People of ACM - Bulletin Archive

Julie Williamson is a Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Glasgow, where she leads the Future Immersive Interaction Group. Her current research focuses on social signal processing in social immersive experiences, as well as exploring interpersonal social signals between individuals and across realities. In her interview, she discusses “design fiction,” being part of the annual ACM CHI Conference organizing committee, studying the willingness of users to perform gestures using their mobile devices in public spaces, and more.

Partha Talukdar is a Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google Research India and an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. He founded Kenome, an enterprise knowledge graph company with the mission to help enterprises make sense of big dark data. Talukdar also received the ACM India Early Career Researcher Award for combining deep scholarship of natural language processing, graphical knowledge representation, and machine learning. In his interview, he discusses challenges with natural language processing, the NELL project at CMU, the long-standing problem of word sense disambiguation, and more.

Stephanie Ludi is a Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of North Texas. Her research interests include accessibility in computing and tool support for the visually impaired, block-based programming, and the use of machine learning in support of software development activities. In her interview, she discusses how her own struggles with visual impairment led to her work in human-computer interaction, modifying block-based programming to allow visually impaired students to learn computer programming, and more.

David Atienza Alonso is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Head of the Embedded Systems Laboratory and Scientific Director of the EcoCloud Sustainable Computing Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. His research interests include system-level design methodologies for high-performance multi-processor system-on-chip and low-power Internet-of-Things  systems, as well as ultra-low power edge AI architectures for wireless body sensor nodes and smart embedded systems. In his interview, he discusses thermal management, making computing more sustainable, a common thread that runs through his work, and more.

Briana B. Morrison is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on computer science education, broadening participation in computing, and increasing K-12 access to qualified computing teachers. Morrison’s honors include a University of Nebraska Omaha Outstanding Teaching Award and a Georgia Tech College of Computing Dissertation Award. In her interview, she discusses how is the learning of computer science similar to other disciplines, effective strategies for reducing dropout and failure rates for introductory CS classes, her work with EngageCSEdu, and more.

Gonzalo Navarro is a Professor at the University of Chile. His main research interests are in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures. He has made important contributions in areas including compressed data structures, text search, graph databases, information retrieval, and metric databases. In his interview, he discusses how he became become interested in algorithms and data structures, his work and insights which have made important contributions to text search, offers advice for young computer scientists creating a productive career, and more.

Catherine Flick is a Reader in Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University in Leicester, England. Her research interests have included ethics and video games, responsible research and innovation in technology, anonymous technologies, trusted computing, and informed consent in information technology (IT). In her interview, she discusses how she became interested in ethics and social responsibility in computing, ACM COPE and working to update ACM’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, mandating ethics courses for Computer Science majors, and more.

Michael E. Caspersen is the Managing Director of It-vest, an information technology educational and scientific network which connects three universities in western Denmark, and is Honorary Professor at Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University. He is also the recipient of the 2022 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. In his interview, he discusses starting It-vest, changes in the teaching of programming throughout his career, his work with work with ACM Europe, Informatics Europe, and the Informatics for All coalition, and more.

Bruke Kifle is an AI Product Manager at Microsoft Turing, a team pushing the limits of natural language understanding, machine learning, and computer vision to address diverse business problems across the Microsoft ecosystem. His research interests include the interplay between artificial intelligence, business, ethics, and society. In his interview, he discusses what made him pursue a career in computers, his most exciting recent project at Microsoft, his hopeful outlook for the future of computing in Africa, and more.

David B. Papworth was employed at Intel Corporation from 1990 to 2020, having served in positions including Principal Processor Architect and Intel Fellow. He is the recipient of the 2022 ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award for fundamental groundbreaking contributions to Intel’s P6 out-of-order engine and Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processors. In his interview, he discusses the challenges he faced in the production and development of the Pentium Pro, the future of microprocessors, the outsourcing of microchip production, and more.

Margo Seltzer is the Canada 150 Research Chair and the Cheriton Family Chair in Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She was recently named the 2023-2024 ACM Athena Lecturer. In her interview, Seltzer discusses her work on Berkeley DB and the challenges she faced in development, how machine learning is improving systems, and the ways her teaching style has changed over the years.

Yael Tauman Kalai is a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and an Adjunct Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her main research interests are cryptography, the Theory of Computation, and security and privacy. She is especially known for her work in verifiable delegation of computation, where she has developed succinct proofs that certify the correctness of any computation. In her interview, Kalai discusses the goals of working on the mathematical foundations of cryptography, the problem of obfuscation, and more.

Jun Kato is a Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and the Technical Advisor at Arch Inc., an animation production company. He is interested in the broad area of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with a focus on designing user-interfaces and integrated environments for creativity support. In his interview, Kato discusses his role at AIST, designing user interfaces and integrated environments for creativity support, how new AI tools are impacting multimedia generation, and more.

Ranveer Chandra is the Managing Director of Research for Industry, CTO of Agri-Food, and Head of Networking Research at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington. He previously served as the Chief Scientist of Microsoft Azure Global. His research is in wireless systems, data center networks, and systems that transform different industries including agriculture, energy, and supply chains. In his interview, Chandra discusses his work at Microsoft Research, trying to improve the battery life of mobile devices, and what advances in wireless networking he sees in the future.