In this issue: Editorial | Events | Spotlights | News | Conferences | Funding | Groups | Jobs EDITORIAL Greetings! We are already halfway through the fall quarter. In November's issue of the Center for Technology & Social Behavior (CTSB) newsletter, we are featuring faculty affiliate and Director of the Cutural and Neuroscience Lab, Joan Chiao. We will also introduce you to first year Ph.D. student Zeina Atrash, and CTSB IS Architecture Engineer, Berto Gonzalez. We have a busy month with two talks at the start of November. CTSB postdoctoral fellow Yoram Kalman will be speaking on November 6th and Professor Michael Tanenhaus (University of Rochester) will be visiting Northwestern the following week. Please see the events below for more details. If it isn't in your calendar already, we will be holding the first Friday event on November 7th here in the CTSB (Frances Searle 2-431). We hope you enjoy this issue and we look forward to events. Christopher Riesbeck (Acting Director, CTSB) and Elisa Revello (Newsletter Editor, CTSB) EVENTS Upcoming CTSB events to mark in your calendar: Colloquium Series On October 25th, Gloria Mark (UC Irvine) Gloria Mark (UC Irvine) gave an interesting talk at Frances Searle on her research on multi-tasking and interruptions in the workplace. CTSB Postdoctoral fellow Yoram Kalman, will talk about silence in online communication on November 6th at 4pm (Frances Searle 1-421). The following week Michael Tannenhaus (University of Rochester) joins us on November 13th at 4pm (Frances Searle 1-421) to discuss the mechanisms underlying real-time spoken language and reading comprehension. Please 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 Thank CTSB it's Friday! The next first Friday event will take place on November 7th in the CTSB (Frances Searle, 2-431) from 12pm-2pm. We encourage everyone to stop by if you haven't had the chance yet this fall. It's an excellent opportunity to meet new people from across the university for food, interesting conversation, and intellectual stimulation. If you have specific ideas of activities you would like to see or showcase at TCIF, please contact Elisa Revello . SPOTLIGHTS Faculty Spotlight: Joan Chiao Joan Chiao is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology department and the Director of the Social and Cultural Neuroscience Lab. Professor Chiao received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard in 2006 and her B.S. in Symbolic Systems with honors from Stanford in 2000. Her research interests include social and cultural neuroscience, race and its influence on perception, cognition and emotion, and psychological and neural mechanisms underlying social status and dominance. More extensively, Professor Chiao is interested in the integration of psychology and neuroscience research with public policy and population health issues. In her own words, Professor Chiao uses a 'cultural neuroscience' framework to investigate how cultural factors influence basic psychological and neural processes underlying social behavior and emotion processing, using functional neuroimaging (fMRI), event-related potentials (ERP), genotyping and behavioral paradigms. In her lab, researchers investigate how high-level factors, such as race, gender and age, affect basic cognitive, perceptual and emotional processes. Student Spotlight: Zeina Atrash Zeina Atrash is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Technology and Social Behavior program. She began researching educational technology while pursuing her bachelor's degree in computer science at Georgia Tech. Shortly thereafter, Zeina completed her master's degree and teaching certification in Montessori education at Loyola College in Maryland. In the last four years, she has developed applications for a home health software agency in Atlanta and for two government agencies in Washington D.C. In her free time, Zeina enjoys all sorts of outdoor activities. She also likes cooking and eating, and working on various home-development construction projects. Staff Spotlight: Berto Gonzalez Berto joined the ArticuLab in the spring as a software developer, assisting in furthering the development of Embodied Conversational Agents through advancements in their realization and system architectures. This fall, Berto joined the CTSB as a full-time IS Architecture Engineer, splitting his time between the ArticuLab and the CollaboLab. In the Articulab, Berto currently stands as a systems administrator, the technology coordinator for the Alex Virtual Peer Project, and the realization developer for the Shmulik Virtual Peer Project. In the CollaboLab, Berto assists with systems administration and develops data analysis and visualization software. Berto is currently applying to PhD programs for fall 2009. He would like to study Human Computer Interaction or the like. His professional interests include user interfaces and uses of web technology (online communities and video games). In his spare time, Berto currently enjoys playing piano and guitar, mentoring young college students, and working out. Faculty News Roundup Carla Pugh (Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center) will talk about Educating Doctors of the Future at the Chicago Humanities Festival on Saturday, November 8th. Lauren Scissors, 1st-year PhD student, postdoc Alastair Gill, and Professor Darren Gergle's (Communication) paper entitled, "Linguistic Mimicry and Trust in Text-Based CMC," was nominated for Best Paper award at CSCW 2008. Julio Ottino, Dean of the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, was recently named one of the "100 Engineers of the Modern Era" by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Dedre Genter (Psychology) was named the Alice Gabrielle Twight Professor for her outstanding achievements in scholarship, teaching, and service to the university. Daniel Diermeier (Kellogg) talked to WBBM radio in Chicago about the banking crisis and consumer confidence. Funding Opportunities Note: the following list is not exhaustive. You can help by alerting us to relevant opportunities. McKnight Scholar Awards - This award encourage neuroscientists in the early stages of their careers to focus on disorders of learning and memory. These awards support innovative research designed to bring science closer to the day when diseases of the brain can be accurately diagnosed, prevented, and treated. The Endowment Fund especially seeks applicants working on problems that, if solved at the basic level, would have immediate and significant impact on clinically relevant issues. The awards support young scientists who hold the M.D. and/or Ph.D. degree, who have completed formal postdoctoral training, and who demonstrate a commitment to neuroscience. Completed applications must arrive no later than January 2, 2009. The NSF - Linguistics program supports scientific research of all types that focus on human language as an object of investigation. The program supports research on the syntactic, semantic, phonetic, and phonological properties of individual languages and of language in general; the psychological processes involved in the use of language; the development of linguistic capacities in children; social and cultural factors in language use, variation, and change; the acoustics of speech and the physiological and psychological processes involved in the production and perception of speech; and the biological bases of language in the brain. Full proposal target date: January 15, 2009. The NSF - Social Psychology Program supports basic research on human social behavior, including cultural differences and development over the life span. Among the many research topics supported are: attitude formation and change, social cognition, personality processes, interpersonal relations and group processes, the self, emotion, social comparison and social influence, and the psychophysiological and neurophysiological bases of social behavior. Full proposal target date January 15, 2009. REMINDER NSF - Partnerships for Innovation The goals of the Partnerships for Innovation Program are to: 1) stimulate the transformation of knowledge created by the research and education enterprise into innovations that create new wealth; build strong local, regional and national economies; and improve the national well-being; 2) broaden the participation of all types of academic institutions and all citizens in activities to meet the diverse workforce needs of the national innovation enterprise; and 3) catalyze or enhance enabling infrastructure that is necessary to foster and sustain innovation in the long-term. To develop a set of ideas for pursuing these goals, this competition will support 12-15 promising partnerships among academe, the private sector, and state/local/ federal government that will explore new approaches to support and sustain innovation. Letter of intent due October 31, 2008. The deadline for full proposals is December 31, 2008. CTSB Exploration Grants A further reminder about the CTSB "exploration grants" program. Any interdisciplinary project qualifies. 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. If you are interested, please contact Chris Riesbeck . Conference Submission Deadlines AISB 2009 Adaptive & Emergent Behavior & Complex Systems Convention in Edinburgh, Scotland (April 6-9, 2009). Submission deadline for full papers is December 19, 2008. IDC 2009 The 8th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (June 3-5, 2009) in Como, Italy. Workshop proposals due January 12, 2009 and full papers due January 19, 2009. Group 2009 (May 10-13, 2009) in Sanibel Island, USA. Papers, Notes, and Workshops due January 15, 2009. Upcoming Conferences and Workshops CSCW 2008 in San Diego, USA (November 8-12, 2008). CHIMIT 2008 in San Diego, USA (November 14-15, 2008). ICDIM 2008 in London, UK (November 13-16, 2008). Reading Groups The Grounding Reading Group will resume meeting this Thursday, November 6th at 11am in the CTSB (Frances Searle, 2-431). Please visit the Grounding Blogspot for more information and / or e-mail Kino Aguilar for more details. If you would like to advertise a reading group, let Elisa know. Employment Opportunities If you would like to advertise job openings within your research group or lab, please contact Elisa Revello , providing a brief description of the position(s) available, and any skills / experience required. You can sign-up, manage the way you receive the CTSB newsletter, or forward the current newsletter to a colleague, via the CTSB newsletter management page CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR Northwestern University | Frances Searle Building, #2-431 | 2240 Campus Drive | Evanston, IL 60208 | USA http://ctsb.northwestern.edu