Master's Final Projects: 2009 Judges
Track 1: Organizational Issues
Ronner Lee
Ronner Lee joined Google University Programs team in July of 2006 and manages the relationships with students, university partners, and faculty. She is responsible for recruiting for engineering. In addition, Ronner leads the annual Google Faculty Summit, faculty referral program, open source initiatives and various K through 12 engineering summer camps. With a B.S. from UC Berkeley, Ronner spent the first 7 years of her career in management consulting before switching gears to academia and counseling graduate students at the Yale School of Management. In her spare time, Ronner likes to venture around the world (particularly, South America) and has been designated the team "cyborg."
Dan Russell
Daniel M. Russell is a research scientist at Google where he works in the area of search quality, with a focus on understanding what makes Google users happy in their use of web search. He studies how people do their searches, trying to understand the most common traps and pathways to successful Google use. Dan has been a researcher at IBM's Almaden Research Center, Apple's Advanced Technology Group, and Xerox PARC. He received his B.S. in ICS from UC Irvine. His Ph.D. is from the time before the world-wide web at the University of Rochester. Dan remembers a time when email addresses didn't end in .com or .edu (let alone .org). He enjoys long distance running, making music and word play, becoming disgruntled when he can't do all three in one day.
Hong Qu
Hong Qu works on user experience research at YouTube. He is a digital toolmaker, making social media tools that help us better understand ourselves and the wondrous world around us. Prior to YouTube, Hong has worked at Yahoo and numerous startups. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley's School of Information and Wesleyan University.
Susan Tobes
Manager, Information Services and Technology, UC Berkeley
Before coming to Berkeley, Susan Tobes had over 23 years of experience in the high technology world with a unique combination of management and technology experience. As the owner of a successful consulting practice, the practice and resource manager for two boutique consulting firms and CIO and VP of Information Technology for IMSI, she developed the ability to integrate marketing with technical expertise. Susan has also held several executive positions at internet startups, and developed a successful career in ERP implementation, data warehouse design and modeling. Susan served as the Product Manager for Database Technologies at SGI, as a Systems Engineer for Apple Computers, and as a Technical specialist with Informix Software. She earned her B.S. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley and is the mother of two sons who keep her hopping! Susan and her husband both live in Berkeley and spend their time working on their 107-year old Victorian home, camping out, and during the winter months, can be found snowboarding.
Track 2: Social Networking and Collaboration
David Scronce
David Scronce is the Director of Student Service Systems at UC Berkeley where he leads the Student Systems 2012 initiative and Berkeley’s Kuali Student Team, which is building the next generation of student systems. David has 23 years of experience leading change for the University of California, including the development of the UC Business Officers Institute and the implementation of UC Berkeley’s first Human Resource Management System. Prior to coming to UC, David had his own computer consulting practice in New York City in the early days of the PC revolution. David holds a B.A. in Philosophy from UC San Diego and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Literature from Bennington College. He is also a graduate of the Berkeley Executive Program at the Haas School of Business. When David isn’t driving change, he is a poet and critic. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. David lives with his partner in San Francisco where he raises orchids that his cats love to eat.
Jofish Kaye
Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye is a Research Scientist & Ethnographer in the IDEA Group at Nokia Research in Palo Alto, where he is currently studying visualizations of social datasets, family communication patterns, and novel cell phone interfaces. His work has included ethnographic, cultural, critical and technological studies of academics' archiving practices, couples in long distance relationships, affective computing, ubiquitous computing, social networking, scent-based information display, smart homes and kitchens, and more. He has been a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge, and has also worked with the Domestic Design & Technology Research Group at Intel and several startups. He has a Ph.D in Information Science from Cornell University, where his thesis work concentrated on evaluating experience-focused HCI, and he has a Masters degree in Media Arts & Sciences and a B.S. in Cognitive Science, both from MIT.
Rich Meyer
MIMS 2007
Program manager, Project Bamboo, Information Services and Technology, UC Berkeley
Project Bamboo is a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary, and inter-organizational community design effort that brings together researchers in arts and humanities, computer scientists, information scientists, librarians, and campus information technologists to jointly tackle the question: How can we advance arts and humanities research through the development of shared technology services? Before Project Bamboo, Rich worked on user-centered design and automation of a faculty tracking and achievement report used for assessing promotion and tenure at UC Berkeley (Faculty Assessment and Support Technologies). Prior to his work at UC, Rich did project work on multiple high-energy physics and engineering projects at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Rich has B.A. in Dramatic Arts, a master's degree from the I School, and worked for many years as a minister. He can still play a mean game of basketball and loves to bodysurf. Rich and his wife both live in Berkeley with their son and daughter.
Track 3: Communication and Memory
Kari Holmquist
Kari Holmquist is a manager of information services at the College of Environmental Design (CED) at UC Berkeley. She received her master's degree in 2004 from UC Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems, where her coursework focused on information architecture, user interface design, and the management of information systems in organizations. She was hired in 2004 by CED to lead the collegewide redesign of CED's websites, which include sites for the college as a whole and for each of the Departments of Architecture, City and Regional Planning, and Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, as well as the Program in Urban Design. She continues to manage web-based projects at the college. Prior to joining CED, she worked at the Environmental Design Archives at UC Berkeley and trained at the State of California’s Western Archives Institute. Past projects include conceptual development of an online archives for the writings, photographs, and excavated artifacts of German archaeologist Max Uhle related to his field work for Phoebe Apperson Hearst in Peru and other South American countries. Kari has a bachelor’s degree in English from UC Berkeley.
Jane Lee
Jane Lee conducts needs assessment and user studies as the Senior Assessment Analyst for the California Digital Library, helping the CDL better understand and serve the faculty, students, and staff of the University of California, Prior to completing her MIMS at UC Berkeley's I School in 2004, Jane earned her B.A. in mathematics from Williams College and spent four years teaching in independent secondary schools. Her current work centers around improving the user experience for discovering and accessing academic digital resources.
Brooke Maury
Brooke Maury is the senior technologist at Stitcher, a personalized audio service for mobile devices. Prior to joining Stitcher, Brooke founded and operated Arcus Associates, a technology consultancy specializing in data analysis and data mining. Brooke holds a Master’s in Information Management & Systems from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor’s in Sociology with Honors from the University of Maryland, College Park. His interests include media informatics, data analysis, information visualization and scuba diving.