Meet Member of Postdoctoral Fellowship Program’s Debut Cohort: Jane E

Meet Member of Postdoctoral Fellowship Program’s Debut Cohort: Jane E

Meet Member of Postdoctoral Fellowship Program’s Debut Cohort: Jane E

Jane E is part of UCSD’s Computer Science and Engineering’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and is currently a member of  The Design Lab under the guidance of mentor Scott Klemmer. E’s journey to The Design Lab started when she earned her B.S. in Computer Science in 2012 at Princeton, then studied as a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Stanford University. Along the way, she has worked in the information technology sector for companies like Adobe and Microsoft, and her awards include the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant. Jane’s research aims to expand the horizons of human creativity by searching for a balanced relationship between humans and computational assistance. 


Jane E, Postdoc, UC San Diego, Design Lab member

Jane was always drawn to creative activities, starting with after-school classes in elementary school, and continuing through photography and through crafting cards and gifts for friends. Of these creative endeavors, photography was the constant, from taking her very first film self-portrait at age 6, to multiple college photography courses, to joining the Microsoft Photos team for her first job out of college, to working on camera interfaces for her Ph.D. dissertation. In fact, photography is what first brought her to research, when early on in college, she simultaneously took an introductory film photography course and an introductory computer graphics course, and saw parallels in their focus on light and shadow. It was this parallel that inspired her to further pursue graphics through research with her graphics professors, Thomas Funkhouser and Szymon Rusinkiewicz.

A key motivator in Jane’s research is the goal of helping novices learn the necessary skills to achieve their artistic goals. Jane acknowledges that art and other creative fields can be intimidating for novices, and thus makes overcoming those challenges a focus in her research as well. “The tool should be helping reduce the barriers to entry,” she explains. “There are a lot of people who want to learn, but might not know where to begin, or might be afraid that they aren’t making ‘good’ artistic choices.” She believes that a lot of why these tasks can be daunting is because novices don’t know what aspects of a creative task to consider, much less how to consider them to influence their choices. Her Ph.D. thesis proposes camera interfaces that help users consider the photography aspects of lighting, composition, and decluttering as they take photos. It is inspired by the idea that expert artists know how to examine their work to execute on their ideas intentionally, which she calls their “artistic vision.” She aims to design computational creativity tools that help novices develop their own “artistic vision,” by “helping people be aware of their artistic choices.” 


Images of Jane’s PhD dissertation work

Jane says one of her reasons for joining The Design Lab was seeing the potential in continuing to think “about the creativity space, in a new context.” She explained how the Design Lab “is very unique in that it has […] cognitive science and computer science joint in one place, with a lot of people with expertise in both.” Jane is enthusiastic to be entrenched in such expertise, and to work alongside a group with several professors who are actively applying this joint lens to creativity-related research and to be able to “learn from their different approaches.” Thus, one of Jane’s goals is to immerse herself in cognitive science theory, “learning about human cognition and these theories around design and interaction grounded in humans.” 

Apart from expanding her horizons through her research and through learning from other researchers, Jane is also excited to take on the role of mentor to students at UCSD. “A lot of research is about working with students and helping train students and helping them achieve what they want.” Jane is incredibly grateful for the many mentors she has crossed paths with throughout her research career, especially her Ph.D. advisors, James Landay and Pat Hanrahan, and is excited to join The Design Lab to work with and learn from her postdoc mentor, Scott Klemmer. Jane has long been inspired by the work of Scott and his past Ph.D. students in the space of creativity and more specifically creative feedback. Despite being at different schools, Jane described becoming close friends with two of Scott’s recently graduated Ph.D. students in part because of how they “connected in terms of what we appreciated and cared about in our research.” Jane is “grateful that the department has given me the opportunity to become part of this amazing team,” and is excited to meet the rest of the lab. 

Jane looks forward to continuing her research at The Design Lab, working towards her vision of creativity and design. 

Jane E is part of UCSD’s Computer Science and Engineering’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and is currently a member of  The Design Lab under the guidance of mentor Scott Klemmer. E’s journey to The Design Lab started when she earned her B.S. in Computer Science in 2012 at Princeton, then studied as a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Stanford University. Along the way, she has worked in the information technology sector for companies like Adobe and Microsoft, and her awards include the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant. Jane’s research aims to expand the horizons of human creativity by searching for a balanced relationship between humans and computational assistance. 


Jane E, Postdoc, UC San Diego, Design Lab member

Jane was always drawn to creative activities, starting with after-school classes in elementary school, and continuing through photography and through crafting cards and gifts for friends. Of these creative endeavors, photography was the constant, from taking her very first film self-portrait at age 6, to multiple college photography courses, to joining the Microsoft Photos team for her first job out of college, to working on camera interfaces for her Ph.D. dissertation. In fact, photography is what first brought her to research, when early on in college, she simultaneously took an introductory film photography course and an introductory computer graphics course, and saw parallels in their focus on light and shadow. It was this parallel that inspired her to further pursue graphics through research with her graphics professors, Thomas Funkhouser and Szymon Rusinkiewicz.

A key motivator in Jane’s research is the goal of helping novices learn the necessary skills to achieve their artistic goals. Jane acknowledges that art and other creative fields can be intimidating for novices, and thus makes overcoming those challenges a focus in her research as well. “The tool should be helping reduce the barriers to entry,” she explains. “There are a lot of people who want to learn, but might not know where to begin, or might be afraid that they aren’t making ‘good’ artistic choices.” She believes that a lot of why these tasks can be daunting is because novices don’t know what aspects of a creative task to consider, much less how to consider them to influence their choices. Her Ph.D. thesis proposes camera interfaces that help users consider the photography aspects of lighting, composition, and decluttering as they take photos. It is inspired by the idea that expert artists know how to examine their work to execute on their ideas intentionally, which she calls their “artistic vision.” She aims to design computational creativity tools that help novices develop their own “artistic vision,” by “helping people be aware of their artistic choices.” 


Images of Jane’s PhD dissertation work

Jane says one of her reasons for joining The Design Lab was seeing the potential in continuing to think “about the creativity space, in a new context.” She explained how the Design Lab “is very unique in that it has […] cognitive science and computer science joint in one place, with a lot of people with expertise in both.” Jane is enthusiastic to be entrenched in such expertise, and to work alongside a group with several professors who are actively applying this joint lens to creativity-related research and to be able to “learn from their different approaches.” Thus, one of Jane’s goals is to immerse herself in cognitive science theory, “learning about human cognition and these theories around design and interaction grounded in humans.” 

Apart from expanding her horizons through her research and through learning from other researchers, Jane is also excited to take on the role of mentor to students at UCSD. “A lot of research is about working with students and helping train students and helping them achieve what they want.” Jane is incredibly grateful for the many mentors she has crossed paths with throughout her research career, especially her Ph.D. advisors, James Landay and Pat Hanrahan, and is excited to join The Design Lab to work with and learn from her postdoc mentor, Scott Klemmer. Jane has long been inspired by the work of Scott and his past Ph.D. students in the space of creativity and more specifically creative feedback. Despite being at different schools, Jane described becoming close friends with two of Scott’s recently graduated Ph.D. students in part because of how they “connected in terms of what we appreciated and cared about in our research.” Jane is “grateful that the department has given me the opportunity to become part of this amazing team,” and is excited to meet the rest of the lab. 

Jane looks forward to continuing her research at The Design Lab, working towards her vision of creativity and design. 

Jane E is part of UCSD’s Computer Science and Engineering’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and is currently a member of  The Design Lab under the guidance of mentor Scott Klemmer. E’s journey to The Design Lab started when she earned her B.S. in Computer Science in 2012 at Princeton, then studied as a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Stanford University. Along the way, she has worked in the information technology sector for companies like Adobe and Microsoft, and her awards include the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant. Jane’s research aims to expand the horizons of human creativity by searching for a balanced relationship between humans and computational assistance. 


Jane E, Postdoc, UC San Diego, Design Lab member

Jane was always drawn to creative activities, starting with after-school classes in elementary school, and continuing through photography and through crafting cards and gifts for friends. Of these creative endeavors, photography was the constant, from taking her very first film self-portrait at age 6, to multiple college photography courses, to joining the Microsoft Photos team for her first job out of college, to working on camera interfaces for her Ph.D. dissertation. In fact, photography is what first brought her to research, when early on in college, she simultaneously took an introductory film photography course and an introductory computer graphics course, and saw parallels in their focus on light and shadow. It was this parallel that inspired her to further pursue graphics through research with her graphics professors, Thomas Funkhouser and Szymon Rusinkiewicz.

A key motivator in Jane’s research is the goal of helping novices learn the necessary skills to achieve their artistic goals. Jane acknowledges that art and other creative fields can be intimidating for novices, and thus makes overcoming those challenges a focus in her research as well. “The tool should be helping reduce the barriers to entry,” she explains. “There are a lot of people who want to learn, but might not know where to begin, or might be afraid that they aren’t making ‘good’ artistic choices.” She believes that a lot of why these tasks can be daunting is because novices don’t know what aspects of a creative task to consider, much less how to consider them to influence their choices. Her Ph.D. thesis proposes camera interfaces that help users consider the photography aspects of lighting, composition, and decluttering as they take photos. It is inspired by the idea that expert artists know how to examine their work to execute on their ideas intentionally, which she calls their “artistic vision.” She aims to design computational creativity tools that help novices develop their own “artistic vision,” by “helping people be aware of their artistic choices.” 


Images of Jane’s PhD dissertation work

Jane says one of her reasons for joining The Design Lab was seeing the potential in continuing to think “about the creativity space, in a new context.” She explained how the Design Lab “is very unique in that it has […] cognitive science and computer science joint in one place, with a lot of people with expertise in both.” Jane is enthusiastic to be entrenched in such expertise, and to work alongside a group with several professors who are actively applying this joint lens to creativity-related research and to be able to “learn from their different approaches.” Thus, one of Jane’s goals is to immerse herself in cognitive science theory, “learning about human cognition and these theories around design and interaction grounded in humans.” 

Apart from expanding her horizons through her research and through learning from other researchers, Jane is also excited to take on the role of mentor to students at UCSD. “A lot of research is about working with students and helping train students and helping them achieve what they want.” Jane is incredibly grateful for the many mentors she has crossed paths with throughout her research career, especially her Ph.D. advisors, James Landay and Pat Hanrahan, and is excited to join The Design Lab to work with and learn from her postdoc mentor, Scott Klemmer. Jane has long been inspired by the work of Scott and his past Ph.D. students in the space of creativity and more specifically creative feedback. Despite being at different schools, Jane described becoming close friends with two of Scott’s recently graduated Ph.D. students in part because of how they “connected in terms of what we appreciated and cared about in our research.” Jane is “grateful that the department has given me the opportunity to become part of this amazing team,” and is excited to meet the rest of the lab. 

Jane looks forward to continuing her research at The Design Lab, working towards her vision of creativity and design. 

Read Next

Design Lab & UCSD Spaces strive for Educational Equity Through Design

Who better to learn about good design than the people who will most benefit from…

Olga McConnell

Olga McConnell, Project Specialist and Executive Assistant to the Director of The Design Lab

As the Executive Assistant to the Director of The Design Lab, a project manager for the Lab’s special projects and annual events, and a lifelong learner who holds a M.A. in English Linguistics and Translation, and a M.B.A. in Business Administration and Management, Olga McConnell’s zest for knowledge is palpable. She is currently on track to complete a Project Management Certification at UC San Diego Extension at the end of 2021, and she is planning on obtaining her Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification after that. “I’m kind of addicted to getting degrees,” jokes McConnell. “I even thought the other day, maybe I’ll go to law school. And then I was like, no, enough, enough.” 

For nearly five years, McConnell was Executive Assistant to Don Norman, the Founding Director Emeritus of The Design Lab. She is now the Executive Assistant to the new Director of The Design Lab, Mai Thi Nguyen. It is Nguyen’s vision of human-technology-community interactions, along with her JEDI (justice, diversity, equity and inclusion) approach that has McConnell excited about this new chapter in the Lab’s legacy, saying, “I see how great she is as an efficient leader, so I’m really looking forward to working with her, supporting her administratively, as well as taking charge of certain projects that she has in mind.”
Design Lab Eric Hekler Public Health Technology

Eric Hekler Joins Design Lab Team

UC San Diego Design Lab is excited to welcome Eric Hekler, an Associate Professor in…

Enrique Zavala

Enrique Zavala on Empathy in Design | Design Chats


Enrique Zavala, Research Assistant at UC San Diego, speaks on the importance of being empathetic in design research.

Design Chats is a video series where we sit down with design practitioners to answer questions about how they utilize human-centered design.

View our Design Chats playlist on the Design Lab YouTube Channel
Seda Evis

Designer in Residence: Seda Evis

While Seda Evis participates as a Designer-in-Residence at UC San Diego with The Design Lab, and is VP of Strategy & Growth at FreshForm Interactive—an experience design and innovation consultancy—she also claims to have what she refers to as a superpower: her hybrid mind, which she describes as the combination of two worlds: the business side and the design side.

As a Designer-in-Residence at The Design Lab,  Evis enjoys working in an interdisciplinary setting, which she says enhances her existing skillset. “Academia tends to be quite separate from how the practice is done,” she explains. “I find ways of doing interdisciplinary work, as well as cross industry work, very important for innovation because that’s how you actually get seeds from different places.” As of now, most of Evis’s work at The Design Lab has been working with the Community Team on the now winning bid for the World Design Capital 2024 (WDC) designation. Her work dovetails with her role on the Board of  Directors for the Design Forward Alliance–a non-profit organization started by the Lab in partnership with the regional design community and one of the partners co-leading the HOME 2024 WDC efforts alongside the Design Lab, Burnham Center for Community Advancement, the City of San Diego and the City of Tijuana.   The designation puts the San Diego-Tijuana region in a prestigious international cohort recognized for the “effective use of design to drive economic, social, cultural and environmental development.”  Even the proposal theme is significant, Evis says. “Home” not only refers to the immense and diverse communities of San Diego and Tijuana that form one, but also serves as an acronym for Human-centered, Open, Multi-disciplinary/Multi-cultural, and Experimental. For Evis, participating in HOME2024 signifies her career “coming full circle.” 
Recycling

I’m an expert on complex design systems. Even I can’t figure out recycling.

Part 1 of a FastCompany editorial on Recycling by Don Norman

Recycling: The concept is pretty simple. Throw away stuff that can be melted down, chopped up, and made back into useful stuff. The problem is, I don’t understand how to do it.

For one, it’s difficult to find out what can and cannot be recycled. There are so many different kinds of paper goods, plastics, and metals, and worst of all, so many things that are combinations of materials or exotic new inventions of material science, that no list could possibly include every possible case. Secondly, the rules vary from location to location, and even at one location they can change from year to year. (“Check frequently with your recycler to see what their current requirements are,” reads one of the websites that tries to be helpful.)
Back To Top