Hello there! We are Team Dynabots: Alma, Aniket, Joe, Carolyn, and Rijuta. We’re a team of Human-Computer Interaction + Design grad students at the University of Washington. For our capstone project, we are conceptualizing the future of journalism and interactive content together with a team of mentors and our project sponsor, Intel.

As a diverse and talented team with significant experience in design research, physical prototyping, and software development, the chance to build something critically interesting and novel, backed by good reasoning and thorough research, is super compelling. So compelling, in fact, that we intend to submit a publication about our project to a conference, such as CHI 2015.

We are certainly a team of passionate individuals, so we aim to leave debates in meetings when those passions flare up. We also intend to do our best work and not stop at anything less—this may make for long nights, but we owe this to ourselves and each other. Our drive for excellence is what keeps us going.

Here’s a bit more about each of us—where we come from and what we’re interested in:

Alma Emadi received her undergraduate degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from University of Washington with a focus in Human Factors and Ergonomics. She has conducted multiple year-long research studies in that domain. After graduation, she worked as an Operations Manager at an MRI facility before returning to UW for her masters degree. Her learning goals are develop a deeper understanding of available prototyping techniques and be able to conduct effective user research quickly.

Aniket Handa earned a Masters and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science & Engineering from Jaypee Institute of Information Technology before enrolling for another Masters degree at University of Washington. His interests include ubiquitous computing, computer vision, new emerging input techniques, and data visualization. His goals are to polish his rapid functional prototyping skills and practice various design methods.

Joe Kohlmann earned a B.S in Computer Sciences from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, after which he spent a year working as a research intern in both a virtual reality lab and a data visualization lab. After working in multi-disciplinary teams on problems in HCI, visualization, interface design, user testing, and conference publishing, he turned west to attend the University of Washington to earn his masters degree. His goals are to apply his technical skills to rapid prototyping and design challenges and improve his use of research frameworks.

Carolyn Scoville received her undergraduate degree in Informatics at the University of Washington with a specialization in HCI. She has completed web production and UX internships, and works as a graduate assistant for the MHCI+D program. Her skills include wireframing, web design, and usability testing. Her learning goals are to develop her user research and prototyping skills.

Rijuta Trivedi has a degree in Visual Design and has several years of experience working as a visual designer. Before joining UW for her masters degree, she has done work as a user experience designer. She also has a previous degree in Fashion Design. She is interested in Interaction Design and the User Centered Design approach. Her learning goals are to develop skills in user research, prototyping, and information visualization.