Friday, September 5, 2008

Who am I academically

I am now a second year PhD student in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University. I am in the Computer Supported Collaboration and Learning Lab and Center for Human Computer Interaction under the supervision of Dr. John M. Carroll.

My research interests lie at community informatics and related social & psychological issues. I am exploring supporting the academic collaboration in CiteceerX as a research assistant with Dr. Lee Giles' lab. I am investigating social tagging and recommender systems, and now is writing a paper for that. I am also interested in applying social theories in the information society, for example, I am using the theory of constructuration to explain the dynamics in online community. I also investigate social capital and social ties in virtual environment.

Prior to my PhD study, I had worked as a research & development engineer at IBM China Research Lab since 2003, where my research topics mainly concerned with supporting collaborative activities of knowledge workers. For example, I studied interfaces to help coordinating interruptions in workplace; I focused on activity centered project management for two years.

When I was in the Department of Psychology at Peking University, I spent two years in the Brain and Cognitive Science Center and studied phonological processing of Chinese. I did my dissertation in Personality and Social Psychological Lab on cultural differences on thinking styles and their influences on conflict management styles.


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