About Me
I am a PhD student in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine working with Bonnie Nardi as my advisor, and also closely with Yunan Chen. My research interests lie in the field of HCI and the convergence of technology and society. More specifically I am interested in the role technology plays in everyday organizing, and the relationship between technology and social inclusion. My main research focuses on the ways in which people engage both the social and material in organizational settings, and how they constitute one another in practice in relation to underserved communities in the US. I use qualitative methods of observations, interviews, and context mapping in my work.
Prior to joining UC Irvine I was a masters student in Human Computer Interaction at Georgia Tech. My focus was on usability methods for understanding product design. While there I conducted research under the guise of Gregory Abowd, Gillian Hayes and Julie Keintz in the Autism Research Group. During that time I also worked with Wendy Newstetter and Nancy Nercessian.I have a BS in Information and Computer Science from UC Irvine. Though my first name consists of nine letters it is fairly easy to pronounce: Jah - me - lah (the i is silent).