hcii20: ph.d. alumni in industry

Ph.D. Alumni in

IndustryTuradg Aleahmad, Daniel Avrahami, Jeffrey

Nichols

Format10 minute talks

30 minutes of Q&A

One Ph.D. in Industry

Daniel Avrahami

about.me

Joined the HCI Masters program in 1999

Here is one of my first projects:

about.me

Joined the HCI Masters program in 1999

In 2001, joined the 2nd class of the PhD program My thesis was on something important, no doubt

Timeline and Outline

Daniel Avrahami

200720112014

Senior Researcher & UX Innovation LeadPC Client Group, Intel

Masters and Ph.D. in HCICarnegie Mellon

Senior ResearcherIntel Research Seattle

Senior Research ScientistFX Palo Alto Lab

(at least ) 5 types of industry environments

Industrial Research

R&D (Big Company)

Product Group(Big Company)

Join a StartupFound a Startup


Daniel Avrahami

200720112014





Intel Research Seattle

Small, interdisciplinary, approximately 15 Ph.D.s

One of three “lablets” that were set to collaborate with specific universities (CMU, UW, UC Berkeley)

Goals: External and Internal impact through involvement and leadership in the research community, tech-transfer and thought influence within Intel

Nomadic Smart Spaces

UIST’09

UIST’11IJCAI

UbiComp’10

Nomadic Smart Spaces

Shaun Kane (CU Boulder) Adam Rea (elarm) Stephanie Rosenthal (CMU) Ken Lafond (InspectorADE)

Jake Wobbrock (UW) Georgios Theocharous (Adobe) Richard Beckwith (Intel)


Daniel Avrahami

200720112014





Intel Research shut down

It was during Intel’s highest earning year of all times ($54 billion in revenue)

I was (almost) too “Researchy” for industry This year, when I decided to leave the product group, I

was (almost) too “Industry” for research

A necessity for introspection: What is my dream job? What is important for me?

Get things “out” A conversation with Bo Begole about model airplanes

Make work my hobby

I was asked to help create a UX team in Intel’s PC group


Daniel Avrahami

200720112014





My work at Intel’s PC Group

Helped build a UX team

Guided product planning through prototypes and interactive concepts

Led a program focused on content creation for everyday people

R&D: Prototypes and Concepting

Enhancing media creation and consumption

A trick to use: Set an imaginary peer-review bar

Product Development

Enhancing media creation and consumption

A trick to use: Set an imaginary peer-review bar

Forming a x-division “Digital Storytelling” task force

Worked with a software vendor to ship a product in 9 months

Launched a Video Metadata Framework development effort (still ongoing! W00t!)

Direct and Indirect Impact

Took a product from initial research, to an active x-group program, to shipping on ~10 million PCs

Broadened the company’s focus on content creation beyond the professional user

Launched the Video Metadata Framework dev.


Daniel Avrahami

200720112014





Research at FXPAL

Stands for FX Palo Alto Laboratory An industrial research lab that started 19 years ago 17 researchers (soon to be 18) Multimedia, HCI, Smart Spaces, Telepresence, Data

Science

Full-time and internship opportunities (fxpal.com/careers)

Joined 6th months ago. Working on Remote collaboration and telepresence State and activity recognition with wearable sensors Multimedia

Study of remote telepresence

In a controlled study, groups of 3 evaluated a “sales trainee”

Local participants in the Kinetic condition behaved differently from local participants in the Static condition

Behavior and perception of remote participants was not sig. different

Need to enhance a user’s sense of presence in the remote space

To appear in CSCW’15

Face-to-Face

“Static” video conferencing

“Kinetic” video conferencing

Some thoughts for discussion

Why is industrial research work awesome?

You get to explore topics that interest you You need to wrap it in a reasonable story

You don’t need to worry about funding At work or at home ;-)

You can be involved in the broader research community

You can share and talk about your work

However, the ability to have direct impact on the company and its products is very difficult Examples: PerC Group, PlaceLab

If you go to industry…

Realize that things can change abruptly

Figure out what options you want to keep open

Q: What would I talk about if I can’t talk publicly about my main projects?

Q: I can’t publish. What can I do so that my CV won’t stay the same for years?

Ph.D. in Startup

Turadg Aleahmad

PhD in a StartupTuradg Aleahmad @

n=1

Why I chose industry

What it’s like in a startup

Value of a PhD in a startup

My interests

Improve education using technology at scale.

Make things in the world that people use.

Spread knowledge.

1998 Programming Web-based learning

2006 Started HCII

2010 Considered leaving for industry

Changed gears in research

My PhD

Towards industry

2011 Won Startup Weekend

2012 Defended

Cofounded a startup

2013 Coursera

Universal access to world-class education.

Great people. Great impact.

Huge potential.

Coursera

Move very fast, no time to think deeply

Things changed constantly

Coding a lot more than I had planned to

If you like publishing, forget it for a while

Cons of a startup for PhDs

Work with brilliant ambitious people to make

something happen; everyone very aligned

Super rewarding to be making the mission

happen; takes many different skills

Learn about what it takes to make an

innovation self-sustaining

Pros of a startup for PhDs

● researchers unhappyo data sharing policy

o access rights

● job system kept breakingo rewrote it in place

● no team serving our university partnerso eng manager

o data quality

o dashboard architecture

● frontend code reuse difficult as we scaledo building new stack for componentization

No shortage of problems

Research question: can we find a sustainable

business model for the thing that we want to

exist in the world?

● Resourcefulness

● Skill at prioritization

● Risk-taking

● Comfort in roles you’re not good at

● Being data-driven and empirical

Value of PhD training at a startup

Start-ups are a great place to learn.

Taking a good company from one stage to the

next is both challenging and interesting.

There are companies with great social missions

to contribute to.Coursera is a great place to work, talk to me if you want to.

Take-aways

I should have a better

title for this talk

Jeff Nichols

My Research

2000 2006 2014

Mobile

Web

Social Media

UI AutoGen

End-user Programming

Q&A

Some sample questions:

• How is industry different than

academia?

• Can I still publish?

• Should I still publish?

• How do I convince my boss to let

me go to CHI?

• How do I politely refuse requests

for funding from my academic

friends?

• …

Ph.D. Alumni in

IndustryTuradg Aleahmad, Daniel Avrahami, Jeffrey

Nichols

hcii20: ph.d. alumni in industry

Education

research community

product group

ux teamguided product

hci masters program

intels pc grouphelped

intels pc grouptimeline

content creation

consumptiona trick