Yevgeniy “Eugene” Medynskiy
Technology Square Research Building
85 5th St NW, Atlanta, GA 30332
Tel: +1-415-373-6717
Email: eugenem@gatech.edu
Education
08/2006 – present
Ph.D. Candidate in Human-Centered Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
- Advised by Professor Elizabeth Mynatt. Dissertation topic: “Infrastructure and Interfaces for Health Self-management.”
08/2002 – 12/2005
B.S. in Computer Science
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
- Cumulative GPA of 3.9 (magna cum laude). Minor in Information Science.
Selected graduate coursework: Design of Online Communities, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing, Human-Computer Interaction, Empirical Methods in Machine Learning and Data Mining, Structure of Information Networks.
Selected undergraduate coursework: Human-Computer Interaction Design (two semesters), Psychology of Social Computing, Information Retrieval, Practicum in Database Systems.
Refereed Publications
- Mamykina, L., Miller, A., Medynskiy, Y., Grevet, C., Davidson, P., Terry, M., and Mynatt, E. (2011). Examining the Impact of Collaborative Tagging on Sensemaking in Nutrition Management. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2011). Vancouver, BC, Canada.
- Li, I., Dey, A., Forlizzi, J., Höök, K. and Medynskiy, Y. Personal Informatics and HCI: Design, Theory, and Social Implications. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2011). Vancouver, BC, Canada.
- Medynskiy, Y. and Mynatt, E. (2010). Salud!: An Open Infrastructure for Developing and Deploying Health Self-management Applications. Proceedings of the 4th International ICST Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare (Pervasive Health 2010). Munich, Germany.
- Medynskiy, Y., Dontcheva, M. and Drucker, S. (2009). Exploring Websites with Contextual Facets. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2009). Boston, MA. (video figure)
- Diakopoulos, N., Luther,K., Medynskiy, Y. and Essa, I. (2007). The Evolution of Authorship in Remix Society. Proceedings of the Eighteenth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia (HT 2007). Manchester, UK. 133-136.
- Medynskiy, Y. and Bruckman, A. (2007). The Effects of Conversations with Regulars and Administrators on New Users of a Self-Motivated Online Learning Environment. Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL 2007). New Brunswick, NJ.
- Medynskiy, Y., Ducheneaut, N. and Farahat, A. (2006). Using Hybrid Networks for the Analysis of Online Communities. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2006). Montreal, QC. 513-516.
- Boehner, K., Sengers, P., Medynskiy, Y. and Gay, G. (2005). Opening the Frame of the Art Museum – Technology between Art and Tool. Proceedings of the Digital Arts & Culture Conference (DAC 2005). Copenhagen, Denmark.
Refereed Posters and Workshop Papers
- Medynskiy, Y., Yarosh, S. and Mynatt, E. (2011). Five Strategies for Supporting Healthy Behavior Change. Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2011). Vancouver, BC, Canada.
- Medynskiy, Y. and Mynatt, E. (2010). From Personal Health Informatics to Health Self-Management. Presented at the Know Thyself: Monitoring and Reflecting on Facets of One’s Life workshop at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2010). Atlanta, GA.
- Medynskiy, Y., Miller, A., Yoo, J.W. and Mynatt, E. (2009). Temporal Data in a Health Self-Management Application. Paper presented at the Interacting with Temporal Data workshop, at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2009). Boston, MA.
- Wyche, S., Medynskiy, Y. and Grinter, R. (2007). Exploring the Use of Large Displays in American Megachurches. Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2007). San Jose, CA.
- Medynskiy, Y., Gov, S., Mazalek, A. and Minnen, D. (2007). Wearable RFID for Play. Paper presented at the Tangible Play: Research and Design for Tangible and Tabletop Games workshop, at the 2007 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2007). Honolulu, HI.
- Medynskiy, Y. (2006). Lies in the Interface: Free “Smut” as License for Deception. Paper presented at the Sexual Interactions: Why We Should Talk about Sex in HCI workshop, at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2006). Montreal, QC.
- Medynskiy, Y. (2005). Implicit Links in Asynchronous Communication Spaces. Paper presented at the Beyond Threaded Conversations workshop, at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2005). Portland, OR.
Non-refereed Publications
- Medynskiy, Y. (2011). Using Flash tools to power a personal informatics platform. Adobe Developer Connection. February 27, 2011.
- Sengers, P., Kaye, J., Boehner, K., Fairbank, J., Gay, Medynskiy, Y. and Wyche, S. (2004). Culturally Embedded Computing. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 3(1), 14-21.
Technical Reports
- Diakopoulos, N., Luther, K., Medynskiy, Y. and Essa, I. (2007). Remixing Authorship: Reconfiguring the Author in Online Video Remix Culture. Georgia Institute of Technology Technical Report. GIT-IC-07-05.
- Medynskiy, Y. and Bruckman, A. (2007). The Effects of Conversations with Regulars and Administrators on New Users of a Self-Motivated Online Learning Environment. GVU Technical Report. GIT-GVU-07-05.
Patents
- Medynskiy, Y., Ducheneaut, N. and Farahat, A. (2006). Systems and Methods for the Combination and Display of Social and Textual Content. USPTO Application #20080104002.
Invited Lectures
- Medynskiy, Y. (2011). Designing Effective Software Tools for Health/Wellness Tracking and Goal Management. Center for Law, Ethics, and Applied Research (CLEAR) in Health Information, Indiana University. February 24, 2011.
- Medynskiy, Y. (2009). Exploring Websites with Contextual Facets. GVU Center Brown Bag Lecure Series, Georgia Institute of Technology. March 12, 2009.
Teaching Experience
08/2007 – 12/2007
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
- Assisted with Principles of User Interface Software, a project-oriented course on the design and implementation of graphical user interfaces for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students. Responsibilities included helping students with class material and programming assignments, providing support to graduate students working on independent projects, and grading exams and assignments.
01/2003 – 05/2003
Undergraduate Teaching Assistant
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
- Assisted with Data Structures and Algorithms, an introductory-level class covering basic data structures and algorithms. Responsibilities included helping students with class material and grading programming projects.
Selected Industry Experience
09/2010 – present
Chief Technical Officer
Usable Health LLC, Atlanta, GA
- Managing and contributing to the development of the SmartMenu health-based personal ordering terminals for quick-service and fast casual restaurants. Responsibilities include managing the software development process, overseeing infrastructure rollout, and integrating payment processing (with PA-DSS compliance).
05/2008 – 08/2008
Creative Technologies Lab Intern
Adobe Systems Inc., San Francisco, CA
- Worked with Adobe researchers to design and evaluate contextual facets, a novel website navigation interface. The interface allows users to directly manipulate webpage fields and elements in order to browse or search related pages. Developed FacetPatch, a proof-of-concept system which retroactively enables this style of navigation on pre-existing websites. This work was presented as a full paper at CHI 2009.
05/2007 – 08/2007
User Experience Research Intern
Google Inc., Mountain View, CA
- Worked with the Google Maps for Mobile team to develop infrastructure and tools for distilling usability and user experience data from server logs. Analyzed differences in usage patterns of the Google Maps for Mobile application across several global markets. Communicated results to user experience researchers, software engineers and product managers through written reports, presentations and informal discussions.
12/2006 – 05/2007
Social Software Consultant
Kaltura Inc., Brooklyn, NY
- Developed market analysis tools to inform Kaltura's marketing efforts across online social networking services. Also participated in formative discussions about the integration of Kaltura's collaborative multimedia editing platform with existing social networking services and user-generated content communities.
05/2006 – 08/2006
Software Engineering Intern
Google Inc., Mountain View, CA
- Worked with the orkut engineering team to design and implement a new, top-level orkut feature. Iteratively created a design document and mock-ups detailing the feature's functionality and architecture. Started implementing the feature in the remaining time of the internship.
05/2005 – 08/2005
Computing Science Lab Intern
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) Inc., Palo Alto, CA
- Used techniques from statistical natural language processing and social network analysis to develop a novel method for visualizing activity in an open source development community. Internship resulted in a patent application and a publication at a first-tier, peer-reviewed conference.
Research Grants
06/2009 – present
Technologies for Nutrition and Diabetes Management
National Science Foundation (Grant #0915934)
- Primary Investigator: Professor Elizabeth Mynatt.
03/2008 – 03/2009
Google Research Award: Visualizing Social Dynamics of Mobile Services
Google Inc.
- Primary Investigator: Associate Professor Rebecca Grinter.
09/2004 – 12/2004
Learning Initiatives for Future Engineers (LIFE) Research Grant
Cornell University
- Primary Investigators: Assistant Professor Phoebe Sengers and Professor Daniel Huttenlocher. Received funds for a semester-long independent research project to study online social dynamics on the LiveJournal blogging and social networking service.
Selected Academic and Research Advising
- 12/2010 – present Abhinesh Rao (M.S. CS, Georgia Tech, class of 2011)
- 08/2009 – 12/2010 Dev Priya (M.S. CS, Georgia Tech, class of 2010)
- 08/2009 – 05/2010 Mebaa Kidane (B.S. CS, Georgia Tech, class of 2013)
- 06/2009 – 05/2010 Ruchi Goswami (M.S. CS, Georgia Tech, class of 2010)
- 01/2009 – 08/2009 Joy Buolamwini (B.S. CS, Georgia Tech, class of 2013)
- 01/2009 – 05/2009 Chee Shing “Nigel” Chan (B.S. CS, Georgia Tech, class of 2009)
Awards and Fellowships
- 09/2010 Foley Scholar Finalist
- 02/2010 Georgia Tech Research and Innovation Conference (gtRIC) Fellowship
- 12/2005 Finalist in Computing Research Association’s Outstanding Undergraduate Award program
- 04/2005 Selected as Student Spotlight for Cornell’s Bits on Our Minds (BOOM) research conference
Service and Volunteer Experience
- 02/2008 – present Collaboration Service Manager for Georgia Tech’s Technology Services Organization
- 02/2009 – 04/2010 Webmaster and program committee member for CHI 2010
- 01/2007 – 09/2010 Maintained the Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI) Lending Library for Georgia Tech’s College of Computing
- 01/2008 – 01/2009 Webmaster for the Georgia Tech Web Science Initiative
- Student volunteer at CHI 2005, CSCW 2006 and CHI 2009
- Volunteer reviewer for CHI 2007-2011, Ubicomp 2008 and Pervasive Health 2010-2011

