Newsletter

December 2008

In this issue:

EDITORIAL

Happy Holidays, CTSB newsletter readers! This December we are featuring faculty affiliate and Director of the Interactive Audio Lab, Bryan Pardo. We will also introduce you to a new member of the CTSB lot: first year Ph.D. student Brent Hecht. Additionally, we are featuring a research project that explores how normal aging affects verbal and non-verbal aspects of conversational coordination. Also, please note that we have rescheduled Brian Scassellati's (Yale) talk for March 5, 2009. The colloquium series will resume in January with Michael Schober (The New School).

As always, thank you for reading and we look forward to seeing you next year!

—Christopher Riesbeck (Acting Director, CTSB) and Elisa Revello (Newsletter Editor, CTSB)

EVENTS

Upcoming CTSB events to mark in your calendar:

Colloquium Series

Michael Tannenhaus (University of Rochester) visited this November to discuss the mechanisms underlying real-time spoken language and reading comprehension. Please update your calendars: we have rescheduled Brian Scassellati's (Yale) talk to March 5, 2009 (from December 11, 2008). Our next speaker, Michael Schober (The New School), travels to Northwestern on January 15, 2009 at 4pm (Room TBD). Visit the CTSB colloquium page for further details. If you would like to arrange a meeting with any of the CTSB speakers, please contact Patti Bao <pattibao [at] northwestern.edu>

Thank CTSB It's Friday!

The next first Friday event will take place on December 5th in the CTSB (Frances Searle, 2-431) from 12pm-2pm. Please stop by for delicious food and interesting conversation before finals week. If you have specific ideas of activities you would like to see or showcase at TCIF this winter quarter, please contact Elisa Revello <e-revello [at] northwestern.edu>.

SPOTLIGHTS

Faculty Spotlight: Bryan Pardo

Bryan Pardo is an assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department and the director of the Interactive Audio Lab. Pardo graduated from University of Michigan with a PhD in computer science in 2005 and a Master's degree in jazz and improvisation in 2001. Pardo applies machine learning, probabilistic natural language processing, and database search techniques to auditory user interfaces for human-computer interaction. He takes a broader view of natural language than is traditional in computational linguistics, including timbre and prosody (timing, pitch contour, loudness), with an emphasis on music and speech prosody. Current projects include vocal interfaces and search engines for music databases, machine accompaniment of human musicians, and separation of sound sources in a stereo mix. New projects include cell phone-based karaoke games.

Student Spotlight: Brent Hecht

Brent Hecht (B.A., Macalester College; M.A., University of California, Santa Barbara) is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science. Brent recently completed his Masters in Geography at UC Santa Barbara, where his thesis was titled Utilizing Wikipedia as a Spatiotemporal Knowledge Repository. He is expanding beyond all that is spatial, although he still interested in the analogies that space can provide. His main fascinations currently include information retrieval, natural language processing, data exploration, and information visualization. When not being an academe, Brent enjoys country music, traveling, learning random things about the world, and jogging. Brent By The Numbers: Highest Latitude Visited = 69.45° (Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada), Lowest Latitude = a pitiful 14.5°N (Antigua, Guatemala), Coldest Temperature Experienced = -20°F (excluding wimpy windchill; St. Paul, Minnesota).

Research Spotlight: Normal aging, verbal and non-verbal aspects of conversational coordination

Professor Sid Horton (Psychology) and graduate student Katya Otis are exploring how normal aging affects verbal and non-verbal aspects of conversational coordination. In this study, pairs of younger adults and pairs of older adults carried out a collaborative card-sorting task while separated either by a full barrier or by a half-barrier that allowed the members of each pair to see one another but not each other's cards. Although younger adults were generally more efficient at this task, the older adults showed a similar trajectory of increased efficiency over time as they negotiated shared perspectives on how to talk about each card. Analyses of partner-directed eye gaze across the half-barrier revealed that listeners were generally less likely to look at their partners, especially during discussions of cards that were more difficult to identify. The gaze rates exhibited by older adults, however, correlated positively with a separate measure of working memory capacity, which suggests that cognitive demands may influence how older adults coordinate conversation in multimodal settings. This work is being conducted as part of a larger NSF-sponsored project on conversational grounding carried out in collaboration with Darren Gergle and Justine Cassell.

Faculty & Student News Roundup

Justine Cassell (Communication, EECS, Learning Science, Linguistics), Northwestern University, and an international team of researchers have launched GIVE: Generating Instructions in Virtual Environments, a new online game where humans partner with AI software. Visit www.give-challenge.org to play the game and provide feedback.

Ying Wu (EECS) published a paper with Yuan, Meng, and Luo, entitled Mining Recurring Events through Forest Growing to appear in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.

Paul Leonardi (Communication, Industrial Engineering, Management Sciences) received the Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the National Communication Association.

Fabian Bustamante (EECS) and graduate student David Choffnes are developing the Network Early Warning System (NEWS) to help users identify anomalies within networks. For further details, please visit the AquaLab website.

Brooke Foucault, 3rd year PhD student in Media, Technology and Society, presented her paper, HCI for the Public Good: Developing Socially Interactive Virtual Human Survey Interviewers, at the IBM Research Human-Computer Interaction Symposium.

Manijeh Razeghi (EECS) will talk about Modern Atomic Engineering: Inspiration from Nature in Ford ITW on December 3rd from 4pm-5pm.

Funding Opportunities

Note: the following list is not exhaustive. You can help by alerting us to relevant opportunities.

NSF - Perception, Action & Cognition

NSF - Expeditions in Computing

The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has created the Expeditions in Computing (Expeditions) program to provide the CISE research and education community with the opportunity to pursue ambitious, fundamental research agendas that promise to define the future of computing and information. In planning Expeditions, investigators are encouraged to come together within or across departments or institutions to combine their creative talents in the identification of compelling, transformative research agendas that promise disruptive innovations in computing and information for many years to come. Full proposal target date: February 10, 2009.

NSF - ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers (ADVANCE)

The goal of the ADVANCE program is to develop systemic approaches to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers, thereby contributing to the development of a more diverse science and engineering workforce. Creative strategies to realize this goal are sought from women and men. Members of underrepresented minority groups and individuals with disabilities are especially encouraged to apply. Proposals that address the participation and advancement of women with disabilities and women from underrepresented minority groups are particularly encouraged. Proposals from primarily undergraduate institutions, teaching intensive colleges, community colleges, minority-serving institutions (e.g. Tribal Colleges and Universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions), women's colleges, and institutions primarily serving persons with disabilities are encouraged. Letter of intent due January 20, 2009. Full proposals due February 24, 2009.

CTSB Exploration Grants

Any interdisciplinary project qualifies for the CTSB "exploration grants" program. In particular, we encourage faculty and graduate students to collaborate across departments on projects that might potentially lead to larger grant proposals. We are interested in supporting the hire of undergraduates as a part of these collaborative teams. Please contact Chris Riesbeck <c-riesbeck [at] northwestern.edu> for further details.

Conference Submission Deadlines

Reading Groups

The Grounding Reading Group will meet in early December in the CTSB (Frances Searle, 2-431). Please visit the nu-grounding.blogspot.com for more information and / or e-mail Kino Aguilar <kino [at] northwestern.edu> for more details.

If you would like to advertise a reading group, let Elisa <e-revello [at] northwestern.edu> know. 

Employment Opportunities

If you would like to advertise job openings within your research group or lab, please contact Elisa Revello <e-revello [at] northwestern.edu>, providing a brief description of the position(s) available, and any skills / experience required.