So I ended up in computer science because I thought I
could have an opportunity when I graduated, and I was pretty good
at it. And that led me to the field of computing
or computing science.
One, one of my mentors told me that, you know, don't give up
and don't quit. It was a time when I was looking at leaving my
graduate program because I thought I was the only African
American in the world who was getting a PhD in computer
science. I never met one. And when I met one, she told me, she
said, there's more of us. Very few, but there's more. And if
you hang in there you'll be able to bring others behind you.
So don't quit.
My most memorable scientific experiment was when I was an
undergrad. And I was hired to, to play with a robot. So we had
this robotic arm, and the, the research project was, can you
use the robotic arm and a camera to see knobs on a table, go find
and pick them up, and put them in a, in a, in a box? And so I
wrote software to coordinate between the camera's vision and
the robot's arm to actually do that. And they, they showed it
off in the department and things like that.
The excitement of discovery. So I work in an area called
human-centered computing. And what we do is we build
innovative solutions to real world or applied problems. So
all the things we work on are, have a sort of social impact and
a social context. So when you look at it from that perspective
of doing research in that area, whenever you make a
discovery, whenever you invent something or you have a
breakthrough, it's really exciting because you know it can
actually change the world and help people.
Patience and perseverance. You have to be patient because you
don't know what your results are gonna be. And being patient
means your going to be methodical in how you actually
go through the process of finding your results. Because
you understand the importance of that. And then when you
don't get the results that you expected based on your
hypothesis, you, you have to persevere, and you go in
a different direction.
We've created the world's most accessible voting technology,
meaning more people can vote on this single technology that we
created out of our research than any other in the history of man.
So this technology allows you to vote by touch and/or voice.
So, and the way we designed it, it enables people that can't
see, people that can't hear, those that can't read, and even
people without arms, can all privately and independently vote
on the same technology as any other person. The other one I
talked about, our ability to create games or, using hip
hop and animation to teach kids algebra. We, we found
that using this technique has been extremely engaging. Kids
that said they couldn't do math, that they don't like math, we
found them engaging in these games and doing math in a
similar way that they play games. As often the case, you
see a kid, they play a game, you say, okay, it's time to stop,
you've been playing for an hour. And they'll say, I just started.
We're getting similar results in teaching math.
My students. I think a lot of my thinking as a researcher,
watching my students do their training and development, has
really impacted my approach to doing research. You watch
someone who has not been thoroughly or completely trained
in research, and as you train them, you learn about the,
the little intricacies and details as far as how research
should be done.
What we often see, in particular amongst women and members of
underrepresented groups or minorities, those groups tend to
go to what we call "helping professions." Fields that deal
with, that clearly show how you can give back and help other
people. And so what we've discovered is that a lot of
these people in those groups see science, technology,
engineering, math, computer science, as disciplines that
work with phenomenon and artifacts. And the connection
isn't there, how, how can computing be used to help
other people. How can it be used to benefit others. Well,
when they look at the work we do in human-centered computing,
that picture becomes clear. They understand that, wow, you can
actually use computing and help people vote that couldn't vote
before. Or you can use computing to help people learn something.
Or you can use computing to make driving and communicating more
safe. So once they see how you can engage around those areas,
that, that is the big selling point.
My laptop. Everything's on my laptop. I'm assuming none of my
students are in the lab at that time. Obviously my students
would take first priority. But if it was an artifact, it'd
have to be my laptop.
On my iPod I have hip hop, I have R and B, and some rock.
I listen to all kinds of stuff.