Joanna McGrenere

Department of Computer Science

The University of British Columbia

Dr. Joanna McGrenere works in the area of human-computer interaction (HCI), where she is a pioneer in designing technology for people with aphasia or other cognitive disabilities. More generally, she is an expert in interactive technology design for older users. Joanna is also a leader in the creation and evaluation of personalized graphical user interfaces that help users cope with the ever-increasing functionality available in software.  She has been instrumental in the principled design of numerous specific interface advances, such as the ephemeral adaptation technique, as well as methods for the field evaluation of interfaces, and the development of guidelines for involving domain experts in the user-centred design process. Throughout this work, Joanna has set new standards for mentorship. Her first three Ph.D. students now hold tenure-track faculty appointments at the University of Manitoba, the University of Maryland College Park, and McGill University. Equally remarkable, 50% of her 28 past-and-present graduate students are female, whereas the average for computer science hovers near 20%.  The scholarship of her work has been acknowledged with best paper awards at CHI, ASSETS, and IUI, major conferences in the area of human-computer interaction.  She is the inaugural winner of the Anita Borg Early Career Scholar award, is a regular participant on conference program committees, such as ACM SIGCHI, and is an Associate Editor for the ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing.