Abu Dhabi's AI university to open Human-Computer Interaction Dept.
Google UX director Prof. Elizabeth Churchill to chair new department
#UAE #academia - Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence’s (MBZUAI) is to open a Human-Computer Interaction Department, to foster interdisciplinary collaboration in AI and elevate the university’s academic programmes. Google's senior director for user experience Professor Elizabeth Churchill joins MBZUAI as the chair of the new department and its first professor. The new department is part of the continuing expansion of the university, which last year launched new computer science and robotics departments.
SO WHAT? - Human-AI interaction is a fast-developing field, which is taking on increasing importance, as AI is given more and more autonomy to handle critical tasks across all aspects of life, business, education, government and society. With the rise of Generative AI as the future interface for many AI systems, research and methodologies for human-AI interaction are going to have a greater impact on the outcomes of using AI technologies. The establishment of the new Human-Computer Interaction Department ensures that research on this takes place in the UAE.
Here are some key details concerning the announcement:
Renowned and respected user experience (UX) expert, Professor Elizabeth Churchill, will head-up Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence’s (MBZUAI) new Human-Computer Interaction Department.
Professor Churchill brings a wealth of experience and expertise in human-computer interaction (HCI), artificial intelligence (AI), psychology, and cognitive science. She joins MBZUAI as Department Chair of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Professor of HCI and will lead the establishment of the department.
The Professor most recently served as Senior Director of UX at Google, where she led a team focused on creating developer tools for Fuchsia, a next generation operating system. Previously, she formed and staffed research teams for Google’s design system, Material Design, and for open-source UI software development kit Flutter.
MBZUAI announced new departments for robotics and computer science, with four associated graduate programs in August last year. The new Human-Computer Interaction Department will bring the total number of the university's departmens to six, the others being Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing.
Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence’s official Commencement Ceremony of the Class of 2024 takes place next week. The university already has 276 students studying for masters degrees and PhDs in the 2023 academic year.
MBZUAI is ranked among the Top 20 globally for AI, computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing - this according to CS Rankings.
IMO - Taking into account the UAE's vision to become a global leader in AI, the establishment of MBZUAI's Human-Computer Interaction Department is both timely and strategic, supporting the university's faculties, the local AI R&D ecosystem and the future of the country's AI technology.
- more to follow -