Violeta "Vio" Voykinska is an Information Science MPS student. During her program, Vio worked on a project with professors Gilly Leshed and Shiri Azenkot (at Cornell Tech) and IS alumni Shaomei Wu (currently at Facebook). From Professor Leshed, "Vio carried out interviews with blind people to understand their practices, challenges, and strategies for using social media. The results will be used to improve the designs of social media interfaces for blind people."
About the program, Vio says, "What I loved most about the MPS program was having the opportunity to work with and learn from Cornell's world class faculty as well as the the ability to 'design' my program. I customized my coursework around the topics of HCI User Research and Design, and had the opportunity to take classes such as Human Robot Interaction and Design for Social Impact which gave me a thorough understanding of specific topics but also contributed to a holistic understanding of the field. All of the professors in the program engage in original research that pushes the boundaries of HCI, and presented novel, innovative perspectives to both research and design. They were also really excited to teach and were dedicated to supporting students."