Jacek completed his PhD at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in May 2004, following which he conducted post-doc research at the Department of Psychology, U of T. In 2005, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor Department of Library and Information Studies, School of Communication, Information and Library Science, Rutgers University.
Profile:
[KMDiary 4.1. January 2003]
With a background in information systems, human factors, computer science, and electrical engineering, a proficiency in collaborative research, a full complement of technical skills, and a recognized artistic talent, Jacek Gwizdka quickly found himself among the senior Ph.D. candidates inaugurating KMDIs Graduate Fellowship Program. Firmly affiliated with KMDI (he subsequently received a KMDI Fellowship Grant for his original contribution to the field of KMD--Knowledge Media Design), Jacek maintains constant email contact, a practice that is second-nature in the digital age, but which for him carries theoretic relevance. Jacek has long been fascinated by the development of email as a social-technologic phenomenon. In general terms, he studies how human experience is augmented by information technology. In practice, he invents, designs and evaluates interfaces capable of supporting interactive information organization, management and sense-making.
As he attempts to anticipate, and influence, the future of email, Jacek, who is well-versed in theory, cant resist glancing back at McLuhans prophetic comments on media. The realization that "the medium is the message" forms the basis of Jaceks current research problem, even if, in another sense, that problem has little to do with messages. Communication so-conceived accounts for only a small portion of email use, which in recent years has grown to include file transmission, task management, team collaboration, and professional and social contact management. The ingenuity of users, however, has not been answered by designers. Interfaces have actually changed very little since email was invented. Jacek is addressing this lapse as part of a dissertation in Human Computer Interaction conducted at MIEs Interactive Media Lab under the supervision of Mark Chignell. He is exploring alternative email interfaces that enhance awareness of pending tasks embedded within email messages. Following field studies of personal information management, his attention has most recently focused on external representations that support human prospective memory. Hoping eventually to come up with more inclusive user interfaces, Jacek has employed an evaluation framework designed to map cognitive abilities in conjunction with sample interface characteristics. Uncovering individual differences in these abilities among users is the first step in reducing discrepancies in performance and optimizing the utility of the technology. In this quest, Jacek is joined by a relatively small number of researchers world-wide, a group in which he is fast becoming a leader. To share his insights, he co-organized and led a CSCW 2002 workshop on Redesigning Email for 21st Century, a forum in which experts from research labs and academia met to explore a variety of common concerns. An important and timely event, the workshop articulated the critical issues facing the field, including the challenge of evaluating new email interfaces and measuring performance improvements. Continuing to support the work of this community, Jacek maintains an information resource devoted to email-related research. The web site http://www.emailresearch.org offers a bibliography and lists of research labs, projects, and individual researchers.
Jacek's ability to thrive in the field of KMD is not a matter simply of intellectual acuity. He has the sort of sensibility that makes it hard, and ultimately unnecessary, to distinguish between work and pastime. Enumerating his various accomplishments, he avoids traditional compartmentalizing of knowledge. He excels, for instance, at languages, both human and computer--included in his list are German and JavaFortran and Russian. An accomplished academic, who holds graduate degrees in Digital Control Systems (Electrical Engineering MSc, Technical University, Lodz, Poland) and Information Systems (Industrial Engineering MASc, U of T), Jacek can also claim several years practical experience working in industrial software development, both in Canada and abroad. He is a web-designer and amateur photographer--a hobby that has resulted in exhibitions of original work around Ontario, as well as in Poland (http://www.artphoto.ca). His first book of poetry was published in 1999 (http://www.gwizdka.com/poetry). At the time, he was heavily involved in graduate study, conducting research in Xerox PARC, Hewlett Packard Research Labs, and Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Labs (FXPAL). These are, of course, world-renowned research institutes, the sort of names that are bound to catch the eye of anyone reading Jaceks CV. With a Toronto winter upon us, he is inclined towards other discriminations: Coincidentally, all three are located within one mile of each other in sunny Palo Alto. For a closer look at this KMDI Fellow, visit Jacek's personal web site at: http://www.gwizdka.com |
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