HCI Faculty
There are three permanent graduate faculty in the Department of Computer Science who predominatly run the HCI masters program. However, many other seminars, electives and courses that our students can take are offered in multiple departments by an number of diverse faculty.
Damian Schofield
Damian is currently the Director of Human Computer Interaction (Full Professor) at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego, a position he has held since November 2009. He also currently Adjunct Associate Professor of Forensic Computing at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. Prior to his move to America, Damian held the position of the Associate Professor of Computer Games and Digital Media, in the School of Creative Media at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Before his move out to Australia, he was a Lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, UK. Damian also remains a director and major shareholder of Aims Solutions Ltd., a UK based company created in 2000, to provide computer graphics visualization services and virtual reality based simulation training products to a wide range of public and private sector organizations.
Damian has been involved in research examining the use of digital evidence in courtrooms, particularly virtual reconstructions (using computer games/graphics technology), for nearly 20 years. He is specifically interested in the representation and understanding of visual evidentiary information in the courtroom environment. Damian is regularly used as an expert witness in courts all over the world and has worked on many high profile cases and acted as a consultant for the FBI. Recently, he has tended to work on whatever research projects his students think up - he is currently very interested in robot theater productions, augmented reality surgery and the possibilities of geospatial media.
You can learn more about Damian and his work here.
Vanessa Maike
Vanessa Maike currently works as an Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at SUNY Oswego, since January of 2020. Born and raised in Brazil, she has a Bachelors (2009), a Masters (2013) and a PhD (2018) degree in Computer Science from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil.
Her research area is Human-Computer Interaction, and within this area she develops works in Accessibility, Natural User Interfaces (NUIs), Computers in Education, and Game Design. Vanessa also manages the Virtual Reality laboratory in the Computer Science Department.
Vanessa currently teaches courses in Game Design, Accessibility, Human Factors, Virtual Reality, HCI Methods, and Software Design.
Qing Zhang
Qing Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at SUNY Oswego. Qing has a Bachelors (2011) in Electronic Information Engineering from Beijing Union University, a Masters (2013) in Instructional Design and Technology from Emporia State University, a Masters (2015) in Learning Design and Technology from Pennsylvania State University, and a PhD (2019) in Instructional Design and Technology and a Graduate Certificate in HCI (2019) from Virginia Tech.
Qing is an interdisciplinary researcher specializing in Educational Technology, Distance Education and Technology Design and Evaluation. She spent a few years working in the Information Technology division in multiple universities where she developed a love for technology.
Qing currently teaches courses in Computing Tools for Teachers, Introduction to HCI, HCI Methods, and HCI in Education. She is also responsible for providing program advisement to most of the online HCI students.
Students Who Came Back
Bastian Tenbergen
Bastian studied Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabruck, Germany, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree. Part of Bastian's degree requirement was a semester abroad, which he spent here at Oswego State. During that time, Bastian developed a keen interest in Machine Learning, working closely with Prof. David Vampola, as well as Human Computer Interaction, working with Human Computer Interaction program founder Prof. Gary Klatsky.
After his graduation in Germany, Bastian came back to Oswego to study in the HCI MA program. During his graduate studies, Bastian worked closely with a number of faculty on immersive virtual environments, pen-based computer interfaces, and software engineering methodology. After he completed his Master's degree, Bastian went back to Germany to pursue a PhD in Software Engineering with a specialization on Model-based Requirements Engineering at the University of Duisburg-Essen. During that time, Bastian worked closely with partners from industry and academia on requirements engineering for software-intensive, safety-critical systems in several publically funded projects.
In 2015, Bastian returned to Oswego yet again, this time as an Assistant Professor for Computer Science. He mainly researches and teaches courses in software engineering, focusing on software quality in early stages of development, model-based representations for embedded and cyber physical software.
Dan Schlegel
Dan studied computer science at SUNY Oswego where he graduated from the college honors program. After receiving his bachelor's degree, Dan completed the MA program in Human Computer Interaction at Oswego. During his time in Oswego, Dan worked on several research projects including an application of neural nets to computer file organization, and a tablet PC application for teaching concurrent programming.
Dan went on to receive his PhD from the University at Buffalo (UB) where he studied issues in knowledge representation and reasoning along with natural language understanding. He has implemented and maintains the open-source CSNePS knowledge representation and reasoning system. Dan is also a graduate of the PhD Track in Cognitive Science. After receiving his PhD Dan became a postdoc in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at UB where he helped to design systems for automatic understanding of biomedical text. He was also an NCI/VA fellow for a time in the Big Data-Scientist Training Enhancement Program (BD-STEP).
In the spring semester of 2017 Dan returned to Oswego as a Visiting Assistant Professor and will continue as an Assistant Professor beginning in the fall 2017 semester. He is currently teaching courses on programming languages and the foundations of computer science. His research continues to focus on automated logical reasoning systems and automated understanding of natural language text.
