career goals

Career
Goals

Q: What will you do after school?
A: Do I have to pick one career? What will I not do! Yes, I want to be a researcher, but I intend to create many different research professions throughout my career. I want to be constantly learning new insights and tackling new challenges.

Q: Where do you see yourself in 1 year, in 5 years, and after 10 years?
A: I want my career goals to balance with my life goals. Ideally, I can have the best of both worlds, but my priorities favor personal happiness over professional achievement. Issues factoring into my career decisions include

research opportunity: I enjoy finding new problems yet unexplored and building solution ideas. I thrive on creativity and "thinking outside the box."
team collaboration: I enjoy working with interdisciplinary teams (e.g., psychology, industrial design, architecture, computational perception) to complement my skills and perspectives.
location (and relocation): I enjoy warm weather, arts, sports, outdoors, ethnically diverse communities, and public transit.

..in 2007 (1 year)

Emerging from my PhD thesis, I rate myself as a confident junior researcher within the burgeoning community of smart-home research. I rate myself as a naively sophomore researcher within the massive community of memory research. Well-rounded from several successful research internships, I rate myself as a knowledgeable junior researcher within the general area of human-computer interaction research. I would like to broaden my ongoing research with smart-homes, memory support, or aging-in-place with new perspectives, new collaborations, and new projects. Fortunately, I get to do exactly this with my one-year post-doctorate fellowship in Japan :-)

..in 2012 (5 years)

After reinvigorating my research creativity with a one-year postdoctorate fellowship, I want to settle into a research lab where I can delve deep into intricate research challenges. I could continue to build upon my research niches, or I can explore other areas in HCI that interest me. I want to grow and hone my skills by collaborating with senior researchers.

..in 2022+ (10+ years)

After years of crafting my unique perspectives while working with others on a variety of research projects, I would like to create new research themes to then rally supporters. This would be a leadership role, but I am still undecided whether I will find a home in academic research with a tenure-track faculty position or if I will be better suited in industrial research as a project director.