CS Faculty Candidate Round 2 (on Wednesday 2-8-2006)

[R. Andrew Lamonica]

It is time for our second faculty candidate to have his interview.  And although you may have seen him before, that should not stop you from going to his talk.

The candidate is Dr. Edmond Abrahamian and he will be giving his talk on Personality-aware human interfaces tomorrow (2-8-2006) in room EB 1010 at 11:00am.  

R. Andrew Lamonica

[Bryan]

I personally am a very big fan of Dr. Abrahamian.  I had him for class twice and currently work with him in a professional society in St. Louis as well as having done some work for his wife at Cardinal Glennon.  He's VERY intelligent and explains things in a very good manner.  

He gets a bit over the top in his love for linux sometimes  :-P (see his license plate)

[Jerry]

Reminder - this presentation is today.

Please try to show up - a good audience helps us attract good faculty.

[JR]

i thought the talk today went great. unfortunately, we did not have a lot of students there.  for people that missed it, his presentation was on the research he had done with customized interfaces according to personality type.

all test subjects were given the Myers-Briggs personality test and grouped into sections. a group of ~40 CS students were asked to construct an interface that teaches the basics of binary trees. this gave Dr. Abrahamian different customized interfaces according to the writer's personality type (i.e. introverted/extroverted, sensory/intuitive...).

he then took a group of ~300 beginning CS students (who did not know what a binary tree was and had them go over the interface and follow up with questions about what they (should have) learned.

the results, were as anticipated and reliable. all personality groups presented with a customized interface intended for them did better than the control group (which had an interface customized for a different personality group).

a major problem he came across in the research was that he had trouble finding CS students who were extroverted/sensory....imagine that! hah

[Tyler]

I remember when I was still in college and I saw those postings about presentatios and stuff.  There were many I would have liked to have gone to, but unable due to the scheduling during the day.  I personally always had class and worked in between classes pretty much 9-5 Monday through Friday.  I would have been able to go if it would have been at 5 or 6.  I know this may or may not be doable, but for future reference I think that there would be a much better turnout if it wasn't when many (most) people have class.

[Ross Mead]

I'm totally bummed that I couldn't be there.  Seeing as how I'm his TA for his HCI class, I thought it would have been the least I could do.  This semester is rough though, and I simply didn't have time to attend.  From sitting in on his classes though, I can say that he is a great professor and communicates well with students.  As his TA, I can definitely say that it's a pleasure working with him.  I wish I could have been at his presentation, but my own experiences tell me enough.  If anything, I recommend to any student to try and get him as a professor for one of the few classes that he currently teaches here. :-)