Contact/FAQ

My office address is:
  • Hornbake South, Room 2118E
  • 4130 Campus Drive
  • College Park, MD 20742

NOTE: Hornbake Library has a North and South Wing, and they’re more separate than you might think. It’s common to go into the North Wing and get confused about not being able to get into the South Wing. If you find yourself in the North Wing and can’t figure out how to get to the 2nd floor, you’ll have to go the ground floor to be able to cross over the South Wing, or leave the building on the 1st floor and re-enter on the South Wing. Better yet, avoid this situation and go straight to the South Wing, following this hand-dandy figure:

It’s best to reach me by email. I’m also on:

Office Hours

If you’re a UMD student who wants to come to office hours, please sign up for an appointment slot here. If there are no slots available at the usual time, it probably means I’m traveling.

During office hours, if people are already here, come right on in. Do not just wait outside. You can either join the conversation or hang out in my office until I get to talk to you. You’ll likely learn something unexpectedly cool, and you might even chime in to help your peers better than I can, especially about student life issues. (h/t Phillip Guo and (h/t Scott Klemmer for this idea).

If you prefer to speak confidentially about a truly private matter (not just one that you think would bore others), let me know when you arrive. We can arrange to speak privately at the end of office hours with the door closed.

Bio

Joel Chan is an Assistant Professor in the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies (iSchool) and Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL). Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Project Scientist in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) at Carnegie Mellon University, and received his PhD in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. His research investigates systems that support creative knowledge work, such as scientific discovery and innovative design. His long-term goal is to help create a future where innovation systems are characterized by openness and sustainability. His research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences, Adobe Research, and Protocol Labs, and received Best Paper awards from the ASME Conference for Design Theory and Methodology, the Journal of Design Studies, and the ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD).