Qian Yang, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, has been named a Schmidt Futures inaugural AI2050 Early Career Fellow.

One of 15 fellows, Yang will work to understand and improve the impact of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered generative models like Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT-3) and Dall-E on people’s cognitive processes in creative work. The goal is to enhance human cognition with these models, rather than de-skill users.

Schmidt Futures’ AI2050 initiative aims to support AI researchers whose work will inform and shape the AI-powered tools of tomorrow. Specifically, Schmidt Futures cites Yang’s research as critical in exploring the impact of advanced AI on knowledge workers by addressing two of the Initiative’s “Hard Problems”: economic challenges and opportunities resulting from AI and its related technologies, and access, participation, and agency in the development, growth, and benefits of AI. 

Joining Yang in the AI2050 fellowships is another recipient with Cornell ties: Adji Bousso Dieng, currently an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University, is a 2013 graduate of the Department of Statistics and Data Science’s Master of Professional Studies program in Applied Statistics.

 

By Louis DiPietro  

Using a miniature camera and a customized deep neural network, Cornell researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind wristband that tracks the entire body posture in 3D. 

Called BodyTrak, it is the first wearable to track the full body pose with a single camera. If integrated into future smartwatches, BodyTrak could be a game-changer in monitoring user body mechanics in physical activities where precision is critical, said Cheng Zhang, assistant professor of information science and the paper’s senior author. 

 “Since smartwatches already have a camera, technology like BodyTrak could understand the user’s pose and give real-time feedback,” Zhang said. “That’s handy, affordable and does not limit the user’s moving area.” 

A corresponding paper, “BodyTrak: Inferring Full-body Poses from Body Silhouettes Using a Miniature Camera on a Wristband,” was published in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technology in September and presented at the Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2022). 

It’s the latest body-sensing system from the SciFiLab – based in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science – a group that has previously developed and leveraged similar deep learning models to track hand and finger movements, facial expressions, and even silent-speech recognition.  

The secret to BodyTrak is not only in the dime-sized camera on the wrist but the customized deep neural network behind it. This deep neural network – a method of artificial intelligence that trains computers to learn from mistakes – reads the camera’s rudimentary images or “silhouettes” of the user’s body in motion and virtually recreates 14 body poses in 3D and in real time. Put another way, the model accurately fills out and completes the partial images captured by the camera, said Hyunchul Lim, a doctoral student in the field of information science and the paper’s lead author.   

“Our research shows that we don’t need our body frames to be fully within camera view for body sensing,” Lim said. “If we are able to capture just a part of our bodies, that is a lot of information to infer to reconstruct the full body.” 

Maintaining privacy for bystanders near someone wearing such a sensing device is a legitimate concern when developing these technologies, Zhang and Lim said. They said BodyTrak mitigates privacy concerns for bystanders since the camera is pointed toward the user’s body and collects only partial body images of the user. They also recognize that today’s smartwatches don’t have small nor powerful enough cameras and adequate battery life to integrate full body sensing just yet, but could conceivably in the coming years.  

Along with Lim and Zhang, paper co-authors are Yaxuan Li of McGill University; Fang Hu of Shanghai Jian Tong University; and Matthew Dressa ’22, Jae Hoon Kim ’23, and Ruidong Zhang, a doctoral student in the field of information science, all of Cornell. 

Louis DiPietro is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

Personal computing has gotten smaller and more intimate over the years – from the desktop computer to the laptop, to smartphones and tablets, to smart watches and smart glasses.

But the next generation of wearable computing technology – for health and wellness, social interaction and myriad other applications – will be even closer to the wearer than a watch or glasses: It will be affixed to the skin.

On-skin interfaces – sometimes known as “smart tattoos” – have the potential to outperform the sensing capabilities of current wearable technologies, but combining comfort and durability has proven challenging. Now, members of Cornell’s Hybrid Body Lab have come up with a reliable, skin-tight interface that’s easy to attach and detach, and can be used for a variety of purposes – from health monitoring to fashion.

Doctoral student and lab member Pin-Sung Ku is lead author of “SkinKit: Construction Kit for On-Skin Interface Prototyping,” which was presented in September at UbiComp ’22, the Association for Computing Machinery’s international joint conference on pervasive and ubiquitous computing.

“We’ve been working on this for years, and I think we’ve finally figured out a lot of the technical challenges,” said Cindy (Hsin-Liu) Kao, assistant professor of human centered design in the College of Human Ecology, and the study’s senior author. “We wanted to create a modular approach to smart tattoos, to make them as straightforward as building Legos.”

Other contributors, all former lab members, are former postdoctoral researcher Md. Tahmidul Islam Molla, now an assistant professor of practice in computer science at Marquette University; Kunpeng Huang ’21, M.Eng. ’22; Priya Kattappurath ’20, M.Eng. ’21; and Krithik Ranjan ’22.

SkinKit – a plug-and-play system that aims to “lower the floor for entry” to on-skin interfaces, Kao said, for those with little or no technical expertise – is the product of countless hours of development, testing and redevelopment, she said.

Kao’s lab is also very conscious of cultural differences generally, and she thinks it’s important to bring these devices to diverse populations.

“People from different cultures, backgrounds and ethnicities can have very different perceptions toward these devices,” she said. “We felt it’s actually very important to let more people have a voice in saying what they want these smart tattoos to do.”

Fabrication is done with temporary tattoo paper, silicone textile stabilizer and water, creating a multi-layer thin film structure the group calls “skin cloth.” The layered material can be cut into desired shapes – for their study, the researchers used three-quarter-inch squares, with male-female cutting lines so the pieces can be tessellated (joined together) – and fitted with miniaturized flexible printed circuit board modules to perform a range of tasks.

“The starting point was to find a suitable form factor, and then to make it scalable,” Ku said. “And the way we scale it is through the tessellation pattern. So then the user can design a circuit and then customize the layout by putting multiple modules together.”

One of the benefits of their design, Ku said, is the reusability component.

“The wearer can easily attach them together and also detach them,” he said. “Let’s say that today you want to use one of the sensors for certain purposes, but tomorrow you want it for something different. You can easily just detach them and reuse some of the modules to make a new device in minutes.”

To test SkinKit, the researchers first recruited nine participants with both STEM and design backgrounds to build and wear the devices. Their input from the 90-minute workshop helped inform further modifications, which the group performed before conducting a larger, two-day study involving 25 participants with both STEM and design backgrounds.

Devices designed by the 25 study participants addressed: health and wellness, including temperature sensors to detect fever due to COVID-19; personal safety, including a device that would help the wearer maintain social distance during the pandemic; notification, including an arm-worn device that a runner could wear that would vibrate when a vehicle was near; and assistive technology, such as a wrist-worn sensor for the blind that would vibrate when the wearer was about to bump into an object.

Other applications were for social, fashion and athletic training purposes.

Kao said members of her lab, including Ku, took part in the 4-H Career Explorations Conference over the summer, and had approximately 10 middle-schoolers from upstate New York build their own SkinKit devices.

“I think it just shows us a lot of potential for STEM learning, and especially to be able to engage people who maybe originally wouldn’t have interest in STEM,” Kao said. “But by combining it with body art and fashion, I think there’s a lot of potential for it to engage the next generation and broader populations to explore the future of smart tattoos.”

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.

By Tom Fleischman for the Cornell Chronicle

By Patricia Waldron

Artificial intelligence and other digital technologies have transformed the way that people live and work, bringing unprecedented opportunities and risks. 

To help people navigate our increasingly tech-driven world, Natalie Bazarova, professor of communication in the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Qian Yang, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, have founded the Digital and AI Literacy Initiative. They aim to develop digital literacy resources for underserved communities, to equip all people with the ability to safely and responsibly use these technologies. They also hope these efforts will help prevent AI from deepening existing inequalities.

CALS and Cornell Bowers CIS have equally awarded Bazarova and Yang $300,000 as seed funding for the initiative, bringing together the two colleges’ extensive expertise in communication and AI.

In founding the initiative, Bazarova was inspired by the CALS Roadmap to 2050, which outlines the college’s goal to develop and share transdisciplinary solutions to major 21st century problems. “There is a strong emphasis on solutions,” Bazarova said. “And those solutions have to be done through interdisciplinary collaborations and community partnerships.”

The cross-college effort is also in concert with the Cornell AI Initiative, a Radical Collaboration put forth by scholars from across the university, to elevate Cornell as a leader in AI development, education, and ethics.

“AI has powerful applications and it is imperative that this technology be applied to minimize inequity, not exacerbate it,” said Kavita Bala, dean of Cornell Bowers CIS and lead dean of the Cornell AI Initiative. 

Bazarova and Yang intend to leverage Cornell’s strengths in the social sciences, communication, AI and human-computer interaction to understand and address the complex, interconnected factors that put people at risk of cyberbullying, phishing, or other cybercrimes. “Often, people blame bad actors, or blame bad tech, but more often, I believe it's an interplay between the two,” Yang said. “So, how can we address these, and at the same time protect vulnerable people?” 

One of the initial projects will build upon Social Media TestDrive, a tool developed by Bazarova’s group in collaboration with Common Sense Education that has helped more than 660,000 students to become better digital citizens who stand up to cyberbullying instead of remaining a bystander. Currently, the program allows kids to practice using social media through a simulation, but Yang and Bazarova are developing an AI-driven social media learning co-pilot that will encourage positive behavior as youth use social media in the real world. This involves algorithms to detect cyberbullying language and a chatbot to coach kids while using the platforms.

“We are exploring this idea of how we can leverage AI, not just to correct and remove the bad content online, but actually cultivate a better social media culture, where people encourage each other to be good citizens,” Yang said.  

In the future, Bazarova and Yang plan to expand to other vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, asylum seekers, and patients seeking healthcare. They will explore a range of learning technologies, such as learning simulations, gamification, and multimedia experiences, each tailored to the specific community they aim to reach.

Through the initiative, Bazarova and Yang seek to forge further cross-campus collaborations, such as with researchers at Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy and Cornell Tech, and other Cornell initiatives with complementary goals, such as the Center for Health Equity, the Design & Technology Initiative, and the Digital Life Initiative. 

They are planning a public event to showcase technology work at Cornell with positive public impact, and a brown bag series to build a community of scholars pursuing similar goals across disciplines. 

“The problem we're trying to address is so broad. It’s important to bring in different stakeholders into the process,” Bazarova said. “We wanted to create a platform that can help everyone do this kind of work.”

Patricia Waldron is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

By Louis DiPietro

Growing up in a Dalit community in India, Khushi – a software engineer in her early 30s – was taught to keep her caste under wraps.

But one day at her job, a project manager insinuated in an annoyed tone that a Dalit woman had unfairly received a government job over his wife because of benefits or reservations afforded to those in lower castes. A Dalit herself, Khushi confronted the manager, even as speaking up meant unveiling her position within India’s caste system and risking her future at the company.

Stories like Khushi’s are common among Dalits and lower-caste Indian people working in computing around the globe. According to award-winning research from Cornell scholars in information science, caste remains an inescapable construct requiring careful navigation, interpretation, and interruption.

“Caste affects how South Asians think, talk, and relate to other people. It’s a state of being and knowing the world,” said Palashi Vaghela, a doctoral student in the field of information science and lead author of “Interrupting Merit, Subverting Legibility: Navigating Caste in ‘Casteless’ Worlds of Computing.”

Coauthored by Steven Jackson, associate professor of information science, and Phoebe Sengers, professor of information science, the research received a Best Paper Award at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, held in late April. In a separate paper to be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing in November, Vaghela explores how caste manifests as social capital on Twitter among politicians in India.

“How do we make sense of something that people assume is outdated but still determining our everyday lives?” Vaghela said.

In the CHI paper, Vaghela and coauthors draw on interviews with 16 Dalit engineers working in India, the U.S., and the U.K., including Khushi, the software engineer who interrupted arguments of merit and caste by her manager. Each tells of the subtle and overt ways in which caste surfaces emerges for Dalit and other lower-caste Indians during schooling and later in the computing industry – like navigating sensitive conversations about religious beliefs that could signal caste positioning, considering company meal options that are more customary for those in upper castes, and fielding direct questions about rank in engineering exams.

“I could have complained to the HR about this, [and] there would have been action” said another Dalit engineer and interviewee, recalling how a coworker suggested he attended “anti-national festivals,” an implication that he was anti-caste and thus averse to the idea of Indian unity. “But all my friends would, like, stop talking to me if something drastic would have happened to him. There's peer pressure … you can’t go against people who are deliberately making these comments.”

Their stories reveal how Dalits navigate and sometimes obfuscate their caste from Indian classmates and coworkers, most of whom come from upper castes, and connect with other lower-caste people in their work organizations.

“The more you climb up the professional ladder, especially in computing and engineering, the number of people from similar backgrounds is fewer,” Vaghela said.

The authors offer practical ways of addressing caste to build a more open and inclusive culture in computing:  

By Patricia Waldron

In person, people with disabilities often experience microaggressions – comments or subtle insults based on stereotypes – but similar interactions, as well as new types of microaggressions, play out online as well.

A new study by researchers at Cornell and Michigan State University finds that those constant online slights add up. Interviews revealed that microaggressions affect their self-esteem and change how people with disabilities use social media. Ideally, digital tools will one day reduce the burden for marginalized users, but due to their subtlety, microaggressions can be hard for algorithms to detect.

“This paper brings a new perspective on how social interactions shape what equitable access means online and in the digital world,” said Sharon Heung, a doctoral student in the field of information science. Heung presented the study, “Nothing Micro About It: Examining Ableist Microaggressions on Social Media,” at ASSETS 2022, the Association for Computing Machinery SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility on Oct. 26.

Previously, little was known about online microaggressions. “If you look at the discourse around harms emanating from social media use by communities that are vulnerable, there is almost no work that focuses on people with disabilities,” said co-author Aditya Vashistha, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. “It's surprising because about one in seven people in the world has a disability.”

When microaggressions occur in live settings, they are often ephemeral, with few bystanders. In contrast, “when they happen on social media platforms, it's happening in front of a large audience – the scale is completely different,” said Vashistha, “and then they live on, for people to see forever.”

Additionally, social media platforms can amplify microaggressions, potentially spreading misinformation. “Online microaggressions have the ability to shape the understandings of disability for a lot of people who are not even involved in the situation,” said co-author Megh Marathe, assistant professor of media, information, bioethics, and social justice at Michigan State. “We're very concerned about how it's shaping the way the broader audience thinks about disability and disabled people.”

Heung and co-author Mahika Phutane, a doctoral student in the field of computer science, interviewed 20 volunteers who self-identified as having various disabilities and who were active on social media platforms. They asked the participants to describe subtle discrimination and microaggressions they had experienced and the impact on their lives.

Patronizing comments like, “You’re so inspiring,” were the most common, along with infantilizing posts, like “Oh, you live by yourself?” People also asked inappropriate questions about users’ personal lives and made assumptions about what the person could do or wear based on their disability. Some users were told they were lying about their disability, or that they didn’t have one, especially if that disability was invisible, such as a mental health condition. 

The researchers categorized the responses into 12 types of microaggressions. Most fit into categories previously recognized in offline interactions, but two were unique to social media. The first was “ghosting,” or ignored posts. The second was that social media platforms have accessibility gaps that can make people with various disabilities feel excluded. For example, some users said they felt unwelcome when people did not add alt text to photos or used text colors they couldn’t discern. One person with dwarfism said her posts were continually removed because she kept getting flagged as a minor.

After experiencing a microaggression, users had to make the tough choice of how to respond. Regardless of whether they ignored the comment, reported it, or used the opportunity to educate the other person, participants said it took an emotional toll and damaged their self esteem. Many took breaks from social media or limited the information they shared online to protect themselves.

“Addressing this problem is really hard,” said Phutane. “Social media is driven to promote engagement, right? If they educate the perpetrator, then that original post will just get more and more promoted.”

Most social media platforms already have moderation tools, but reporting systems are sometimes flawed, lack transparency, and can misidentify harassment. The participants proposed that platforms should automatically detect and delete microaggressions, or a bot could pop up with information about disabilities.  

However, microaggressions can be hard for automated systems to detect. Unlike hate speech, where algorithms can search for specific words, microaggressions are more nuanced and context-dependent.

Once the scope and types of microaggressions experienced by people from various marginalized groups are better understood, the researchers think tools can be developed to limit the burden of dealing with them. These issues are important to address, especially with the potential expansion of virtual reality and the “metaverse.”

“We need to be especially vigilant and conscious of how these real-world interactions get transferred over to online settings,” said co-author Shiri Azenkot, associate professor of information science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and Cornell Bowers CIS. “It's not just social media interactions – we're also going to see more interactions in virtual spaces.”

This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Patricia Waldron is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

 

By Louis DiPietro 

A playful, interactive installation fostering togetherness and play among strangers has arrived to Gates Hall.  

Designed by Serena Ge Guo, a doctoral student in the field of information science, SocialStools is a research project that combines Guo’s affinity for human-computer interaction and architecture.  

Three interactive stools on wheels generate sound and images depending on their proximity to one another. For instance, when three participants are oriented toward each other, an overhead projector casts warm, glowing bubbles onto the floor, a visual cue intended to encourage interaction and embodied play.  

The project’s goal is to bring people together, particularly after extended separation due to the pandemic, Guo said.    

“More and more people recognized that we need physical interaction in the physical world, not only to meet in-person with others, but also because our bodies, our gestures, and interactions with the environment are critical in social interaction,” she said. “Plus, as an architect, I'm interested in the physical world and how people interact with their environment.”  

SocialStools can be found in Gates G03 until Friday, Oct. 28.   

The socio-spatial interface and corresponding paper were presented at the Association for Computing Machine (ACM) CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May.  

A second-year doctoral student, Guo explores ways of bringing human physicality into the digital world and fostering empathy in our living environment. She received a bachelor’s degree in architectural design from Hong Kong University and a master’s of architecture from Columbia University, where she received the honor award for excellence in design upon graduation.  

She is advised by Keith Green, director of Cornell’s Architectural Robotics Lab and professor in the Department of Human Centered Design and the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Gilly Leshed, senior lecturer of information science.   

“I hope participants see that interaction in space and in-person is important because there’s so much more information we miss when meeting online,” she said. “Even some eye contact with others or a smile, it lightens my day. I hope [SocialStools] can help facilitate that for students.” 

Cornell students interested in mixed reality, spatial interaction, and social interaction may reach out to Serena at gg372@cornell.edu 

Louis DiPietro is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

Cornell is one of nine universities worldwide selected to join the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, a program of Schmidt Futures, to accelerate the next scientific revolution by applying artificial intelligence to research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The Schmidt AI in Science Fellowships, a $148 million program, is part of Schmidt Futures’ $400 million effort to support researchers developing and using AI in innovative ways to make the world better. Each university will start in year 1 and end in year 6 with a cohort of up to 10 postdoctoral fellows, with up to 20 postdoctoral fellows in years 2-5. Cornell will recruit and train a cohort of up to 100 postdoctoral fellows over the next six years in the fields of natural sciences and engineering. 

Cornell’s co-leads on the program are Carla Gomes, the Ronald C. and Antonia V. Nielsen Professor in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science; and Fengqi You, the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor in Energy Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering.

“This is such an exciting program, and will directly complement our Radical Collaborations Initiative in AI, which involves a large number of faculty engaged in AI,” Gomes said. “Cornell has been a pioneer in AI, and in particular AI for scientific discovery, but there is still a lot to be done.”

“This program will catalyze creative and transformative applications of AI for breakthroughs in science and engineering,” You said, “and enable a broader Cornell research community to adopt AI in research applications across a range of science and engineering domains.”

Also on the program’s leadership team are Alex Flecker, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences); and Jesse Goldberg, associate professor of neurobiology and behavior (College of Arts and Sciences).

Cornell will deploy the Schmidt postdoctoral fellows into four broad areas –  materials discovery; physics; biological sciences; and sustainability sciences – leveraging its strength in cross-disciplinary research. Cornell also plans to partner with other institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), working with Global Cornell, to enhance AI’s ability to improve lives across the globe.

The Schmidt AI in Science Fellowships program seeks to accelerate the incorporation of AI techniques into the natural sciences, engineering and mathematical science, providing access to AI tools and training to the sharpest minds on the front lines of scientific innovation.

Universities in the program will provide advanced AI training, funded research support and professional development opportunities – both to shape research in their own departments and to help build a global network of AI-trained scientists.

“Scientific innovation today is too often defined by new-use cases for existing technologies or refining previous advancements, rather than the creation of entirely new fields of discovery,” said Eric Schmidt, co-founder of Schmidt Futures. “This is why we need to accelerate the next global scientific revolution – by supporting broad and deep incorporation of AI techniques into scientific and engineering research.”

The fellowship aims to create breakthroughs across a range of scientific fields – from creating new drugs for fighting diseases to helping produce and store energy more efficiently.

“Cornell is an established leader in AI and has top scientists in various disciplines such as materials discovery, sustainability, and the biological and physical sciences. This program brings these scientists together to learn and collaborate with each other,” said Kavita Bala, dean of Cornell Bowers CIS and lead dean of the Cornell AI Radical Collaboration Initiative. “We are excited to be part of this philanthropic initiative to nurture the next global cohort of scientific leaders using AI to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.”

In addition to Cornell, the inaugural Schmidt Postdoctoral Fellowship universities include: the University of Toronto; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; the National University of Singapore; Oxford University; Imperial College London; the University of California, San Diego; the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan.

By Tom Fleischman for the Cornell Chronicle

By Louis DiPietro 

Of all the impactful moments she experienced while attending last month’s Grace Hopper Conference – an annual celebration of women in computing – Catherine Tom ’24 notes a serendipitous run-in on her first day. 

“There were these three women from Amazon – one data scientist and two software engineers – and we just happened to strike up a conversation by the coffee table. What caught my attention was their backgrounds. They came from all corners of the world, and they were all in different stages of life, too,” said Tom, who majors in information science. “I could picture myself in their shoes, working on equally impactful technologies. And I was thinking that all of us here from Cornell, we all have that same chance.” 

Tom was one of 60 students, faculty, and staff from the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science who made the trek to Orlando, Fla., for the Grace Hopper Conference, held Sept. 20 through 23 and named in honor of the pioneering mathematician and computer scientist.  

The trip was all-expenses paid for Cornell Bowers CIS students, thanks to the college’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the Hopper-Dean Foundation, with additional student sponsorships from Cornell Tech, the departments of computer science and information science, and the Women in Computing at Cornell (WICC) student group.    

“The Grace Hopper Conference is an unmatched showcase where women leaders in computing are elevated, celebrated, and motivated to continue transforming the field,” said LeeAnn Roberts, director of Cornell Bowers CIS’ Office of DEI. “At this year’s conference, our students experienced firsthand the collective force of women innovators across the tech industry and shared in honoring the pioneers who paved the way for them.”  

That collective force could prove critical in infusing diverse talent into tech fields that still lag in women representation: women constitute 34% of the national STEM workforce – a bump of 2% since 2010 – and 52% of the non-STEM workforce, according to National Science Foundation statistics. Within Cornell Bowers CIS, 43% percent of all computing and information science undergraduate majors are women. 

Over four days, thousands of students attended more than 200 conference sessions and workshops from influential women leaders across sectors, from technology, business, and government to entertainment and sports. Roberts participated in a conference panel that addressed the importance of systemic change, intercultural learning, and cross-cultural competence in creating equitable, inclusive, and a sense of belonging at higher-ed institutions. Cornell Bowers CIS’ Office of DEI and Cornell Tech also sponsored a Cornell alumni reception.   

For Tom, she felt encouraged when swapping stories with fellow students, attendees, and corporate representatives about their experiences and challenges in working in technology fields. 

“My path to technology wasn’t conventional,” Tom said. “A lot of my peers started out with an interest in technology. They came in as computer science or information science majors, ready to code. I didn’t have that background.”  

She entered Cornell to study environment and sustainability but was drawn to the breadth and interdisciplinary nature of information science and its home college, Cornell Bowers CIS. Currently serving in a leadership role with the Information Science Student Association and an active member of WICC, Tom hopes to work in industry upon graduation, possibly in product management.  

“Listening to promising and established women technologists describe their experiences within their fields, how they found their place, and how they've grown since – it’s nice to have a model of what I aspire to be,” she said. “I really hope to one day inspire the younger generations of women technologists the same way I was inspired at this conference.” 

Louis DiPietro is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

Shiri Azenkot, associate professor of information science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the Technion, has received the 10-year Impact Award from the 2022 Association for Computing Machinery International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction (MobileHCI). 

Azenkot and co-author Shumin Zhai, a principal scientist at Google, received the award for their 2012 paper, “Touch behavior with different postures on soft smartphone keyboards,” which offered findings to improve the usability and accuracy of touch sensing on smartphones’ “soft,” onscreen keyboards. Azenkot completed the award-winning research while interning at Google as a Ph.D. student.  

Since its publication, the visionary research has been cited in nearly 150 research papers and has been downloaded 2,000 times, according to the ACM digital library. 

Azenkot accepted the award virtually and gave a talk with Zhai at the MobileHCI conference, held Sept. 28 through Oct. 1 in Vancouver.  

Director of the Enhancing Ability Lab at Cornell Tech, Azenkot is broadly interested in human -computer interaction and accessibility. She focuses on intelligent interactive systems that enhance the perception and ability of people with disabilities, in particular people with visual impairments. Her research is frequently published at top HCI and accessibility conferences, and her honors include CAREER and CISE Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) awards from the National Science Foundation as well as multiple best-paper awards and nominations.