How to contact us

For general questions that others may benefit from please use Slack. The instructor or TA will add all students to the course Slack channel after the first class. If you are not added by the second class please let us know. 

For urgent or personal matters please contact us by email. This helps us keep better track of your questions and respond more quickly. If you use Slack or the Canvas messaging system our responses may be delayed. We are also not allowed to discuss student grades via Slack. 

Course staff

Veronica Rivera (Instructor), veariver@ucsc.edu: Veronica is a PhD Candidate in the Computational Media department at UCSC and has held a visiting researcher position at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems. She does research on harm and safety in digitally-mediated offline interactions, such as gig work and online dating. She loves teaching and designed HCI 220 for the HCI Master's program at UCSC. She received her B.S in Computer Science and Math from Harvey Mudd College. Pronouns: She/her/hers. 

Veronica's Office Hours: Mondays 11am-12pm on Zoom (see Canvas for link),  Tuesdays 5-6pm in SVC 3218, or by appointment. 

Alison (Ali) Crosby (TA), arcrosby@ucsc.edu: Hello, I am Alison (or Ali)! I am a current 3rd year Ph.D. student in the Computational Media department. I conduct research in the ASSIST lab under Sri Kurniawan. My previous work has involved running interviews to better understand the use case for AI technologies in the annotation process of underwater video data, interviewing marine scientists about a novel telepresence system to understand how it affected their jobs/ what worked/ didn't work (primarily during COVID lockdown), and using virtual reality to pilot underwater remotely operated vehicles to catch animals. My current work is centered around how to better prepare civilians for wildfire-related incidents, i.e. using virtual reality to help civilians practice evacuating from their houses during a simulated wildfire event. During my free time, I enjoy going on walks with my dog, reading, and playing video/ board games with friends. 

Alison's Office Hours: Wednesdays 1-2pm in SVC 3218