Ph.D. Student Wins Best Paper Award at CHI 2014 and Then Heads to Summer Internship at IBM TJ Watson
Sixth-Year Ph.D. Student Yunfeng Zhang received a Best Paper Award at CHI 2014, the leading conference on human-computer interaction research, for his paper entitled “Understanding multitasking through strategy exploration and individualized cognitive modeling.” Yunfeng was first author on the paper, which he wrote with his Ph.D. advisor, Anthony Hornof. The paper is groundbreaking in many ways, including that it is the first time that a computer cluster (in this case the UO ACISS cluster) has been used to explore the cognitive task strategies that people use in a complex human-computer interaction task. The research shows how optimal multitasking performance results from “micro-strategic” decisions of when to move the eyes and hands between multiple tasks.
After receiving this award and presenting this paper (very skillfully, it is reported) in Toronto in early May, Yunfeng flew straight to New York City to start a summer research internship at the prestigious IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights. Yunfeng reported back to Oregon “My first day at IBM went very well. It turns out Bonnie John works in the same lab; we actually work in the same room! She was very nice to me and we had lunch together with Rachel [Bellamy] and Shari [Trewin]. She’s also joining our meeting tomorrow with Wendy [Kellogg]. I feel like I'm living in a dream working with all these great researchers.”
Congratulations to Yunfeng for all of his accomplishments, and to the CIS Department for launching another UO student on a successful research career!