Category: Professional

In Spring of 2022, the INIT Lab had its first two undergraduate research assistants complete their senior theses! While we have had a long history of including undergraduates in our research, some of whom have led projects, first-authored papers, and gone on to graduate programs, these are our lab’s first official senior undergraduate honors theses. […]

Fall 2021 saw INIT Lab PhD student Nikita Soni successfully defending her dissertation work “Designing Interactions for Multi-touch Spherical Displays to Support Collaborative Learning in Museums” on October 14th! Defenses remained virtual this past year for safety and convenience during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Nikita’s s committee members were myself (chair), Dr. Christina Gardner-McCune, Dr. […]

INIT Lab PhD student Aishat Aloba made us proud and defended her dissertation work “Tailoring Motion Recognition Systems to Children’s Motions” on June 18th! While we are emerging slowly from COVID-19 restrictions, the defense was held virtually for safety and convenience. Aishat’s committee members were myself (chair), Dr. Jaime Ruiz, Dr. Eakta Jain, and Dr. […]

As outlined in a previous blog post of mine, undergraduate research experience can be a rewarding experience for an individual. It can give students more experience working in a team environment and improve their confidence for example. In this post I give a case study of how my experience in the INIT lab has prepared […]

Today, the INIT Lab is proud to announce that PhD student Jeremiah Blanchard defended his dissertation work “Building Bridges: Dual-Modality Instruction and Introductory Programming Coursework” this afternoon! We held the defense virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. Jeremiah’s committee members were myself (chair), Dr. Christina Gardner-McCune (co-chair), Dr. Joseph Wilson, Dr. Kristy Boyer, Dr. […]

This week was a big one for the INIT lab! Two PhD students, Aishat Aloba, and Nikita Soni, both in the UF CISE Human-Centered Computing (HCC) PhD program successfully defended their dissertation proposals! Aishat’s topic is centered around whole-body interaction for children, and is entitled “Tailoring Motion Recognition Systems to Children’s Motions“. Nikita’s topic is […]

The INIT lab is proud to share that PhD student Alex Shaw defended his dissertation work “Automatic Recognition of Children’s Touchscreen Stroke Gestures” earlier today! Due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, we held the defense virtually. Alex’s committee members were myself (chair), Dr. Jaime Ruiz, Dr. Eakta Jain, Dr. Damon Woodard, and Dr. Pavel Antonenko […]

I have noticed undergraduate students get involved outside of the classroom to develop skills that the classroom setting cannot teach. This gives students the chance to develop professionally and make their resumes more diverse and appealing for the path they choose to pursue next, whether it be graduate school or a career in their field. […]

At the recent Interaction Design & Children (IDC) 2019 conference, INIT Lab Director Dr. Lisa Anthony gave a crash course in quantitative research methods, and how to apply and adapt them to child-computer interaction. Topics covered include: the types of research questions that can be answered with quantitative methods, experiment design, data logging, data analysis, […]

The Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering Department of the University of Florida sponsored several students to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration this past October 4th – 6th in Orlando, FL! Several INIT members were able to attend (Dr. Lisa Anthony, Aishat Aloba, and Annie Luc) and experience the inspiring talks from amazing women leaders […]