I am a Principal Investigator and Senior Scientist at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) where I lead a team looking at Social Computing, Internet of Things (IoT), and fashion. Formerly, I was Director of Research at Yahoo Labs where I ran the HCI Research Group and I was the scientific liaison to Flickr (where I co-founded the Data-science group there). Broadly speaking, I design and prototype systems for multimedia-mediated communication, as well as, develops targeted methods and metrics for understanding how people communicate online in small environments and at web scale. Additionally, I create media art installations that have been reviewed by The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and Chicago Magazine and exhibited internationally, including Second City Chicago, the Berkeley Art Museum, SIGGRAPH ETECH, Chicago Improv Festival, and Wired NextFest/NextMusic.

I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University and a B.S./M.S. from the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition at The University of West Florida. Before Yahoo!, I was an instructor at the Medill School of Journalism; I have also taught courses in Computer Science and Studio Art departments. Prior to receiving my Ph.D., I was a visiting research scientist for the Center for Mars Exploration at NASA Ames Research Center.