"Food makes me happy." -My cousin Junior
"Difficult." -Andre's definition of Software Engineering.
"If you don't watch 24, then you don't know Jack!"
"Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier."
"In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on." -Robert Frost
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Bryan C. Semaan
About Me
I am a Ph.D candidate in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine, where I am being advised by Dr. Gloria Mark. I also graduated with a B.S. in Information and Computer Science from UCI in 2005. Research Interests
I am interested in the general areas of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and Software Engineering. Projects
Technology Use in Disrupted Environments Environmental disruptions are a common phenomenon taking place around the world. These disruptions come in the form of war, natural disaster, and the like. Recently, people have experience various disruptions including, but not limited to, the most recent Israel-Lebanon war, 9/11, various hurricanes and wildfires, and the Iraq war. However, the research community has not focused on how people living through major, long-lasting, life-altering events continue to work, socialize, and maintain normalcy in their lives. In collaboration with my advisor Dr. Gloria Mark, Dr. Martha Feldman and Dr. Ban Al-Ani, I am conducting an empirical study which examines how people use technology in order to repair their human infrastructure. Human infrastructure “consists of the highly dynamic patterns of relationships of people in various networks and social arrangements” (Lee, Dourish, and Mark; 2006). We have found that people are resilient in collaboration, in that they adopt new resources (e.g. technologies), use familiar resources in new ways, and combine resources in order to continue working and socializing. I am especially interested in what technologies are adopted, how they are used, and what new technologies can be developed in order to further help people in similar situations ameliorate the environmental stress they encounter on a daily basis. Technology to Coordinate the Humanitarian Relief EffortDescription coming soon. Publications
Mark, G., Semaan, B. (2008). Resilience in Collaboration: Technology as a Resource for New Patterns of Action. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work CSCW 2008 (San Diego, November 8-12, 2008). Mark, G., Semaan, B. (2009). Expanding a Country’s Borders During War: The Internet War Diary. To Appear in Proceedings of the ACM International Workshop on Intercultural Collaboration IWIC 2009 (Palo Alto, February 20-21, 2009). Mark, G., Al-Ani, B, Semaan,B . (2009) Resilience Through Technology Adoption: Merging the Old and the New in Iraq. To Appear in Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI 2009 (Boston, Apri 4-9, 2009). Mark, G., Al-Ani, B, Semaan, B. (2009). Repairing Human Infrastructure in War Zones. To Appear in Proceedings of the Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management ISCRAM 2009 (Washington DC, May 10-13, 2009). Teaching
Fall 2007: INF 125/CS 113 Computer Game Development Summer 2007: INF 111/CSE 121 - Software Engineering Tools and Methods Spring 2006: ICS 131 - Social Analysis of Computerization Winter 2006: ICS 104 - Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Contact Information
Office: Bren Hall (BH) 5099 Email: bsemaan [at] ics [dot] uci [dot] edu Phone: (949) 824 - 0572 |