Informatics Seminar Series
Winter Quarter 2020

Abstract:
Eye tracking, the process of measuring where a person is looking, can provide great insights into human attention. Although a well-established methodology in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, eye tracking remains largely inaccessible due to its high cost and lack of scalability. In this talk, I will present tools that seek to enable richer and more naturalistic eye tracking studies which can be conducted remotely, at scale, and with minimal cost. One such application, WebGazer, can be added to any website and can seamlessly self-calibrate to predict the gaze of an individual by combining user interactions and common webcams. Another application, SearchGazer, demonstrates how webcam eye tracking can be applied to web search and can lead to similar results with prior research that has been traditionally confined in labs. Going beyond eye tracking studies that focus on a single user, I will introduce my most recent work on building dual eye tracking systems. EyeWrite is one such application that enables research on the effects of gaze sharing during remote collaborative writing. Together, these projects show the exciting potential of developing new tools that democratize eye tracking and provide new insights into both individuals and teams.

Bio:
Alexandra Papoutsaki is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Pomona College. Her research in Human-Computer Interaction includes topics in remote collaboration, eye tracking, crowdsourcing, and health informatics. Her work has been published and awarded in top-tier peer-reviewed conferences and journals and has been featured in publications such as Fortune Magazine, PCWorld, and FastCompany. Alexandra earned her Ph.D. and Master's degrees in Computer Science from Brown University and her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece.