[Social-sciences-list] Social-sciences-list Digest, Vol 1, Issue 3

[vincent martin]

Hello:
My name is Vincent Martin and my area is a little unique for this list.  My
background  is as a rehabilitation engineer and research scientist who spent
a lot of time also teaching as well.  With my two undergraduate engineering
degrees, I also have a Bachelor's degree in Psychology with an emphasis in
Engineering Psychology.  I am currently completing the last semester of my
Master's degree in Human Computer Interaction at Georgia Tech and I am in
the Psychology track of this discipline.  I intend to continue my
educational pursuits with a PHD in what is called Human Centered Computing.


I worked for almost five years as a health research scientist for the
Veterans Administration where I spent an extensive amount of time in
research methods and design.  Since our area of research was in Wayfinding,
we actually did create and test a number of devices to deal with our
research hypothesis.  In determining how to design assistive technology, we
did realize that what is going on in the brain is much more important than
what was happening with our devices.  There are a number of new apps that
are now being produced  by the Looktell company that were a direct result of
our collaborations with that company from 2005 until this year.  

Human Centered Computing is in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech and
is one of the Interactive Computing disciplines.  It is a new discipline
(only five PHD programs in the country now) that deals with how to solve
problems with computing systems.  The area that I have been specializing in
is how to display the data that we use in Statistics in formats that blind
and low-vision people can readily have access to.  Although the lab that I
work in is called the Sonification lab at Georgia Tech, we do also utilize a
multi-modal and multi-discipline approach towards solving problems.  Our lab
currently has five PHD candidates in Engineering Psychology and two in Human
Centered computing.  Two will be graduating in a few weeks and will be
replace by two more.  We also have another twenty-five or more people in
Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction and undergraduate Psychology
that do work with us.

Another of the things that will keep me interested in what we discuss on
this list is related to my actual hobby.  I am a big fan of Behavioral
Economics and the more I watch people and how they function within our
Economy, the more I am fascinated by it.  The more I delve into Economics,
the more I end up reading more about Social Psychology!