SIAT professor and alumni recognized with long-term impact award

School of Interactive Arts & Technology professor Dr. Alissa Antle and former graduate students Lesley Xie and Nima Motamedi were recently recognized with the Long-Term Impact Award at the ACM 17th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (ACM TEI).

The conference, which took place over several days from February 26th to March 1st in Warsaw, Poland, addresses issues of human-computer interaction, novel tools and technologies, interactive art, and user experience.

The award, presented to Antle, Xie, and Motamedi, recognizes significant and long-term impact of a research paper, based on citation count and influence on the field of tangible, embedded and/or embodied human-computer interaction.

Antle, Xie, and Motamedi received the award for their 2008 paper “Are Tangibles More Fun? Comparing Children’s Enjoyment and Engagement Using Physical, Graphical, and Tangible User Interfaces.” The paper challenges early ideas of potential benefits of tangible computing and put forward a rigorous methodology for studying benefits in the context of children’s spatial problem solving.

Antle, who also directs the Tangible, Embodied Child-Computer Interaction (TECI) research group at SIAT, is an established leader in tangible and embodied computing, interaction design and child-computer interaction research and development. Her interactive systems have been deployed to facilitate collaborative learning about Indigenous heritage, sustainability and social justice, improve learning outcomes for dyslexic children, teach emotion-regulation to disadvantaged children and teens, and enable teens to critically reflect on ethical issues associated with bio-technologies such as wearables and brain-computer interfaces.

Xie and Motamedi both graduated from SIAT in 2008 with a master of science and master of arts, respectively. Xie is currently an industry UX leader while Motamedi is pursuing his PhD at Utrecht University.