Bernie Zang

Who is my advisor? Who is Dr. Mary Beth Rosson?

She’s quite an interesting woman.  She did her PhD at University of Texas at Austin in Psychology.  She was almost Clayton Lewis’s student, but he decided to leave.  From there she went to IBM Research in NY before it moved to Hawthorne. Because of the huge push IBM was making towards object oriented programming from procedural programming, she began studying programming systems. In particular, she worked on a lot of projects with the SmallTalk programming languages.
She lives in town and has a dog named Kirby. Her daughter is student at Penn State. She enjoys hiking and traveling.

Ahhh yes, IST.  This college I’m associated with.  So exactly what is it?

A friend once told me that if you ask a computer scientist what IST is, they would say “oh, those people who do that soft social stuff” and if you asked a sociologist what IST is, they would say “oh, those computer sciency people”.  So I guess based on that we really aren’t anything, or even better, we are everything.  I try to believe in the latter.

IST in general sits at the intersection of many different fields and disciplines.  We don’t have an absolute concentration, but we look at the integration and interplay between multiple areas.  While CS may look at a problem one particular way and sociology or psychology may look at a problem in another way, we would actually combine those methods and have an integrated view of the problem.  The issue then is that we may do a bit of everything, but because of that, we don’t do anything very well.

When the school first started there was just 1 major offered, now there are 2.  But while a traditional college is structured by department, IST is partitions itself by areas of research.  This is fairly transparent at the undergrad level, but at the graduate level, it becomes very important.  So there are labs associated with each area of study, HCI, Information Retrieval/Data Mining/Data Storage, Social/Societal Research, and then what I would like to call “Homeland Security” or DoD.  This separation of research areas creates lines of demarcation throughout the building. It creates silos within the college that makes communication extremely hard. It’s amazing that students do not know about the research being done only 5 feet away from their office.

I can’t really complain too much because I don’t have a solution to this problem.  It’s an issue of the actual students who are in IST, and much of just lies on our shoulders.  Cultural differences make a big difference, and students with the same ethnic background tend to stick together.  Not to blame anyone, but I would like to encourage the foreign students to participate in more general social activities.  It’s a great way to get to know people, and become more integrated with American culture.

Anyways, I’m rambling a bit now.  So I’ll just end on this final note.  With all this being said, where do I fit in IST?  I personally think of myself as a bizzare feature in IST.  I don’t particularly associate with any group, but I am attracted to people who are more social.  I do my best to promote social interaction between students, and this semester I’ve taken upon myself the title and job of “unofficial cruise director for IST” (some may call me Julie, but I am not deterred from my goal).  I may mainly stay within the HCI sphere of research, but I have interests in many different places.  You will rarely find me in the physical lab and grad pod area that I’m directly associated with, but rather, I roam from lab to lab and pod to pod (occasionally to the chagrin of my peers), but it lets me get to know more people and have a better diversity of thought, really the true ideas that surround what IST is all about.

Ahhh marvelous, completed my first conference talk and didn’t completely fail.  Good for me… *self pat on the back*… anyways, it’s time for me to go explore the wonderful Bavarian countryside, although there are some good talks tomorrow…

Anyways, it’s been an amazing experience talking to people here.  Because the conference is only about 180 people, it’s much more intimate than CHI.  I’ve gotten to rub elbows with some of the most prominant researchers studying end-user programming.  The first night I had dinner with:

• Mary Beth Rosson - My advisor
• Margaret Burnett - Prof at Oregon State
• Susan Wiedenbeck - Prof at Drexel
• Luke Church - Ph.D. at Cambridge Univ under Allan Blackwell, UK, works for Microsoft and Kodak, reminds me of Josh
• Valentina Grigoreanu - Ph.D. student of Margaret Burnett, worked/interned at MSR
• Laura Beckwith (although she’s not a grad student anymore) - MSR researcher
• Tony Bernardin - Ph.D. at UC Davis, intern at Google

These grad students really did put me to shame (not really that hard).

Just interacting with these people bolsters my confidence and really gives me the extra energy to pursuit real research.  I actually want to do my work.  Coming to a conference like this really opens my eyes to the different types of research work, and it’s just an incredible way to discuss and get feedback on the work I am doing.

Anyways, back to listening to some amazing talks and later… exploring.

I’m finally somewhat coherent and it’s already 9pm here in Germany.

Anyways, I was kind of blown away by Munich, even if I only got a small view from the train.  I met a random gentleman in a suit on my 2 hour train ride form Munich to Herrsching who told me a bit about the city.  Mostly we talked about beer and Oktoberfest, but one thing that he mentioned to me was that Munich is also known as the largest village in Germany.  From the skyline, I didn’t see very many tall buildings, nothing at all struck me as being metropolitan.  Most of the buildings still had the style that I had seen in pictures and war movies.  Almost all the houses I saw had the red clay tile roofs, and whitewashed sides.  This was not what I expected for a country where I imaged minimalistic industrial design and BMWs everywhere. This was much more quaint and gave me a warm feeling as I stared at the buildings fly by from my window seat on an empty train.  Certain areas gave off a much more city like feel, but with most of the streets devoid of human life I really couldn’t tell where I was.  There were stretches where all I could see were empty, abandoned buildings that were then surrounded by cranes and new complexes being constructed.  It was just a bizarre mix of new and old.  Then again, it could have just been my tired brain trying to form semi-logical thought.

Once I got to the Herrsching, I followed the advice from the conference organizers and walked to the hotel, listed as about 1-2km away.  After about a 30 minute walk in the rain, up a hill, I realized that I have absolutely no sense of distance.  But the scenary was nice enough. I finally got to the conference center at about noon.  Unpacked, set my alarm for 2pm and passed out.  After, what I imagine, was about 30 presses of the snooze button, I woke up and realized that it was 6pm.  I hadn’t eaten anything and was starving.

So this is when I decided to go back to town, which was a 20 minute walk.  The receptionist for the conference center suggested that I borrow a bike and ride down.  I took her up on the suggestion.  By now, it was raining fairly constantly, but for some reason I thought it would still be a great idea and started riding down to town.  About the half way point was when I realized that I had no idea where I was going, and I didn’t actually know how to identify what a restaurant looked like.  Thankfully a kind older couple who was jogging around the lake (that’s right, it was freezing cold, raining and they were exercising outside) pointed me to a hotel restaurant after I repeatedly made to soup laddling motion.

Now I learned from eating at Herwigs that most German restaurants were still very traditional and you needed to seat yourself.  Me being the sociable type sat down next to 2 guys who looked my age.  Turns out they were actually Americans from California named Evan and Nick.  They had randomly met at a hostel and were now travelling across Europe together.  They had just gotten to the Munich area from Budapest 2 days ago, and had to wait 3 days before they could catch a train to Oslo.  Crazy stuff.  They gave me some suggestions as to where to explore and left after a round of beers.  I stuck around the restaurant for dinner, which was magnificent.  Think the portions at Herwig’s… but bigger.  I got their special which ended up being a duck breast, 2 large pork cutlets, red saurkraut and 2 different types of knodel.  Lets just say that I didn’t finish my meal, and got an angry look from the server.

I’m back in my hotel room now, extremely tired so it’s nap time again.  I’ll post some more pictures tomorrow.

Many of you may have never heard of the term I-School.  According to our friend Wikipedia, iSchools or Schools of Information are “emergent academic programs committed to understanding the role of information in human endeavors and nature”. This is a very good, albeit it, vague definition. For me an iSchool is an interdisciplinary college or department that aggregates and combines the work of different areas and fields of research to form a coherent and humanized direction of study. What makes an iSchool different from other traditional colleges is that the people who associate themselves with an iSchool cannot see themselves happy anywhere else. A sociologist who loves to study technology, or a computer scientist who wants to understand how people work together. While each would be fine in their self contained areas of study, they each gain much more by being a part of this mix of disciplines.
Generally there are 2 types of I-Schools:

• those that have completely started from scratch not really emerging from a previously existing department (IST at Penn State would be one example of this)
• Those that have evolved from Library sciences or other IS disciplines

So why did I choose an iSchool as my home for the past 2 years and possibly the next 2 years as well?  To tell you the truth I really didn’t consider it.  Before coming into this program I had never heard of an iSchool.  However after learning about the foundations and ideals that make up an iSchool, I realized that it was because IST at Penn State is an iSchool that I chose it as my home.  IST fosters cross-discipline and cross-departmental research in a way no other department could.  I would have a very hard time studying non-programmers in any other department.  Each of the faculty members here bring with them a unique perspective that adds to the richness of community at IST.  And it is because of this that I am a happy member of the IST community.

What is my passion? What motivates me to get up in the morning?  Why do I do, what I do?  The answer is just one word: people?

As I talked about earlier, I love people.  More than work, reading, coffee, I enjoy the company of others.  Because of this, and along with my background in designing web applications, I decided to try and make it easier for non-programmers to design and develop web applications.  Sounds simple enough, right?

Since working in IT, I have always wanted to help people.  While in this case it may be on the computer, I try my best to do well for my friends in every other way as well.  You may think of me as a worry wart, but I think that without my friends, I am much less of a person.

So my driving force is not something internal that only I can imagine, but all my friends and everyone around me.

I have a strong personal belief that the character of a person is directly tied to the people he or she associate with. I value the social connections around me much more than anything else (work, academia, etc).  So many times, while I may have mountains of work on my back, you will see me preoccupied in a “fun activity”.

I’m an avid reader, although I haven’t had very much time recently. I also enjoy listening to music of many varieties including the usual indie stuff, jazz, classical, rock, alternative, native music from the pygmy tribe of south Guam, and folk/bluegrass (okay maybe not that pygmy one; not to say the music is bad, but just not my pint of beer). Speaking of beer, my friend Misha and I have brewed numerous batches, all of which have been unbelievably good.

About a year ago, I decided to pick up photography, which is a nice way to say I bought a camera (Canon 350D) and it’s been sitting under my desk for the past 3 months. However, I’m hoping that finally getting this site up will encourage me to take more pictures.

Another activity I enjoy is the lost art of coffee drinking. I participate in it frequently and even with the recent decrease of intake, I still drink the equivalent of at least 2 cups a day, 5 days a week. Personally I’m not a big fan of the sweet stuff, and the most I’ll do is add skim milk. There are 4 places in town I love to get coffee from, and depending on what I’m hankering, I’ll go to a different place. First is Saint’s Cafe where they make amazingly good chai (not coffee, but still really good) and espresso. Next up, Herwig’s Austrian Bistro where the coffee is just as good as the wienerschnitzel. Then there’s Webster’s Bookstore Cafe with their fair trade beverages and amazing selection of books. Finally, there’s Irving’s where if you just want a nice cup-0-joe, there’s no better place.

Once I have all those things out of the way and if I still have extra time, I occasionally do some freelance web development. Most recently I developed a community portal for the Communication and Information Technology section of the American Sociological Association (CITASA).

A professor and fellow students have commented on how I’m never at the office during the day. This is, in part, due to the weird tasting coffee from the cafe in the building, and the fact that I am afraid of large shiny objects and the IST Building happens to match that description.

I am not an academic; at least I don’t believe I am.  I consider myself more of a designer.  My undergraduate degree was in Electrical Engineering.

If I’ve learned anything as an undergrad it is that I don’t particularly like Electrical Engineering; it’s far to impersonal, and lacks the human touch. After realizing, this after graduation, I stayed in State College and continued to work as a computer support consultant. Eventually I discovered the interdisciplinary medley that is Information Sciences, particularly human-computer interaction (HCI) and decided that it was the perfect coalescence of technology and people. So, after some deliberation, I applied to graduate school at the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST).

As a graduate student in the Master’s program at the College of IST, I have been exposed to the diverse work that encompasses interdisciplinary research. The experiences over the last years have encouraged me to continue my research and studies as a PhD student.

At this moment I am a graduate student towards a PhD in human-computer interaction (HCI). My adviser is Dr. Mary Beth Rosson, a fantastic mentor who has taken me under wing and has taught me what it means to really “do” research.

Since entering the program and working with numerous students and faculty, in classroom and research situations, I have become much more knowledgeable on many different areas of research. While the majority of my work would fall in the area of HCI, the myriad of work in IST have opened my eyes to how each area of research is interconnected. Unlike electrical engineering, IST allows me to examine my own interests through many different lenses and encourages me to develop well-rounded research.

In the last year, my exposure to the literature and people in the field of HCI has shown me that the College of IST is the ideal place for my studies. Here I have access to some of the best researchers and mentors working on end user programming problems. The varying projects allow my different interests to grow into productive research; not only do I have to opportunity to study HCI, but different aspects of social computing, community building and even games. Also my work with the organization of this year’s graduate symposium has fostered new ideas and the possibility of future work.