Assistant Professor, INFO@UMD
Associate Director, HCIL@UMD
Assistant Director, PhD Program in Information Studies@UMD
2118E HBK South | joelchan@umd.edu | CV

Hi, I'm Joel. My research and teaching explore systems that support creative knowledge work, in domains such as design and scientific discovery.

Being in an iSchool, I conceive of "systems" very broadly, from individual cognitive skills, interfaces, tools and practices, to collaborative and organizational dynamics and tools, all the way to sociotechnical infrastructures within which knowledge work is done. Sometimes I study such systems; and sometimes I create new instances of such systems; often I do a close mix of the two. This talk is a decent overview of how this plays out through a central current thread of my research.

My long-term research vision is of a world filled with creativity support systems that are open and sustainable

Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Project Scientist in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) at Carnegie Mellon University, where I worked with Steven Dow and Niki Kittur. I received my PhD in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, where I was advised by Christian Schunn.