Information Technology in Shenzhen, China, a certificate in Chinese Language and Culture in Beijing, and a Masters degree in Advanced Systems Dependability jointly from the University of St Andrews and the University of Lorraine. At Whitman, Richard will be teaching a special topics course on Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development Goals, as well as our regular courses on Data Structures and Software Design.
Watch here for the ongoing saga of course registration for the fall 2024 semester. In the meantime, please join me in welcoming Sachintha and Richard!
Counting From Zero 