Steve Yohanan
| 2055 Yukon St Ste 603 | Vancouver BC V5Y4B7 | Canada |
| www.yohanan.org | +1 604 723-2434 | steve[at]yohanan[dot]org |
I am a US citizen nearing the completion of a PhD in Computer
Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
I have ~10 years of experience developing user interfaces in
the high-tech industry; ~7 years conducting social
human-robot interaction research in academia; and ~5 years
teaching computer science as a university lecturer.
I am currently located in Vancouver, Canada, but plan to relocate
back to the US after finishing my degree.
My general interest is in creating innovative technology for use
by everyday people.
My specific focus is on the design, development, and research of
novel user interfaces.
Therefore, I am most comfortable with the front-end of technology,
where my concepts and code are as close to the human as possible.
I prefer simple solutions whenever possible.
Likewise, I have an affinity for somewhat minimalist approaches to
interface design, as I tend to subscribe to the “less is
more” ideal and enjoy the unique challenges when applying
this approach.
While my hope is to contribute to something revolutionary, at
minimum I expect my work to add value to people's lives.
I excel in diverse teams comprised of talented, creative,
multidimensional people.
Additionally, I gravitate towards environments where people are
valued; contributions are recognized and rewarded; multiple points
of view are encouraged; and growth is fostered through positive
challenges.
Keywords
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), User Interface (UI),
Social Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), User-Centered
Design (UCD), User Experience (UX), Affect (Emotion),
Haptics (Touch)
Knowledge
Experience with UNIX/Linux, Java, C/C++, Python/Jython, JavaBeans,
AWT/Swing, X11/Motif.
Familiarity withMac OS X , MS Windows,
Arduino, PIC C, Perl, XML, SQL, JMS, CORBA.
Familiarity with
Experience
SPIN Research
Group; Dept of Computer Science; University of British Columbia
PhD researcher exploring touch as a means of communicating
emotion in social interactions between humans and robots.
Inventor and chief architect of the Haptic Creature: a
small, animal-like robot pet designed to sense and communicate
solely through touch. Responsible for all aspects of the
robot's design and development, including look and feel,
behavior, software, and mechatronics. Conceived of research
topic; formulated research approach; designed and conducted
multiple extensive user studies between humans and the Haptic
Creature; and supervised more than 15 students. Gained
experience in conducting long-term research, robotics and
mechatronics, running research studies, and academic writing.
HCT Lab; Dept of Electrical
and Computer Engineering; University of British Columbia
Researcher on Swimming Across the
Pacific, a project exploring swimming as a novel paradigm
for navigating virtual environments. Provided software
enhancements, optimizations, stability, and general code
cleanup, which was focused mainly on the OpenGL rendering
engine. Helped prepare and exhibit platform at SIGGRAPH 2004
(Los Angeles) and Imagina 2005 (Monaco).
Dept of Computer Science; St. Edward's University
Lecturer of computer science courses at a private university.
Designed and taught courses to all levels of undergraduate
students, both computer science and non-science majors. Courses
were in general problem solving, advanced programming (Java),
and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
Incellico
UI developer at startup providing software tools for
bioinformatics research. Built reusable wizard framework in
Swing. Prototyped, user-tested, and implemented UI for complex
user task of uploading voluminous, poly-structured research
data. Performed general bug fixing. Gained introduction to
field of bioinformatics.
IBooks
Lead UI developer at startup delivering full-text books online.
In charge of design and implementation of Swing user interface
for next-generation book conversion tools. Interviewed users
and examined workflow. Presented design and implemented
prototype of UI framework using Jython. Enhanced skills in UI
design and rapid prototyping.
Enetica
Lead UI developer at startup building a platform for deploying
robust distributed applications. Designed and implemented Swing
applications for proof-of-concept, demo, and version 1.0 of
product. Drove engineering best practices. Drafted Java code
conventions. Gained real-world development experience on
Linux platform as well as familiarity with messaging services,
particularly Java Messaging Service (JMS).
UI application developer of Job Scheduling Console for a 3-tier
application that united two legacy workload (job) scheduling
products, Tivoli Workload Scheduler (TWS) and Operations
Planning and Control (OPC). Architected two user interface
frameworks: one to perform multi-level queries of the job
scheduling system, another to define views of collections in the
system. Also maintained various editors for job scheduling
objects. Increased knowledge of Swing and JavaBeans; gained
familiarity with CORBA and multi-site development (Santa Clara,
Austin, Rome).
OTPI
UI architect and developer of a unified user environment for a
web application targeted at the entrepreneurial and small
business markets. Goal was to increase user productivity
through workflow analysis and an integrated suite of web
applications. Strengthened knowledge of IIS and ASP development
on Windows NT; gained familiarity with SQL
Server ; reaffirmed dislike of Microsoft and their
products.
Novo Media Group
Software developer at a digital agency handling large national
and international clients. Designed user interface components
for the web. Guided growth of engineering infrastructure.
Worked closely with management, production staff, and clients on
web sites — from preliminary designs through final
deployment. Gained broad understanding of what goes into the
construction of large web sites. Rounded development skills to
include Perl and Windows NT ; gained familiarity
with Oracle.
SGI (Silicon Graphics, Inc.)
UI software developer for the Indigo
Magic Desktop User Environment, SGI's desktop user interface
for UNIX. Specialized in user interface design and application
development. Focus was on making an otherwise cumbersome
operating system easier for novices while increasing
productivity of experienced users. Honed skills in user
interface and software engineering through multiple cycles of
product's development.
SGI (Silicon Graphics, Inc.)
Dept of Computer Science; University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lecturer in charge of introductory computer science course for
non-engineering students. Determined course content; selected
textbooks; taught lecture periods; oversaw lab sections; and
delegated work to teaching assistants.
The Rainfall Project; School of Fine Arts; University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Member of small team of artists and engineers working with
Professor Stephen Pevnick, MFA, to realize his large-scale
Graphical Waterfall® capable of rendering images through
falling water. Solely responsible for all levels of software
design and development — from device drivers up to
graphical user interface — through every phase of project
life cycle. Wrote system from scratch in C and 8086 Assembler
on MS-DOS . Team designed all non-PC hardware.
Working in creative group instilled drive to push limits beyond
what is conventionally thought possible.
Education
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer Science [Expected 2012]
University of British Columbia;
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Master of Science (MS) in Computer Science
University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Bachelor of Science (BS) in Computer Science
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Patents
Graphical Method and System for Accessing Information on a
Communications Network
Method and Computer Program Product for Accessing a Web Site
Publications
.
The
Role of Affective Touch in Human-Robot Interaction: Human Intent
and Expectations in Touching the Haptic
Creature.
To appear in International Journal of
Social Robotics (SORO) – Special Issue on Expectations, Intentions
& Actions.
[doi: 10.1007/s12369-011-0126-7]
[doi: 10.1007/s12369-011-0126-7]
(2011).
Design
and Assessment of the Haptic Creature's Affect Display.
In HRI '11: Proceedings of the 6th ACM/IEEE
International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction,
pages 473-480,
Lausanne, Switzerland,
March 6-9 2011.
(Best Paper Award: “Most Interesting
Interaction”).
[doi: 10.1145/1957656.1957820]
[doi: 10.1145/1957656.1957820]
(2010).
Gesture
Recognition in the Haptic Creature.
In Proceedings of EuroHaptics 2010,
pages 385-391,
Amsterdam,
Netherlands,
July 8-10 2010.
[doi:10.1007/978-3-642-14064-8_56]
[doi:10.1007/978-3-642-14064-8_56]
(2009).
A
Tool to Study Affective Touch: Goals & Design of the Haptic
Creature.
In CHI '09: Proceedings of the 27th
International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in
Computing Systems,
pages 4153-4158,
Boston, Massachusetts,
USA,
April 4-9 2009.
[doi:10.1145/1520340.1520632]
[doi:10.1145/1520340.1520632]
(2008).
The
Haptic Creature Project: Social Human-Robot Interaction through
Affective Touch.
In Proceedings of the AISB 2008 Symposium on
the Reign of Catz & Dogz: The Second AISB Symposium on the Role of
Virtual Creatures in a Computerised Society,
volume 1,
pages 7-11,
Aberdeen, Scotland, UK,
April 1-4 2008.
(Best Paper Nominee).
(2005).
Hapticat:
Exploration of Affective Touch.
In ICMI '05: Proceedings of the 7th
International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces,
pages 222-229,
Trento, Italy,
October 4-6 2005.
[doi:10.1145/1088463.1088502]
[doi:10.1145/1088463.1088502]
(2005).
User
Experiences with a Virtual Swimming Interface Exhibit.
In ICEC 2005: Proceedings of the 4th
International Conference on Entertainment Computing,
pages 433-444,
Sanda, Japan,
September 19-21 2005.
[doi:10.1007/11558651_42]
[doi:10.1007/11558651_42]
(2005).
Swimming
Across the Pacific: A VR Swimming Interface.
In IEEE Computer Graphics and
Applications,
volume 25,
number 1,
pages 24-31,
Jan-Feb 2005.
[doi:10.1109/MCG.2005.20]
[doi:10.1109/MCG.2005.20]