Andrew Sears

Andrew Sears is a professor of Information Systems and the chair of the Information Systems Department at UMBC. He is also the director of UMBC’ s Interactive Systems Research Center. Dr. Sears’ research explores issues related to human-centered computing with an emphasis on accessibility. His current projects focus on accessibility, broadly defined, including the needs of individuals with physical disabilities and older users of information technologies as well as mobile computing,...See more

Andrew Sears is a professor of Information Systems and the chair of the Information Systems Department at UMBC. He is also the director of UMBC’ s Interactive Systems Research Center. Dr. Sears’ research explores issues related to human-centered computing with an emphasis on accessibility. His current projects focus on accessibility, broadly defined, including the needs of individuals with physical disabilities and older users of information technologies as well as mobile computing, speech recognition, and the difficulties information technology users experience as a result of the environment in which they are working or the tasks in which they are engaged. His research projects have been supported by numerous corporations (e.g., IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Motorola), foundations (e.g., the Verizon Foundation), and government agencies (e.g., NASA, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, the National Science Foundation, and the State of Maryland). Dr. Sears is the author or co-author of numerous research publications including journal articles, books, book chapters, and conference proceedings. He is on the editorial board of the "International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction," "Universal Access in the Information Society," and the "Journal of Organizational and End User Computing," and the advisory board of the upcoming "Universal Access Handbook." He has served on a variety of conference committees, including as conference and technical program co-chair of the Association for Computing Machinery’ s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2001), conference chair of the ACM Conference onAccessible Computing (Assets 2005), and program chair for Asset 2004. He is currently vice chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing. He earned his B.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Ph.D. in Computer Science with an emphasis on Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Maryland— College Park. Julie A. Jacko is professor of Biomedical Engineering, with a joint appointment as professor in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and is the author or co-author of over 120 research publications including journal articles, books, book chapters, and conference proceedings. She is also the director of the Center for Interactive Systems within the Health Systems Institute at Georgia Tech. Dr. Jacko's research activities focus on human-computer interaction, human aspects of computing, universal access to electronic information technologies, integrative health, and health care informatics. Her externally funded research has been supported by the Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the NIH Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Dr. Jacko received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her research titled, "Universal Access to the Graphical User Interface: Design For The Partially Sighted," and the National Science Foundation's Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which is the highest honor bestowed on young scientists and engineers by the US government. She is editor-in-chief of the "International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction,"and she is associate editor for the "International Journal of Human Computer Studies." In 2001 she served as conference and technical program co-chair for the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2001). She also served as program chair for the Fifth ACM SIGCAPH Conference on Assistive Technologies (ASSETS... See less