Tag: stacey sarris

Seidenberg student Tejas Chavan wins one of only two UXPA International scholarships

Dear Tejas,

On behalf of the UXPA International Board and the 2017 Student Scholarship Committee, we would like to congratulate you on winning the 2017 UXPA Student Scholarship Award.

Your entry was selected as it stood out to the judging panel for its content and originality. You will be joining us in Toronto next month for the UXPA 2017 International Conference!

That was the email Tejas Chavan (MS in Information Systems) received informing him about the scholarship he’d just won to the UXPA 2017 International Conference. This wouldn’t be the first time Tejas has travelled to another country for a conference – in fact, the last time was less than a year ago – but it’s certainly going to be an event he will attend with career goals in mind.

“Since I will be graduating soon, and I will be looking for a full-time opportunity (obviously in UX), I have been attending lots of meetups, and conferences where I can showcase myself and make some good connections as well,” Tejas said. “With that context, I was recently shortlisted by UXDC committee for their UXDC2017 annual summit on April 14th to present my poster and to represent the Seidenberg School and Pace University as a student delegate.”

Tejas has spent his final semester working with Professor Stacey Sarris on an independent study project regarding research methods in human-computer interaction (HCI). It was while working on this project that Tejas met the president of UXPA DC, Ali Tobolsky. Tejas had been reaching out to UX industry experts to survey them for an assignment; Ali was one of them.

“Now the real story starts,” Tejas explained. “I connected her on LinkedIn and sent her my survey link asking if she can forward it to any relevant contacts. She sent me a number of links to groups where I could try my luck. So, I was submitting my survey in each group and I stumbled upon this post saying ‘UXPA International 2017 Student Scholarship.’ I thought since it came it to me from nowhere, I should give it a try. I submitted my application which consisted of a few questions and a letter of recommendation, which I got from Prof. Sarris. I had a very strict deadline to submit it within two days since I got to know about it pretty late.”

Tejas Chavan with Professor Stacey Sarris after getting the good news that Tejas was awarded the scholarship
Tejas Chavan with Professor Stacey Sarris

The submission went through in time, and Tejas received an email from Sara Mastro, the UXPA International Vice President, and Jack Holmes, the UXPA Student Scholarship Award Chair, telling him that he was a scholarship recipient.

“I cannot really believe that I am one of the two winning students from the world. I am feeling ecstatic for getting selected for this award and I would like to thank Prof. Stacey and all my other friends for being a solid support throughout this journey.”

The conference is taking place in Toronto this year, and Tejas will receive flights and transportation, four nights at a hotel, registration to the conference and a year’s membership to UXPA International.

Professor Stacey Sarris, who is an expert in user experience and user interface design, said: “I’m very proud of Tejas; he has thrown himself into User Centered Design, created opportunities for himself, and has taken advantage of everything that comes his way.” Stacey

“I’ve already started packing my bags!” Tejas added.

But wait! There’s more!

Not long after Tejas’ great news, the kind folks at Seidenberg decided they didn’t want him to be lonely, so we are sending his teammates with him to attend the conference and represent their project and the Seidenberg School in Toronto!

Now, Abhishek Kale (MS in Information Systems), Nayana Madhekar (MS in Information Systems), and Honglin Yi (MS in Computer Science) will also get to attend and participate in this exciting conference.

The UX gang is excited to be going to Toronto!
From left to right, Professor Stacey Sarris and her students Nayana Madhekar, Honglin Yi, Abhishek Kale, and Tejas Chavan

Congratulations to all four of these incredible students and to Professor Sarris! We can’t wait to hear how the conference goes!

Seidenberg represents at CERN Design Factory

In the STEM world, there are few places that will make people gasp with awe. CERN is one of them, and during one special week in December, several Seidenberg staff and faculty were there.

CERN is one of the world’s largest and most respected centers for scientific research. It’s also home to a Design Factory, which this year was the host of International Design Factory Week, an annual meeting of Design Factories around the globe to collaborate, bond, and have a good time with other members of the network.

Why were we there?

Pace University recently opened our very own entrant into the Design Factory Global Network (DGFN) – the NYC Design Factory. The purpose of these factories is to build a space within a community where members can research, collaborate, give and get feedback, and ultimately develop excellent ideas and products that solve problems. They do so using a methodology called Design Thinking, a non-traditional way of working that we hope to bring into the mainstream through NYC Design Factory and across the greater Seidenberg and Pace community.

But back to CERN. Delegates from Seidenberg included Dean Jonathan Hill, Professor Stacey Sarris, and Program Manager Olga Bogomolova. They flew out to Geneva, Switzerland, over the weekend preceding the Dec 12th kickoff.

Checking out CERN

So what did our envoys think? “CERN was the perfect backdrop for a collaborative Design Factory global event given that CERN is proof that anything is possible and that’s what Design Factory is about!” said Professor Stacey Sarris.

“CERN is this amazing, dynamic place with thousands of scientists – most of them physicists with some computer scientists sprinkled in – who are working on some of the largest physics problems in the world today. You can’t not be inspired spending a day there among the world’s top science minds,” Dean Jonathan Hill said.

Minds blown at the LHC and birthplace of the internet

Do you want to collaborate?

45 people from 15 countries attended the event. Olga explained the benefits of having an annual get together. “We all have strengths and areas of focus, so when we get together we can exchange ideas and best practices and brainstorm ways of working together. Because we are so different, we can leverage our differences to create a wholesome experience for our students.

There are 16 universities or institutions around the world that think similarly and practice design thinking, project based learning; we have a similar way of thinking and doing things. By getting to know each other, you learn that if you want to work with an institution in Australia, Korea, China, Columbia, and so on, I can just send someone from that country’s design factory a message and say ‘I have an idea, do you want to collaborate?’

Just knowing that even if you don’t know someone in the country there is an institution of people that think the same way as you… it breaks down barriers. The week is great because we get to meet each other as human beings, which helps us work together.”

Top secret

International Design Factory Week has several goals. The first one is to meet and get to know one another. People were spending 10-16 hours per day with each other, so that wasn’t difficult! The second goal was to come up with a project for everybody to work on together. “There’s so many of us, covering the whole world and different timezones. Coming up with a project to leverage the whole network sounds difficult, but we did it,” said Olga. “It’s top secret.”

Top secret? Yeah, right – we found your Mannequin Challenge video, DFGN! We know what you really got up to! Just kidding – but watch their amazing video below!

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