Doctoral and Masters Consortium

The COMPASS’23 Doctoral and Masters Consortium is an in-person event taking place during the COMPASS’23 conference, for mentoring and sharing research among a small group of Masters and Ph.D. students. The primary goal of the DC is to provide a forum for in-depth research discussions and to build a mentoring and peer network for participants. 

We anticipate that in the morning participants will briefly present their research questions and problem statement, and in the afternoon discuss a challenge they currently face in their research. All presentations will be about 5 minutes in duration.

If you would like to participate, please submit, using the Google Form brief information which outlines:

• Whether you are Masters or PhD student, and what stage you are currently at
• Your research topic and research methods
• Your hopes for this Consortium
• The main questions you would like to address in this Consortium.

The Google Form for your submission is here.

Important dates

Submission (using Google Form): 1st May 2023 1 June 2023
Decision about acceptance to workshop: 31st May 2023 9 June 2023
Participants to confirm they will attend:  June 15th 2023

The Consortium will be facilitated by Jacki O’Neill, Nic Bidwell and Neha Kumar

Dr Jacki O’Neill is founding Director of Microsoft Africa Research Institute (MARI). She is passionate about designing technologies which enhance, rather than remove, agency and create sustainable futures. She brings this passion to the MARI where she is building a multi-disciplinary team, combining research, engineering and design to solve local problems globally. An ethnographer by trade, specializing in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) her research aims to drive innovation in order to make the best possible technologies for work, health and society. She has led major research projects in the future of work, financial inclusion and global healthcare. She has >50 peer-reviewed articles, two innovation awards and 16 patents. 

Dr Nic  (Nicola) Bidwell has held academic positions in Australia, Denmark, Namibia and South Africa. Her research, at the intersection of HCI and social informatics, focuses on rural settings and the Global Souths. Her recent studies include Community Networks and community radio and exploring predictive logics with Indigenous groups to produce more epistemically accountable AI. Nic has >100 peer-reviewed articles and an award for contributions to social and economic development and her work has influenced policy discussion. Nic co-founded AfriCHI and is chair for Sustainability on SIGCHI’s Executive Committee. She currently has a role in Digital Ethics at the University of Melbourne, while maintaining her home in rural Namibia.

Prof Neha Kumar is an Associate Professor at Georgia Tech. Her research lies at the intersection of human-centered computing and global development. She was trained in computer science, design, and ethnography at UC Berkeley (BS, Ph.D.) and Stanford University (MS, MA). Neha leads the Technology and Design for Empowerment (TanDEm) lab at Georgia Tech.