This past week there was the deadline of all deadlines for those of us in HCI - CHI 2010 submissions. CHI is the biggest conference we have for HCI research, and arguably the most prestigious. Acceptance rates are usually lower than 20%. Nearly everyone in my lab submitted a paper, and some of them more than one. I submitted a paper with my adviser (Deborah Tatar) and Steve Harrison. It turned into a really fantastic paper that I am very proud of, but we were working on it all the way up to the last minute. I submitted the paper at 7:59pm with Deborah and Steve exhaling sighs of relief over my shoulder as they watched the upload progress bar. Needless to say, the paper was due at 8pm. I really have no predictions on whether it will be accepted or not. I think the reviewers will either love it or hate, no in-betweens, because we are arguing a fairly controversial point.

On Wednesday this week I will be taking a trip out to Menlo Park, CA to visit some colleagues at SRI International. There will be other researchers on the Scaling-Up SimCalc project there, and the topic for the meeting is case-study data. I’ll present some of the interesting phenomenon that I’ve come across in my videos and hear from others doing similar research. (Hopefully I’ll get my act together and actually compose a presentation soon!) Then on Friday evening I’ll have a chance to do dinner with my Aunt Joan in San Fran too.

Up above you will see a much smaller version of my poster for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. I’ll be participating in the HCI PhD forum and the poster session during this year’s GHC in Tucson, AZ. I am *really* looking forward to it. This will be my 3rd GHC but the 1st I’ve been an active participant in. My favorite part of the conference is the dancing. Thats right, at this technical conference we have a dance because the creators of GHC took the “celebration” part very seriously. I’ll be leaving for GHC on Tuesday, Sept. 29th (along with 16 or so other women from VT!)and coming back the following Saturday.

Thats the news in my life for now. I’ve also been busy writing essays for various scholarship applications and I plan on turning my essays into blog posts, so look for those soon. Have a great week!