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Niklas Elmqvist is co-PI on a $3M NSF Convergence Accelerator grant led by Karthik Ramani (the Donald W. Feddersen Distinguished Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University). This project aims to develop new workforce training using augmented and virtual reality.  This project, SkillXR, will focus on the manufacturing industry, which traditionally has had low-tech employee training methods (in-person…

At the end of October, visualization researchers from all around the world usually gather for the IEEE Visualization conference. The Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at University of Maryland will be among them with a strong showing of papers, panels and other presentations. Read on for more details.

  Catherine Plaisant’s paper “The challenge of information visualization evaluation” from AVI 2004 was honored by ACM SIGMM  (Multimedia) today. For the first time ACM SIGMM gave Test of Time awards this year. The selection committee looked at 10 year old papers to give the 2020 award, then gave a single honourable mention for each…

Daniel Votipka, a CS PhD student in the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2) and HCIL is a recipient of the 2020 John Karat Usable Privacy and Security Student Research Award for his excellence in research and dedication to mentorship and community service. Daniel was recognized for the award at the 2020 Symposium on Usable Privacy and…

Jonathan Lazar was named the winner of the 2020 ACM SIGACCESS Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computing and Accessibility. It is the highest award given by ACM SIGACCESS (Special Interest Groups on Accessible Computing), and it’s only given once every two years. The award will be given at the ASSETS conference in October, at which Jonathan will give a keynote speech.

There is no doubt that 2019–2020 is yet another fruitful year for HCIL. All year round, faculty, staff, and students in the HCIL have been receiving great news, from best research paper awards at top research venues to research grants and fellowships from both government agencies and industrial partners. These accomplishments show that the HCIL…

The HCIL at University of Maryland has a long and rich history of transforming the experience people have with new technologies. One way we do this is in communicating our research to the rest of the world. Now we are taking another step by introducing “Sparks of Innovation: Stories from the HCIL”, a Medium publication for sharing our…

Catherine Plaisant, Associate Director of Research of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab and a senior research scientist in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), has been recognized by the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) with its Lifetime Service Award. Read more>

The Vis Academy was established this year to recognize significant accomplishments by researchers in computer visualization who directly bolster the endeavors of the entire field.  Ben Shneiderman (left in photo), distinguished university professor emeritus and HCI pioneer and first director of HCIL, and  Amitabh Varshney(right), professor and dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences,…

At the end of October this year, visualization researchers from all around the world will gather at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada for the annual celebration of world-class visualization research known as IEEE VIS. The Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at University of Maryland will be among them with a strong showing of six full papers at…