Implicit Interactions

Kyle Polich (0:06)

Welcome to Data Skeptic Human-Computer Interaction. Today on the show, I speak with Wendy Ju, professor at Cornell Tech.

Whether it's right now, during this interview or after, I highly recommend you go look up some of the videos about Wendy's projects. There's some really cool, fun ideas, one involving an autonomous garbage can. I think that's my favorite. We showcase a variety of projects she's worked on over the years, and I was really glad to get her perspective on some of the fuzzy design aspects of robotics, especially with how prominent they seem to be in our future. Well, without further ado, let's get into it.

Wendy Ju (0:46)

My name is Wendy Ju. I'm a professor at Cornell Tech in New York City. I have affiliation with the Tech Neon in Israel, and I'm in the Information Science Department and also part of the newly formed Multi-Campus, Multi-Disciplinary Design Tech Department at Cornell.

Kyle Polich (1:04)

Can you expand on that Design Tech Department? What are some of its, I don't know if there's a mission statement or something along those lines. What's it all about?

Wendy Ju (1:11)

There is probably a mission statement that I don't have memorized, but I will say this is the culmination of something I've wanted for a really long time. I have a design background, I think, of myself as a designer, and I have managed to find some footing in the academic environment, but I don't think academia is actually well set up for design to make research contributions, which is what I've wanted for a really long time. And at Cornell, there were enough other people who had this same vision that we were able to pull together, do some research, do a lot of discussion, and create a department where we're interested in the cross-cutting rule of design in our one-level research. And so it's a new department. We have a master's program. We're trying to get a PhD program underway. I have such amazing colleagues in this new department who do all sorts of things, cutting edge things with design and materials, design and environments. And then my focus is design and interactions. I'm all excitement about it. It has been a bunch of work and we have the most amazing students who are pioneers willing to try something new out. But what it is, is still kind of being defined as we go forward.

Kyle Polich (2:21)

Well, you have, I guess, a foot in two worlds. You have a BS and a PhD in mechanical engineering, but also the MS on the more like media arts and science side. So can you talk a little bit about your academic journey?

Wendy Ju (2:33)

Yeah, I think like some people, there's the things I knew that I love to do, which have been always been very clear to me. And then there's the way that fits in to, you know, the existing disciplines or roles in the world. And what I have found is there's really often not something that was already set up to house someone like me. But on the other hand, I felt like every time I kind of raised the issue, people were really happy to make space for me. And this was true when I was an undergraduate and just throughout my academic journey. So I think maybe if there are people who are students here and feeling like there are things they know they love and not feeling like they're seeing when that fits in, I would really advocate that you interact with people and see if your institution might be willing just to make a home for you.

So in my case, I've always been really interested in people and design and also making things. When I was an undergraduate at Stanford, we often had this distinction between what they call techie and fuzzy. Techie people are doing computer science or engineering or chemical engineering. And then the fuzzies were people who study social science or behaviors or the arts. And I always felt like this is such a stupid distinction because I didn't feel techie or fuzzy.

I felt like these things should just be open to all of us. So the way I ended up picking my degree was I circled all the classes in the bulletin. Back in those days, that was a physical book that I thought would be interesting. And I literally tried to decide which degree program would like, let me take the most classes I wanted to take anyway. And that ended up being product design by a small hair, but I could have easily ended up in English. So there you go. But then what I found is, everywhere I've been, when I say, oh, I want to build the system or I really like to study people, everyone seems excited and happy, and they would try to figure out how I could do those things in their environment. And so I think this is also a design lesson, which is that there's a lot of times not what you want to see in the world. And that's not a sign that everything is broken, it's just a sign that it's good that you're there.