March 7th Meeting Bios

1) CU Community FabLab

Jeff Ginger is a Program Coordinator with the Illinois Informatics Institute and Adjunct Instructor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His work includes aspects of all three missions of the University of Illinois: public engagement, teaching and research. Jeff draws upon a robust technical, multimedia and social science background, accented by teaching and organizational leadership, and first earned his rabble-rousing reputation as a result of activist research on structural racism as observed on Facebook. His recent doctoral scholarship and teaching is primarily situated in social and community informatics: deciphering the discourse and effects of the digital divide and Web2.0, critical pedagogy in technology education and contextualized study of human-computer interaction. Jeff’s dissertation focused specifically on the investigation of how public libraries foster digital literacies through community engagement, which ultimately led him to his current work as the director of the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab. Here he continues to lend a critical but optimistic perspective to the study and implementation of makerspaces, particularly by tackling some of its most key challenges, such as cultivating and supporting diversity, a prerequisite to innovation, and sustainably establishing capacity-building technology education services in collaboration with underserved communities.

Dot Silverman is a graduate student in Educational Psychology at UIUC working with Dr. Jennifer Amos. She will be redesigning assessment methods for the new undergraduate bioengineering curriculum. She is additionally developing a biohacking space with the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab, partnering with on-campus clubs and classes to bring biology out of the lab and into the community. Dot received her bachelor’s degree in Physics from Pomona College, and worked with Instructables, Autodesk’s BioNano Research Team, and the Wyss Institute before coming to UIUC.

2) Industrial Design RSO

Rachel Flood Heaton is a third year MFA candidate in the Industrial Design program. Before becoming a designer, Rachel spent several years as a computer engineer, designing integrated circuits for processors. As a graduate instructor, she develops and teaches design courses within the School of Art + Design and in the Mechanical Engineering department. Her research centers on the cognitive psychology of interaction with 3D form, investigating how design aesthetics can ultimately encourage sustainable behavior in product users. She will join the Psychology Ph.D. program at Illinois in the fall.

Amanda Henderson is a second year MFA Candidate at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). She completed her undergraduate degree in Industrial Design at Carnegie Mellon University, with a minor in Photography. Her research focuses on how designed forms change human perception of a spatial environment; with the ultimate goal of creating spaces that allow people to feel comfortable and knowledgeable interacting with their surroundings.

February 7th Meeting Bios

1) Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES)

Dr. Pat Malik is the Director of the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) and former director of Beckwith Residential Support Services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois in the field of leisure behavior and therapeutic recreation.  Her entire professional life has focused on supporting people with disabilities reach their highest potential via a variety of venues, e.g., activities director in a nursing home, professor of therapeutic recreation at Illinois State University, vice-president of program development for a community rehabilitation company that supported those with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities, and within her most current position.  Her current position allows her to work with college students through the many transitions they experience in young adulthood, with the ultimate goal that they may independently manage the many facets of their disability leading to increased personal empowerment. Dr. Malik’s professional involvement includes, publications, presentations and serving on national exam certification committees.

 

2) Makerspace Urbana

Dr. Emily Knox is an assistant professor in the School of Information Sciences (the iSchool, formerly GSLIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a key member of Makerspace Urbana.  You can find out more about her at emilyknox.net.

Mike Bohlmann has been an active member of Makerspace Urbana since late 2015. His primary maker interests are around 3D printing and electronics, but he also does drone-based video production and photography. In his day job, he is the Assistant Dean of Technology in the College of Media and Chief Digital Officer at WILL.

elizaBeth Simpson studies the dynamics of collaboration, participation, social responsibility, and personal agency as leveraged by cultural work. Her current research interests as a PhD student in the Institute of Communications Research at UIUC include participatory knowledge making for citizenship with particular emphasis on embodied cognition, political theater, and restorative justice. In addition to her work as a researcher, elizaBeth has been a facilitator, circle keeper, and consultant for grassroots social justice organizations for over 20 years, and is also a performance and multimedia artist who specializes in collaborative projects with people who would not call themselves “creative.”

April 4th Meeting Bios

1) Center for Digital Inclusion

Sharon Irish is acting director of the Center for Digital Inclusion at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. She is active with FemTechNet, a collective of feminists of all genders investigating intersections of technology and culture, as wall as an advisory editor for the journal, Technology and Culture. More about her at http://sharonirish.org/

2) Visualization Lab

Travis Ross manages the Visualization Lab at the Beckman Institute, which is a multi-user facility consisting of 3d technologies, high-speed video, high-resolution photography, and an array of CAE, CAD, and design software’s running on powerful graphics workstations.  Travis has worked here for 6 years, before that he worked in the 3d graphics industry for 14 years doing everything from Sony PlayStation cinematics and film and TV to 3d design consulting in manufacturing and design companies.

April 25th Meeting Bios

1) Beckman Institute

Patty Jones is the Associate Director for Research at the Beckman Institute. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Illinois and the master’s and PhD degrees in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Tech. In her previous lives, she was an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at Illinois and was the Deputy Director for Exploration Technology at NASA Ames Research Center.

December 6 General Meeting Bios

Human Dynamics and Controls Lab

Liz Hsiao-Wecksler is a Professor and Willett Faculty Scholar in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering (MechSE). She is currently MechSE’s Associate Head of Undergraduate Programs. Professor Hsiao-Wecksler directs the Human Dynamics and Controls Laboratory (HDCL). Her research group uses methods from design, control theory, mechatronics, pneumatics and soft robotics, musculoskeletal biomechanics, and movement analysis.  Most recently, she is interested in the development of powered orthoses or exoskeletons that use pneumatics or soft robotics to improve function and the quality of life of persons with disability. Her recent work has been supported by the NSF, NIH, and Dept of Homeland Security. She is co-founder of IntelliWheels, Inc., a Champaign start-up that is developing novel multi-geared wheels for manual wheelchairs to improve propulsion biomechanics and reduce shoulder loading. She is also a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Associate Editor for the ASME Journal of Medical Devices.

 

Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning

Jim Wentworth is an eLearning Professional at the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning.  He has nearly twenty years of experience in higher education starting in an adjunct teaching position and then transitioning to faculty support roles in both online and face-to-face environments. He is currently working at the intersection of technology and innovative teaching spaces including the design and development of the Illinois Innovation Studio which will open in Summer 2017. Jims interests include educational research, virtual and augmented reality, metacognition and reflective learning, as well as media production and analysis.

Ava Wolf is an eLearning Professional at the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning where she specializes in active and collaborative teaching strategies and classroom innovations. Ava has been involved in the design and development of iFLEX classrooms on this campus, including the new iFLEX Innovation Classroom, and other learning space projects. She assists faculty and staff in creating hybrid, tech-rich learning activities that take fuller advantage of flexible classrooms, and has been conducting research on teaching and learning in iFLEX and other classroom settings. 

Jamie Nelson is a Senior eLearning Specialist at the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning at the University of Illinois. He helps Faculty, Staff, and Students explore educational technologies that advance their teaching and learning goals. Jamie specializes in emerging technologies that impact the university, including virtual/augmented reality, 360 video, 3D printing, mobile devices, the internet of things, and more. He oversees the design and programming for the Illinois Innovation TechHub due to open in Summer 2017.

November 1 General Meeting Bios

Jennifer Bechtel is the Program Director for the Innovation and Sustainability Living-Learning Communities. She helps to connect students living in these communities with the ample resources available on campus and elsewhere in Champaign-Urbana so that they may better achieve their personal goals. She is a former theatre educator with extensive leadership experience in the Champaign-Urbana theatre and film communities. She co-wrote the screenplay for the award-winning feature film Leading Ladies and wrote and directed the award-winning feature film Scary Normal.

October 4 General Meeting Bios

1) Product Design/Dissection Laboratory

James M. Leake joined the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering in 1999. His educational background includes an MS in Mechanical Engineering (1993) from the University of Washington, a BS in Ocean Engineering (1980) from Florida Atlantic University, and a BA in Art History (1974) from Indiana University. Leake’s publications include two books, Engineering Design Graphics: Sketching, Modeling, and Visualization, 2nd edition, Wiley and Sons, 2013, and Autodesk Inventor, McGraw-Hill, 2004. He is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, where he served in Tunisia from 1983 until 1986. Leake worked as a naval architect in the Pacific Northwest for 10 years. He is a registered professional engineer in naval architecture in the state of Washington (1990).

For more details see here.

 

2) MakerGirl RSO

Manisha Singh is a senior studying applied math and economics at UIUC. She is also the managing director of MakerGirl, a social venture which teaches 3D printing to young girls across the country to inspire them to be future leaders and unstoppable forces. 

Design Dialogues: Geoffrey Bowker

The DBowker_posterata Citizen: New Ways of Being in the World

Geof Bowker (Professor, School of Information and Computer Sciences, UC-Irvine) Tuesday, September 20, 2016 — 4:00-5:30PM, NCSA Auditorium

For all its hype, the phenomenon of big data and its attendant analytics is nevertheless changing what it means to be human. This talk explores the ontological dimensions of this change with a view to teasing out the impacts of its long term historical trajectory and the ethical design issues which arise.

Geoffrey C. Bowker is Professor at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences and Director of the Values in Design Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine. From 1993-1998, he was faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s School of Information Sciences, and was a faculty affiliate of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications from 1998-1999. He currently co-directs the NSF-funded Council for Big Data, Ethics, and Society with researchers from across academia and the IT industry. He has published widely on the topics of information infrastructure, classification systems in distributed scientific collaborations, and the use of web and digital resources across disciplines.

Co-Sponsored by:
The Recovering Prairie Futures IPRH Research Cluster
The Provost’s Office
The College of Engineering
The School of Information Sciences
The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology

with the:
College of Education
College of Fine and Applied Arts
School of Social Work
Center for Advanced Study
Center for Digital Inclusion
Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Center for People and Infrastructures
Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Disability Resources and Educational Services
Human and Dynamics Laboratory
Illinois Informatics Institute
Institute of Communications Research
Product Design Laboratory, Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering Department
Social Innovation at Illinois
Spurlock Museum
Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative, College of Business
Anthropology
Asian American Studies
History
Latino/a Studies
Media and Cinema Studies
Allen Hall/Unit One LLC
Innovation LLC
Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory
Office of Diversity, Equity, and Access
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
Office of Undergraduate Research
Makerspace Urbana