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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. Student in Human-Centered Computing

Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

  • Advised by Professor Elizabeth Mynatt.

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.

Publications

Posters and Workshop Papers

  • 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.

Technical Reports

Patents

Research Projects

08/2008 – present

Salud!: A Personal Informatics Platform for Health and Wellness Self-management

Advisor: Professor Elizabeth Mynatt, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

  • Designing and developing Salud!, a personal informatics platform for health and wellness self-management. Salud! allows individuals to capture and visualize a broad range of data about everyday events and activities. Goals of this research include demonstrating whether personal informatics applications can improve users’ self-efficacy, and understanding individuals’ data capture and analysis needs around everyday behaviors.

01/2007 – 05/2007

Everyday Practices of Mobile Phone Users

Advisor: Associate Professor Rebecca Grinter, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

  • Interviewed individuals about their everyday mobile phone use patterns, about how these patterns have changed over time. Performed a qualitative analysis of the interview data to understand how changes in mobile phone interfaces have affected users’ personal information management (PIM) practices.

08/2006 – 05/2007

Technology Use in Spiritual Practice

Advisor: Associate Professor Rebecca Grinter, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

  • Assisted with a qualitative research project investigating how the adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in religious settings affects worship practices. Gathered and analyzed data on the role of multimedia technology in churches, and individuals incorporate personal ICT into everyday spiritual activities.

08/2006 – 12/2006

Patterns of Social Activity in an Educational Online Community

Advisor: Associate Professor Amy Bruckman, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

  • Investigated patterns of social activity on MOOSE Crossing, an online learning community for children and young teens, by analyzing logs of user activity. Examined how new users’ initial social interactions influenced their long-term participation and engagement with the community.

08/2004 – 12/2005

Large-Scale Properties and Dynamics of a Blogging Community

Advisors: Assistant Professor Phoebe Sengers and Professor Daniel Huttenlocher, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

  • Developed software to collect social data from the LiveJournal blogging service. Computed large-scale properties of its social graph and explored patterns of implicit relationships between its communities.

02/2003 – 12/2005

Displays of Visitor Presence in an Art Gallery

Advisors: Kirsten Boehner and Professor Geri Gay, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

  • Helped to design, implement and deploy several sensor-driven media installations in an on-campus art gallery.

08/2003 – 12/2003

iFortune: Designing for Alternative Values in the Kitchen

Advisors: Joseph Kaye and Assistant Professor Phoebe Sengers, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

  • Designed and prototyped the iFortune, a playful kitchen appliance, using the Reflective Design process.

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.

Industry Experience

05/2008 – 08/2008

Creative Technologies Lab Intern

Adobe Systems Inc., San Francisco, CA

  • Worked with Adobe researchers to design and evaluated a novel website navigation interface. The interface allows users to directly manipulate elements and fields in a webpage in order to browse or search related pages. Developed a proof-of-concept system which retroactively enables this style of navigation on pre-existing websites.

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.

10/2000 – 07/2002

Junior Developer

Brainlink Inc., New York, NY

  • Developed e-commerce applications for clients and helped maintain production servers.

Grants

03/2008 – 03/2009

Google Research Award: Visualizing Social Dynamics of Mobile Services

Google Inc. (Amount: $34,000)

  • Primary Investigator: Associate Professor Rebecca Grinter.

09/2004 – 12/2004

Learning Initiatives for Future Engineers (LIFE) Research Grant

Cornell University (Amount: $800 USD)

  • 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.

Awards and Scholarships

  • 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
  • 08/2002 Received Cornell University’s John McMullen Scholarship

Service and Volunteer Experience