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Sarah Douglas

Professor Emerita
Computer Science
Phone: 541-346-1379
Office: 143 Deschutes Hall
Research Interests: Human-Computer Interaction

Biography

Sarah Douglas is a Professor of Computer and Information Science and a member of the Computational Science Institute. Her interests in teaching and research are in human-computer interaction (HCI), a topic that she has helped pioneer in computer science. Dr. Douglas came to the University of Oregon from Xerox Palo Alto Research Labs where she was a research intern from 1980-1983. Stanford University awarded Dr. Douglas the Ph.D. in 1983, and a M.S. degree in 1980. She holds an A.B. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the recipient of grants and awards from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Fund for the Improvement of Post- Secondary Education, Computer Research Association, Keck Foundation, US West, Apple Computer, and Intel Corp. In 1991-92, Dr. Douglas was a Fulbright Lecturer in India. Dr. Douglas has served on the editorial board of the journal Interacting with Computers, and is a reviewer for ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction and the ACM CHI Conference. At the national level she was the Chair of the Human-Computer Interaction Knowledge Focus Group for the IEEE-ACM Computing Curriculum 2001. She is the author of over 70 technical papers and a book, The Ergonomics of Computer Pointing Devices, published in 1997 by Springer-Verlag.

Education

  • AB, 1966, California, Berkeley
  • MS, 1979, Stanford
  • PhD, 1983, Stanford

Research

  • Haptics, graphics and audio constitute the general area of multi- sensory interaction for which Dr. Douglas seeks to establish a theory and experimental basis. Applications of this theory include sensory substitution such as using haptics for visually disabled people as an alternative to GUI's.
  • Working with models of usability and computer-mediated collaboration Dr. Douglas has been involved in the development of specialized support for scientific discovery since 1995 when she developed the University of Oregon database for zebrafish genetics (ZFIN), the first biological database developed specifically for the WWW. Dr. Douglas has a current project with post-doc Marc Hansen looking at innovative information management and visualization for fMRI and EEG neuroinformatics experiments.
  • Dr. Douglas has been studying the teaching of studio-based design used in (building) architecture to improve the design of GUI interfaces. A newly funded 2007 NSF CISE Science of Design grant supports this research in collaboration with Virginia Tech and the University of Montana.