Designing for People – Graduate Program Development and Teaching
Postdoctoral Work at the University of British Columbia (2018 – 2019)
In collaboration with: Joanna McGrenere and Karon MacLean. I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Computer Science Dept. at The University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, BC for 10 months. During that time, I worked for the Design for People (DfP) NSERC-funded Collaborative Research and Training Experience Program (CREATE) initiative developing an interaction design-oriented graduate program. (See an overview of all program elements here).
The DFP CREATE is a unique, cross-disciplinary graduate training opportunity developed at UBC. Masters and PhD students from participating units across campus bring their disciplinary knowledge and work together in a variety of program elements including hands-on project experience with external partners, to develop research and professional skills and holistic design understanding.
DFP graduate students will learn to transcend disciplinary boundaries to work in teams that advance new products and services through user research and product development. They will fill high-demand and leadership positions where technology design and people’s need converge, in areas such as health, architecture, urban planning, robotics, learning, policy, and many more.
The DFP CREATE’s program elements are: Two core courses, a suite of professional skills modules, and a selection of DFP-recognized elective courses
The core courses are:
DFP Fundamentals: Cross-disciplinary foundations for the human-centered design of interactive technologies.
DFP Project: A team-oriented design project course in which student teams work on a partner-supported project, where the partners come from industry, government, not-for-profit, and research groups.
I co-taught DFP Project in the Spring of 2019. In that course students worked in three groups on projects supported by tableau, Weatherbug, and BC Health Authorities. The work of the student projects can be seen in their showcase videos here.