Rosa Arriaga on transferrable discipline toolkits, making a difference, & caring for the grad student journey

Rosa Arriaga is a developmental psychologist who transitioned into computer science as a senior research scientist in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech in the US. She talks about the journey becoming a computer scientist and applying the toolkit she brings from her psychology background to technology problems around chronic disease management and the reward of seeing real impact in people’s lives. She has also recently taken on the role of Chair of Graduate Affairs and talks with passion about her role in making processes and expectations clear and easy, and in promoting the importance of whole selves.We don’t know what we are going to prepare our students for. We can’t even imagine. So what we need to do is train them on a toolkit that they’re going to be able to problems we can’t even imagine.I have a toolkit, I have a way of understanding the world. And then I apply this toolkit to these (CS) problems (that) are very different to what I would have encountered as a psychologistIt is a powerful thing to feel like you could change the world, could make things better. And if that’s what you can do it is worth it.Those who can do, and those who care become administratorsIt’s not failure, it’s feedback. How do we give you the feedback that you are doing well or that this is not the right place for you and that is fine too.Overview (times approximate): [You can also download a full transcript here]01:40 Becoming a computer scientist from a PhD in developmental psychology and the transferrable toolkit09:44 How she applies her toolkit to computer science problems19:00 More on finding her way into computer science32:40 Being in a research faculty rather than an academic faculty position38:10 Her role as chair of graduate affairs In more detail, she talks about…01:40 How someone with a PhD in developmental psychology ended up in a computer science department? Related to a question of quality of life for the family, her husband, a theoretical computer scientist, getting a job offer at Georgia Tech (GT) and GT putting out a call for who could use a psychologist. Gregory Abowd responded as doing work with autism. He’s been a friend and mentor since 2006. 04:48 Her favourite quote from Pasteur - “Chance favours the prepared mind”. The kind of training she received taught her how to think. And we don’t know what we are going to prepare our students for so need to train them on a toolkit.05:45 The thinking initially was that she would be there for a while and she would decide what she would do in 3 years and then go to a different uni where she felt more at home. But in those 3 years she came to appreciate HCI, doing the same things, just using a different lexicon. 06:45 Her worldview is still very post-positivist and has also learnt to appreciate all the other approaches that her colleagues bring, when you are trying to answer back to that toolkit to solve problems. Talks about the differences between psychology and computer science, in approaches, publishing and speed. She brings her strengths as a psychologist to a different set of problems. And one of the things she brings to CS is her desire to have these systems work in the real world for extended periods of time. Not as if she came from an applied background. But when you get to CS and see the power to have, “I see the applied work really calls to me”09:44 Playing out a post-positivist approach in fieldwork? Mentions a replication study on text messaging improving lung function. Her interest is in why. Why did it work? And will it scale? And looking for the underlying theory. And if it works for asthma, will it work for...

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