I am an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. I am a member of the Work2Play Lab, Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU) and the Robotics and Intelligent Machines Center (RIM).


Prior to working at Georgia Tech, I was a

  1. a)Member of Research Staff in the Computer Science Laboratory at Xerox PARC, and a

  2. b)Member of Technical Staff in the Software Production Research Department (0112590) at Bell Laboratories (AT&T and then Lucent Technologies) , and a

  3. c)Member of Support Staff at Sedgwick (now a part of Marsh and McLennan), and a

  4. d)Member of Catering Staff at the University of East Anglia (note: while I am known for my research, my culinary skills are best described as an enigma. I said at best.)


These impressive occupations were intermingled with education at the University of Leeds (B.Sc. Computer Science, 91) and the University of California, Irvine (M.S. Information and Computer Science, 94 and Ph.D. Information and Computer Science, 96).


At Georgia Tech, I have been honored to advise wonderfully talented Ph.D. students: Marshini Chetty, Andrea Grimes Parker, and the now graduated Ja-Young Sung (jointly advised by myself and Henrik I. Christensen) and Susan P. Wyche. I’m excited that Deana Brown has joined the lab and Georgia Tech, yay!


Other Information

By the numbers: Erdos number of 4, a Grudin number of 1, an h-index of 33, and an MS HCI author ranking of 9...

In 2011 I received an Honorable Mention for a 2001 ICSE paper that had been most influential in the field in the decade following its publication. Thank you ICSE 2011!

In 2010 I received a Distinguish Alumna award from my alma mater, the University of California, Irvine.

I publish using my legal name Rebecca E. Grinter but I’m also known as Beki and beki70.

With Leysia Palen, I co-authored a paper that was the 15th most downloaded from the ACM DL in 2006.

I have a wikipedia entry.

I have the least read blog on the Internet (although lately that’s started to change).

I’m on Facebook, perhaps too much, but the witty world I inhabit is full of status lines.

I’m a member of the Digital Lounge because that’s where all the hip faculty hang...

I have a Google Profile but type in Grinter and you get me anyway, so why bother (with the profile)

I went to Kindergarten in a pub, the World’s End, proudly serving the liquid needs of the village since the 1600s.

I am citizen of the European Union presumed to be English or British. Some of my ancestors are likely Norman and freemen, and lived/live in Dorsetshire, England.

I speak British (or as I like to call it English), American, and Norfolk English.

I support the German football team, not just because its Die deutsche Fußballnationalmannschaft in German. It’s because they’ve one twice in my lifetime and been runners up three other times. England? Not so much.

I was ACM CHI Papers Co-Chair in 2006 with Tom Rodden & CHI 2010 Best Papers Chair (all on my own).

I had a web page by April 1994 (I was rgrinter in the example log of MOMspider output)

Research (with Henrik Christensen, Ja-Young Sung, and Lan Guo) was the #1 Threat Down on the Colbert Report.

I was licensed to drive a forklift at PARC.

Obviously, I am a Mac user. I owned the first Mac laptop, the PowerBook 100. I haven’t looked back.

I am a photographer, I have shot weddings, and I own an embarrassing amount of Nikon kit.

I like to knit, can not crochet (about which I am bitter) and once quilted. All of this made more complicated by my dislike of following instructions. (Probably explains the cooking).


The Low Down