The HCIL is pleased to welcome new Director Niklas Elmqvist and Associate Director Jessica Vitak!

HCIL Director Dr. Niklas Elmqvist

HCIL Associate Director Dr. Jessica Vitak

As the HCIL’s sixth Director, Dr. June Ahn, moves on to his new position at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, we’d like to thank him for his hard work to support the lab over the past year, and wish him the best of luck at NYU.

Stepping in to take his place as Director and Associate Director, respectively, are Dr. Niklas Elmqvist and Dr. Jessica Vitak. Dr. Elmqvist has been a lab member since joining the iSchool in 2014, and previously served as the lab’s Associate Director of Sponsorship, while Dr. Vitak has been a lab member since joining the iSchool in 2012. The HCIL is looking forward to moving in exciting new directions with Drs. Elmqvist and Vitak!

Niklas Elmqvist is an associate professor in the College of Information Studies at University of Maryland, College Park. He is also the Director of the Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction program in Maryland’s iSchool. His research focuses on information visualization and visual analytics.

Jessica Vitak is an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies and an affiliate professor in Communication Department. She is also Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Communities and Information (CASCI) and is affiliated with the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2). Additionally, she leads the Privacy+Security Internet Research Lab at Maryland. Her research focuses on networked privacy and the social impacts of information and communications technologies.