I would recommend parking in the Robert Mehrabian Collaborative Innovation Center (RMCIC), since it's close to my office. The entrance is on South Neville St. Here's a link showing the RMCIC parking entrance on Google Maps Streetview, it's up the ramp on the far left.

Once you park, take the elevator up to the Lobby. Keep the parking ticket with you, the pay machine is near the elevators. As you exit the building, Newell Simon Hall will be to your front and to the right. Here's a picture of what Newell Simon looks like. My office is Newell Simon Hall 3523 and my office phone# is 412 268 1251.

While I don't want to discourage you from learning more about computer science and human-computer interaction, I can't really take undergraduates from outside the United States. Also, unless you are in a special summer research program (e.g. sponsored by NSF or CRA, or CMU's joint summer program with Tsinghua and Peking University), the odds are very low that I can take you on for the summer.

Note that the HCII has been hosting a summer Research Experience for Undergrads (REU) in recent years, so please apply to this instead of contacting me directly. Also, note that unless you are already physically in the USA, it will be extremely difficult to admit you to this summer research program.

tl;dr summary: Please don't send me emails about summer internships unless you are already at CMU or part of an existing sponsored program. You can also apply to our summer REU program.

tl;dr summary: If you're going to send me email inquiring about CMU, at least read some of my papers first and demonstrate that you have the ability to ask smart and interesting questions. Otherwise, you're just wasting everyone's time.

Some things that indicate ability to do research include having research publications, having a solid Masters' thesis, or having done significant work on a research project as an undergraduate.

Another important point is evidence that you can write well. This demonstrates that you can think clearly and present potentially difficult ideas well.

See my web page on graduate school advice for more tips.

• Don't really know what research is
• Don't have past experience in research (not a complete showstopper, but seriously reduces your chances of being admitted)
• Don't have a good idea of what kind of research you want to do
• Can't articulate what you want to do in graduate school
• Don't understand the difference between our Master's program (which is a terminal degree meant for professionals that want to end up in industry) and our PhD program (which is a research oriented program)

Also, be sure to read this article in Communications of the ACM to get a better sense of what I think makes a good PhD student.

(This is a joke if it's not obvious... I also work with folks whose names have a 'J' in the middle of their name too, like Eiji).

• A Resume or CV
• GRE scores (raw and percentile) for graduate school admission letters (assuming you are applying to a grad school that requires them)
• A copy of your statement of purpose (again, for grad school only)
• Who to send the letter to
• Any forms I need to fill out (or links to web pages)
• When the letter needs to be submitted (at least a week, two or more weeks preferred)
• If it has been one or two years since we last interacted, a summary of key or memorable interactions that we have had, e.g.:
  • "I was the student in office hours who had the idea about a cool interaction technique..."
  • "You looked at my final project and said that I was the only one who ..."
  • "I usually sat on the right side of class and asked lots of questions."

I spent two rewarding years of high school at South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Math (no, that name never did fit in any of those forms). In July 2015, I wrote up a short essay in my high school's alumni magazine about my work on the Internet of Things, Privacy, and advice for students about their future. I'm also currently serving on the Board of Trustees for the GSSM Foundation, the non-profit arm of the school.

While I enjoyed growing up in South Carolina, it's also worth pointing out my blog post on why I don't live in South Carolina.

I also worked on the Cyberguide research project with Gregory Abowd, a context-aware mobile tourguide, which was also an early example of ubiquitous computing.

I did my dissertation work on system architectures and user interfaces for privacy-sensitive ubiquitous computing.

I have also co-authored a book on web design patterns, entitled The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-centered Web Experience.

The most intriguing books I like right now are ones about innovation. How do we invent new things? What ideas get adopted (or don't), and why? How did the big ideas in computer science come to be? How do startups get started, and why do some succeed?

Here's a list of recent favorites:

The Dream Machine
What a beautiful history of how we moved from teletypes to interactive and networked computing, in large part due to J.C.R. Licklider's vision.

The Idea Factory
A detailed history of Bell Labs. Skip the first third of the book, the book gets fun when it gets to the invention of the transistor. This book also offers amazing insight into the long view that AT&T was able to have in developing fundamental technologies, like the transatlantic phone cable, lasers, satellites, cellular phones, fiber-optics, and more.

Fumbling the Future and Dealers of Lightning
I read these two books around the same time, so I can't remember which is which. Both are a lot of fun, and offer good insights as to what research was done at PARC, how they came about their ideas, and why they failed to be adopted by Xerox.

In the Plex
A really fun history of how Google got started. What really amazed me about this book was the combination of vision, luck, and skill in making Google the juggernaut it is today.

Blue Ocean Strategy
This is a business book about creating Blue Oceans (vast new areas for business) rather than fighting in Red Oceans. I really like the notion of the Strategy Canvas, it's helped me in how I think about what research I do.

Diffusion of Innovations
Why do certain innovations get adopted (or not)? This book is perhaps the most cited piece of work in social sciences, and it's amazing how insightful it is.

Where Good Ideas Come From
A holistic view of how breakthrough ideas happen. Lots of fun and beautiful examples from history of science and engineering.

How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler
A really fun book about how to re-invent things if you ever time travel and are stranded in the past.