Human-Centered Computing (HCC)

Program Admission Requirements
Programs and Courses

VANDANA JANEJA, Chair
ZHIYUAN CHEN, Associate Chair for Academic Affairs
ANDREA KLEINSMITH, Graduate Program Director, HCC

CHEN, ZHIYUAN, Ph.D., Cornell University; database systems and data mining, including privacy preserving data mining, data exploration and navigation, data integration, XML, automatic database administration, and database compression
GANGOPADHYAY, ARYYA, Ph.D., , Rutgers University; privacy preserving data mining, knowledge discovery in structured and unstructured data, health information systems
KARABATIS, GEORGE, Ph.D., University of Houston; database systems, cyber-security, semantic integration of enterprise systems, data integration, mobile data management
JANEJA, VANDANA, Ph.D., Chair, Rutgers University; spatial data mining, anomaly detection, disease informatics, data mining for e-government and homeland security applications
MENTIS, HELENA, Ph.D., Penn State University; human-computer interaction, computer supported cooperative work, and biomedical informatics. I specifically focus on engaging in a translational research approach to align coordinated clinical practices with information technology such as gestural interaction in the OR, informal data sharing in the emergency room, and health information sharing
ROY, NIRMALYA, Ph.D, University of Texas at Arlington; pervasive healthcare, sensor-driven health and green technologies, design and modeling of smart environments, and mobile and pervasive systems
SEAMAN, CAROLYN, Ph.D., University of Maryland, College Park; software engineering, software maintenance, knowledge management, software development organizations, qualitative research methods

Associate Professors

JOSHI, KARUNA P., Ph.D., UMBC; Data Science, Cloud Computing, Services Science and Healthcare IT systems. Her research is supported by ONR, NSF, DoD, IBM, GE and Cisco.
KLEINSMITH, ANDREA, Ph.D., University College London, UK; Human-Computer Interaction and Affective Computing and focus on measuring and modeling body expressions in real world training situations.
KOMLODI, ANITA, Ph.D., University of Maryland, College Park; human-centered computing, information storage and retrieval, computer supported cooperative work
KUBER, RAVI, Ph.D., Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland; human-centered computing, universal access to technology, haptic and multimodal interface design and evaluation
ORDÓÑEZ, PATTI, Ph.D., UMBC; research interests are in applying machine learning, data mining, and visualization to multivariate time series analysis, specifically to large repositories of clinical and biological data, creating a voice programming language, and advocating and working towards high-quality computer and data science education for all.
OZOK, A. ANT, Ph.D., Purdue University; School of Industrial Engineering; human-centered computing, human-technology interaction in health care, human factors in patient safety, user aspects of e-commerce, survey design and implementation, usability design evaluation methodologies, multiple-method approaches in human factors
PAN, SHIMEI, Ph.D., Columbia University; natural language processing, intelligent user interfaces and user modeling, interactive machine learning and data mining
SAMPATH, SREEDEVI, Ph.D., University of Delaware; software engineering, software testing, testing web applications, software maintenance, program analysis
SONG, HOUBING HERBERT, Ph.D., University of Virginia; cyber-physical systems/internet of things, cybersecurity and privacy, and AI/machine learning/big data analytics.
STOCKWELL, IAN, Ph.D., UMBC; focus area is creating predictive models to assess the probability of adverse events among at-risk populations, including older adults and individuals with disabilities.
WANG, JIANWU, PhD, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Big Data, Scientific Workflow, Distributed Computing, Service-Oriented Computing and End-User Programming.

Assistant Professors

CHEN, LUJIE KAREN, Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University; promoting human flourishing by leveraging the power of data and human-centered computing under the umbrella of “Informatics for Human Flourishing.”
FOULDS, JAMES, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine; applied and foundational machine learning, focusing on probabilistic latent variable models and the inference algorithms to learn them from data. His work aims to promote the practice of latent variable modeling for multidisciplinary research in areas including computational social science and the digital humanities.
GANI, MD OSMAN, Ph.D., Marquette University; artificial intelligence, causal inference, and machine learning with an interest in contributing to a deeper understanding of cause and context.
HAMIDI, FOAD, Ph.D., York University; participatory design and evaluation of emerging systems, including digital living media systems and adaptive systems, for different users including children and adults with and without disabilities.
NGAMBEKI, IDA, Ph.D., Purdue University; Cybersecure behavior, social engineering, cybersecurity Education, cybersecurity Policy, and cybersecurity workforce development.
PURUSHOTHAM, SANJAY, Ph.D., University of Southern California; machine learning, data science, computer vision and its applications to healthcare & bio-informatics, social network analysis, and multimedia data mining. His current work involves developing novel deep learning models for data-driven analysis of healthcare time series data and building machine learning models for mathematical oncology.
REYNOLDS, TERA, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine; health informatics, human-computer interaction, and computer-supported cooperative work.
YAO, YAXING, Ph.D., Syracuse University, human-centered computing, privacy, security, IoT, smart homes
ZHANG, LEI, Ph.D., McMaster University; His primary research interest is software engineering. He is particularly interested in understanding the interactions between software engineering and emerging technologies, such as quantum computing and machine learning.

Program Description

The Information Systems Department offers MS and PhD degrees in Information Systems (IS) and in Human-Centered Computing (HCC). Prospective MS students can choose from two campus-based MS degrees (IS and HCC) or one completely online MS degree (IS only). All programs are designed for students who wish to further their knowledge and experience in the area of Information Systems or Human-Centered Computing. These programs may also be of interest to individuals whose undergraduate academic backgrounds are not in a computer or information systems discipline but who meet the department’s admission requirements.

The IS department offers two Ph.D. programs. They are research oriented and intended for graduate students who desire to make research contributions to the field of Information Systems (IS) or Human-Centered Computing (HCC).

The MS program in HCC is interdisciplinary in nature, building on significant strengths within the Information Systems Department while leveraging strengths from other UMBC departments. Human-Centered Computing focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of interactive information technologies and to use this information to improve the lives of individuals, groups and societies.

Research Areas
The department’s faculty and programs have a broad view of information systems. Research areas include, but are not limited to:

Artificial Intelligence/Knowledge Management
Database/Data Mining
Health Informatics
Human-Centered Computing
Software Engineering

Program Admission Requirements

Admissions decisions are based on the following criteria:

Bachelor’s degree: A four-year bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited college or university or an equivalent degree from a comparable foreign institution.
Language requirements: All applicants are expected to read, speak, write and understand English fluently upon entering the program. A TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or an IELTS test is required for students who have earned an undergraduate degree from a non-English-speaking college or university. Applicants whose native language is not English, but who have a post-secondary degree from an English-speaking institution will not be required to take the TOEFL or IELTS. The minimum acceptable TOEFL score established for admission into the program is 550 (written), 213 (computerized), or 80 (iBT). The minimum acceptable IELTS score is 6.5. TOEFL information and applications are available from Educational Testing Service (ETS) at TOEFL, Educational Testing Service, P.O. Box 6151, Princeton, NJ 08541-6151, Phone: 609-771-7100 or online at www.toefl.org. IELTS information can be obtained from www.ielts.org
GRE scores are not required for any of the MS programs.
The majority of successful applicants have an undergraduate GPA well above 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale).

The application deadline dates for the programs are as follows:
o   Campus Based Master’s Programs - Fall: March 1, Spring: October 1
o   Online Masters Program - See website (http://www.onlinems.umbc.edu/) for specific semester dates
o   Ph.D. Programs - Fall: January 1, Spring: September 1

Note: All original application documents for the Campus Based Programs must be sent directly to the Graduate School, rather than to the graduate program. UMBC’s assigned TOEFL code is 005835. TOEFL test must have been within 2 years of matriculation to be valid.

Programs

Master of Science

Human-Centered Computing, M.S.

Doctor of Philosophy

Human-Centered Computing, Ph.D.

Courses

Human Centered Computing

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