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Episode 3: Leilani Battle on Human-Computer Interaction, Academia, and Keeping Track of Wins
(1:48) “The broad umbrella I fall under is data science, but what I do specifically is I, my research aims to help researchers and help developers design tools for data science that are more human-centered. And a lot of that work is focused on evaluation. Basically, helping researchers and developers think more what real people will actually do with the tools that we build and how these interactions between people and data science tools can affect the overall performance of the tools themselves.”
(13:24) “If you couldn’t interact in any way with a computer, it would be useless. So without human-computer interaction I hope everyone realizes that computer science just wouldn’t even exist as a field. It’s a really important facet of computer science that I think a lot of us take for granted.”
(21:45) “Grad school… was the hardest thing I did in my life probably. The hardest thing. I’ve done a lot of hard things too, so far as a professor, but grad school was just really… it does sort of feel like a trial by fire. Very rewarding but very hard.”
(35:34) “Definitely do not try to face those things by yourself. Knowing what I know and experiencing what I’ve experienced, if something were to happen to me in the future, the last thing I would do is keep it to myself. I wouldn’t go advertising it all over the world or anything, but I would talk to people that I trust. Definitely more than one person. And get advice, get support. Because for all of the things that I’ve had to deal with I definitely would not keep it to myself. I think that’s toxic for the individual that has to deal with that situation and I think it’s the community’s responsibility to support members of the community. So if we don’t reach out to each other, then we’re sort of failing everybody.”
(42:28) “Switching to getting feedback as a thing I should seek out regularly, rather than a thing I have to put up with, I think changed things a lot.”
(47:02) “The first thing I would recommend is to distinguish between what is a racist act versus a racist identity. So, doing something racist versus being a racist. Because they’re not at all the same thing.”
Bio
Leilani Battle is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). She is also affiliated with the UMD Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL). Her research focuses on developing interactive data-intensive systems that can aid analysts in performing complex data exploration and analysis. Her current research is anchored in the field of databases, but utilizes research methodology and techniques from HCI and visualization to integrate data processing (databases) with interactive interfaces (HCI, visualization). She was named one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review in 2020.
Mentioned in the episode:
MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35
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By Tech, Rebalanced(1:48) “The broad umbrella I fall under is data science, but what I do specifically is I, my research aims to help researchers and help developers design tools for data science that are more human-centered. And a lot of that work is focused on evaluation. Basically, helping researchers and developers think more what real people will actually do with the tools that we build and how these interactions between people and data science tools can affect the overall performance of the tools themselves.”
(13:24) “If you couldn’t interact in any way with a computer, it would be useless. So without human-computer interaction I hope everyone realizes that computer science just wouldn’t even exist as a field. It’s a really important facet of computer science that I think a lot of us take for granted.”
(21:45) “Grad school… was the hardest thing I did in my life probably. The hardest thing. I’ve done a lot of hard things too, so far as a professor, but grad school was just really… it does sort of feel like a trial by fire. Very rewarding but very hard.”
(35:34) “Definitely do not try to face those things by yourself. Knowing what I know and experiencing what I’ve experienced, if something were to happen to me in the future, the last thing I would do is keep it to myself. I wouldn’t go advertising it all over the world or anything, but I would talk to people that I trust. Definitely more than one person. And get advice, get support. Because for all of the things that I’ve had to deal with I definitely would not keep it to myself. I think that’s toxic for the individual that has to deal with that situation and I think it’s the community’s responsibility to support members of the community. So if we don’t reach out to each other, then we’re sort of failing everybody.”
(42:28) “Switching to getting feedback as a thing I should seek out regularly, rather than a thing I have to put up with, I think changed things a lot.”
(47:02) “The first thing I would recommend is to distinguish between what is a racist act versus a racist identity. So, doing something racist versus being a racist. Because they’re not at all the same thing.”
Bio
Leilani Battle is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). She is also affiliated with the UMD Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL). Her research focuses on developing interactive data-intensive systems that can aid analysts in performing complex data exploration and analysis. Her current research is anchored in the field of databases, but utilizes research methodology and techniques from HCI and visualization to integrate data processing (databases) with interactive interfaces (HCI, visualization). She was named one of the 35 Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review in 2020.
Mentioned in the episode:
MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35