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| General information |
I am a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science (CS) and Director of the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC) at The University of British Columbia (UBC). My research is primarily in the areas of computer graphics and human-computer interaction (HCI) and is conducted within the Imager Computer Graphics Laboratory. You can find out more about each of these by looking at the following World Wide Web pages:
| Undergraduate summer internships |
I get many requests from students, especially foreign students, for summer internships. Because of the large number of these requests, and because many of the requests are from students who obviously have not taken the time to consider whether their skills and interests match what I am doing in my research, I am not able to reply to any of these requests. If I do have internships available, positions will be announced and there will be an application process. The best place to look for internships in Canada is through the Globalink program operated by MITACS.
| Are you looking for graduate thesis supervision? |
I do not respond directly to queries about admission to the graduate program. Admission is through the department. Details are on the web.
The deadline for applications is December 15 each year for admission in September of the following year or January of the year after that. Applications to the Graduate Program in Computer Science are processed by the Graduate Admission Committee in the Department of Computer Science. After initial screening, applications are directed to faculty members working in the research areas of interest to the applicants. If you are interested in pursuing a graduate degree in Computer Science (M.Sc. or Ph.D.) please contact the department directly. The Graduate Secretary, Joyce Poon ( poon@cs.ubc.ca ) can provide further information on the application process. All students admitted to our program receive financial support, which is guaranteed by the department as part of the offer of admission.
I currently have a number of graduate students who are in progress on their degrees, so I may not be taking many new students for next year. I will, however, look at all relevant applications once the departmental admissions committee has performed its preliminary screening and selected those applications that will be reviewed by individual faculty members doing research in areas related to the applicants' interests.
I will be looking primarily at applications in the area of HCI (human-computer interaction) that are sent to me by the department after initial screening by the Admissions Committee. I will not be reviewing any applications sent directly to me, only those forwarded to me by the department. If your interests are not primarily in HCI, it is unlikely I will be looking at your application.
Arrangements for supervision of master's students is normally made in the second term of enrollment. Supervisors are normally not assigned as part of the admission process. For doctoral students supervision is often arranged as part of the admission process. In either case, the first step is to apply for admission to the department.
If you are interesting in talking to me about supervising your master's or doctoral thesis, be prepared to answer the following questions:
| Are you considering a bachelor's thesis? |
I am only able to supervise bachelor's theses that are in my area of expertise and that are fairly directly related to the research projects that are currently underway. Please don't assume that you can choose any topic related to this list -- I have specific things that need to be done. Contact me if you are interested.
A bachelor's thesis involves reading some of the literature to gain background information, formulating a research plan, carrying out the plan, and writing a document (the thesis) to describe what you did, why you did it, and what you learned by doing it. If you are supervised by me, you will expected to do the following:
You need to have taken whichever of CPSC 314 or CPSC 344 is most relevant to your thesis topic (sometimes both!), unless your topic is not related to either graphics or human-computer interaction (not very likely, since most of my research interests are in these two areas). For exceptional students, you can be taking CPSC 314 concurrently with starting a bachelor's thesis with me, but taking CPSC 344 concurrently is not possible.
| Expectations if I supervise graduate work |
I expect any master's student to complete all of the three required courses for the HCI specialization as part of their course work. Usually whatever thesis or essay you do with me will satisfy the requirements for the major research project, which means you will complete the specialization if you take the one additional HCI elective. Whether you take the fourth elective is up to you (i.e., it is your choice whether you wish to have the HCI Specialization on your transscript). But you do have to take the foundations course, an empirical methods and analysis course, and a design and evaluation course so you are prepared to do research with me. If you have not had these already, taking them will be part of any superivsory agreement.
I expect any doctoral student to have already completed the equivalent of the HCI specialization, either at UBC or elsewhere, prior to starting to work with me.
In addition to the HCI courses, I expect students to have reasonable programming skills, some knowledge of theoretical computer science, and experience with at least some aspects of GUI design and implementation, 3D graphics programming using OpenGL, and using devices such as the various trackers and other input devices commonly used in HCI research. If you don't already have these skills you may need to acquire them. You definitely need to be able to write well because you will need to complete a thesis or dissertation and in most cases co-author one or more papers on your research. If you have not had much experience with technical writing, you will by the time you graduate!
All students I supervise are expected to attend the MUX meetings, which happen most weeks, and the Imager Lab events, which happens more or less monthly. I am a member of both MUX and Imager (all of MUX is part of Imager, but Imager also includes graphics and visualization faculty, postdocs, and students as well as various fellow travelers). My students are de facto members of MUX and Imager. This comes with a commitment to contribute to both lab by taking on one or more tasks (such as assisting with organizing and giving demos, responsiblity for specific equipment, or other duties that help the labs function so they are enjoyable places to conduct research).
I schedule weekly meeting with each student, usually jointly with co-supervisors for students who are co-supervised (many of my students choose this option, which I encourage). Often the schedule changes to accommodate other meetings, but on average I expect to meet at least every second week with each student, and more regularly when there are particular deadlines looming that require more collaboration.
| Possible thesis or dissertation topics |
Here are four areas for thesis topics that are high on my list of priority projects. Some are likely to be co-supervised with other faculty members. Each has scope for multiple master's thesis or doctoral dissertation projets, as well as smaller sub-projects suitable for bachelor's theses, COGS 402 projects, or summer undergraduate internships.
Recent work with former PhD student Joel Lanir developed the MultiPresenter system that provides support for large (two-projector) presentations in classroom settings. There are a number of thesis topics that build on this work including integrating MultiPresenter with the i>clicker systems used at UBC, improving features to allow students to interact directly with and add material on the screen, and addressing privacy and other issues related to how material is shared on a large screen. Here is an example of a gamelet designed for classroom use. One thread in this research will look at developing additional gamelets and a framework for deploying them in a variety of ways (single-player, multi-player, and tournament styles initially).
Recent work with Prof. Joanna McGrenere and former master's students Qixing Zheng and Yamin Htun developed a structured annotation system for collaborative authoring. A thesis topic extending this work to further support collaborative authoring could look at further enhancements that integrate annotation and editing functions, collaborative report writing and reviewing, and more general collaborative workflow. Similar ideas can also be explored for collaborative marking of programming assignments, including tecniques for reducing marker's workload by capitalizing on re-use of comments and annotations made by other markers, and engaging students themselves in the marking process.
Recent work with former master's student Evgeny Masakov1 developed Whale Tank Virtual Reality, a system for collaborative viewing of 3D scenes. A thesis topic extending this work to support construction management tasks that integrates 2D and 3D information would be part of a larger four-year project conducted jointly between computer science and civil engineering. Part of this project will investigate multiple object tracking (MOT) in binocular viewing situations to extend work previous done in collaborations with psychologists at UBC.
Integrating tabletop, wall, and hand-held displays such as an iPad, iPhone, or Smart Phone is receiving a lot of attention in the research community. A UBC team involving architects, urban planners, civil engineers and computer scientists and computer engineers is working on tools to support community involvement and stakeholder access to advanced 2D and 3D visualization and collaboration tools designed to facilitate sustainable planning for buildings, neighborhoods, and regions. Research questions include understanding the appropriate choice of display in terms of size, orientation, and interaction techniques to support a variety of tasks. Key issues such as how workflow moves from one display to another has task requirements change, how groups come in and out of collaboration while working on a project together, and how awareness and coordination are best maintained without interrupting engagement with the tasks underway are being explored.
| Are you still interested in working with me? |
After you have looked at the information above, if you think you might be interested in working on a gradaute degree under my supervision, here are some more things you should know about me, my research, and my style of supervision.
If you have read this far and are still interested, contact me by e-mail and we can discuss things further. Before we enter into a supervisory agreement, we will have a meeting to discuss the type of research you want to do and how that research fits into my own research program.
When we meet to discuss supervision, bring a copy of your most recent academic transcript, a list of the courses you have taken (what they are as well as what marks you got), a summary of your work experience, and a statement of what you expect to do in graduate school. These are for me to keep on file so I have the information when it comes to writing letters of reference for scholarships. It will also help to focus our conversation.
If you have not already been accepted into the graduate program at
UBC, you must apply directly to the program(s) you are interested
in prior to expecting any decision from me regarding supervision.
I am happy to meet with prospective students to discuss possible
supervision, but students are not admitted to the program by
individual faculty members, they must apply through the normal
procedures.
| Other things to consider |