Derek F. Reilly

office: room 4204, Mona Campbell Building
mail: Goldberg Computer Science Building, 6050 University Ave., PO Box 15000, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 4R2
e: reilly AT cs DOT dal DOT ca
t: 902.494.4057

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Hi! Welcome to my home on the World Wide Web... I'm an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University, working in the area of Human-Computer Interaction.

Until recently I was Associate Professor at OCAD University (formerly Ontario College of Art and Design) in Toronto, where I helped to initiate and for a short time directed their graduate program in Digital Futures. I currently hold an adjunct appointment in Computer Science at the University of Toronto.

Before OCAD I was a postdoctoral researcher in the GVU Center at Georgia Tech, where I led a research project called TwinSpace, a fusion of virtual and physical collaborative workspaces, and was a member of the Pixi Lab.

My doctoral research at Dalhousie considered pointing and mixed-media techniques for connecting spatial information resources (primarily paper maps and content on mobile devices), under the supervision of Kori Inkpen and Carolyn Watters. I also hold a degree in Education (Computing and English/Media, Queen's), and an honours degree in Computer Science (McGill).

In a previous life I worked in software R&D for a number of companies in Waterloo and Montreal, ending up at U S West's Global Village Labs, an applied research group pioneering corporate intranet applications. Following this I was partner in a startup between 1999-2001 (Locasys Software) where I built an infrastructure for a social location-based service called OpenPlaces.

Research outlook

Much of my research is concerned with the impact of our physical environment on how we interact with computers. This is becoming increasingly important as computing moves away from the desktop. I have explored this within a range of technical contexts, including interactive visualization, mobile computing, mixed reality environments, and whole body interaction. I am also interested in the design of technologies to support spatial thinking in situ (when wayfinding, exploring, annotating, dispatching, etc.). Details about a number of the projects I have worked on are available on this page.

From a high level my research interests cross the fields of Ubiquitous Computing, Collaborative Technology (CSC{WLP}) and Information Visualization.

publications

Teaching

Current and Upcoming Courses

Recent Courses (Winter 2011)

  • Microsoft Research Design Expo (IAMD 5BXX, co-taught)
  • Human Factors for Designers (SOSC 3B27)
  • Introduction to Computer Science (SCTM 2B94)

News and Recent

Recent and Ongoing Projects

Tweetris (Images (c) Navaneethan Sivabalaviknarajah)

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