Who am I?

Hello! I'm a third year undergraduate student at Wellesley College , majoring in Computer Science. My area of interest is in Human-Computer Interaction, and more specifically in developing new interactions and applications for multi-touch and tabletop interfaces as well as exploring areas in gesture recognition.

Currently I'm a research student in the Wellesley College Human Computer Interaction laboratory, pursuing several ongoing projects in the lab.

Welcome to the lab!

Here are some of the research projects I am working on/worked as a part of the HCI Lab at Wellesley:

Hover over for info. Click for details

What I've been cooking during spare time...

ChickieStack (iPhone/iPad/Andriod game)

My buddy Heidi and I have been looking into developing a mobile application game involving chickens and gravity (See chickens to the right). This project is still in its initial design and conceptual stages, so stay tuned for more updates on this!

Nudge

An entry for the UIST 2011 Student Innovation Contest, Nudge is a project designed to facilitate haptic communication via long distance.
With vibration motors mounted to the shells of Microsoft Touch Mouses, my friends (Consuelo and Heidi) and I attempted to simulate another user's interaction with their mouse using various vibration patterns.
With a pair of synched up Touch Mice, as you put your hand on the mouse during normal use, whenever the other user moves their hand over the same location on the mouse (either via click, tapping, or swiping motions), that location on your mouse will vibrate as if the two users' hands are coming into contact physically.
We also came up with a playful "Simon Says"-alike game using this interaction, by having one user perform a series of actions on their mouse (tapping, swiping, or drumming their fingers on various locations) and testing if the other user can replicate the same motions on their mouse to score points.
[Microsoft TouchMouse API | C# | Arduino IDE | Processing]

In the near future...

I'm eager to get started on some kinect-related mini-project in the upcoming months, maybe as well as a little XNA programming if I get a chance. Fingers crossed for a little free time!

Resume

PDF download

Education

Wellesley College, Wellesley MA Anticipated in May 2013
Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science Advised by Dr.Orit Shaer
Related Coursework: Tangible User Interface, Data Structures, Web Search and Data Mining, Human-Computer Interaction, Fundamental Algorithms, Basic 3-Dimensional Design, Machine Organization*, Languages & Automata*, Computer Vision*, Theory of Programming Lnaugages+, Dynamic Interface Design+
*Courses in progress, +Courses in Spring '12

Work Experience


Wellesley College Human Computer Interaction laboratory9/2010 - Present
Research Assistant
  • GreenTouch: supporting data aggregation and visualization for Biology courses on campus. [Microsoft Surface | C#]
  • G-nome Surfer 2.0: for collaborative exploratino of genomic information [Microsoft Surface | C#]
  • Wellesley College HCI lab website
  • Morphess: TEI 2010 Student Design Challenge, placed 2nd in "Presentation and Style"

    • Wellesley College Computing Help Desk8/2011 - Present
    Information Services Consultant
  • Provide software and hardware IT support to faculties and students on college campus

    • Wellesley College Disability Services8/2011 - Present
    Technology Assistant
  • Redesigned layout for website as well as providing updates and maintenance

    • Wellesley College Summer Research Program6/2010 - 8/2010, 6/2011 - 8/2011
    Research Intern
  • G-nome Surfer Pro: biosynthetic research software suite for iGEM (Won Best Software in World Jamboree, Gold Medals in both World and Regional Jamborees), using MVVM architectural pattern [Microsoft Surface | C#]
  • BU-Wellesley iGEM team's wiki page
  • 40-student user studies experiment through 35+ hours of video and audio analysis, behavior categorization, and quantitative questionnaire assessment

    • Publications

    O.Shaer, M.Strait, C.Valdes, T.Feng, M.Lintz and H.Wang, G-nome Surfer: a Tabletop Interface for Collaborative Exploration of Genomic Visualization, BioVis IEEE symposium on biological data visualiztion, October 2011.

    O.Shaer, M.Strait, C.Valdes, T.Feng, M.Lintz, H.Wang. Enhancing Genomic Learning through Tabletop Interaction. In Proc. Of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2011. [26% acceptance rate].

    Skills and Interests

    OS: Windows 9X/2000/XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X
    Applications: Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Design Suite, Apple FinalCutPro 7
    Computer Languages: Java, C#, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Objective C, MATLAB, SML/NJ, Processing
    Other Languages: Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Shanghainese, proficient in Spanish

    Contact Me

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    Hehehehehe~

    Random stuff coming up soon!~