Â鶹´å

Chris Labash

• Meeting Times: Tuesday and Thursday, 10 - 11:20 a.m.
• Modality: In-person expectation
• Prereqs: None

Some of the most visible and memorable public and social art, design, and advertising is designed to move populations to political and social action. But does it? There is no evidence, for example, that Smokey Bear ever prevented a single forest fire. But the "Rock the Vote" campaign is credited with encouraging over two million young people to register to vote. Using a consultant-style approach to produce a real-world research report, we look at effective techniques that can be broadly applied to change social and political behaviors, especially today. Along the way, you'll learn a consulting methodology, key ways about how to approach research and analyze and visualize data, and how to work on an important research project as an individual and as a team.

Seth Wiener

• Meeting Times: Monday, 8 - 10 p.m.
• Modality: Remote
• Prereqs: None

Consider the phrase, “The fireman will climb the…” Before the sentence is even complete, your mind predicts the next word—likely “ladder.” Artificial intelligence works in similar, probabilistic ways. This interdisciplinary course will explore how listeners use probabilistic linguistic information in real-time by recording and analyzing eye-movements. In this collaborative, cohort-based course, students will read published studies from the field of psycholinguistics, which explores how psychological processes affect linguistic behavior. Students will work together to replicate a testable hypothesis about how a quantifiable linguistic measure affects eye-movements. Students may have the opportunity to collect data, build statistical models to evaluate the hypothesis, and compare the results to previous findings. Students will gain experience in each step of the research process and have the opportunity to submit their findings to professional conferences in humanities, social/cognitive sciences, and computing.

Raelin Sawka Musuraca and Amy Melniczuk

This course is a cross-campus collaboration between students at the Â鶹´å Pittsburgh and Doha campuses.

• Meeting Times: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 - 10:50 a.m.
• Modality: Remote
• Prereqs: It is recommended (but is not required) prior coursework or experience in at least one of the following areas: human–computer interaction, UX research, design, information systems, business/operations, statistics/ML, or social science research methods

In this 12-week, fully remote product innovation studio, mixed Â鶹´å-Q and Pittsburgh student teams explore how retail and service organizations can design better customer experiences while addressing challenges such as sustainability, data privacy, and equity. Through Â鶹´å’s ENAiBLE Collaborative, students will engage with retail industry partners during critiques and the final presentation. Co-taught by faculty in Computer Science (Â鶹´å-Q) and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII), the course blends product design, HCI, and cross-cultural research methods. Students conduct background and field research, analyze qualitative data, and model “what is” through personas, empathy maps, and journey maps. Building on these insights, teams ideate and prototype “what could be” using low-fidelity service concepts, storyboards, and tangible or digital mock-ups. They then communicate their work through a concept video and a concise stakeholder-facing presentation. The course is ideal for students interested in product design and development, service innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration across campuses.

Diane Turnshek

• Meeting Times: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 12 - 12:50 p.m.
• Modality: Remote
• Prereqs: None

We encourage bright lighting at night to celebrate events, create festivity and monitor progress. But where have all the stars gone? Over 80% of people in the US and Europe now live under light-polluted skies and cannot see the Milky Way. The overuse of artificial light at night is harming ecosystems, human health and access to the shared night sky. Skyglow examines light pollution and its impacts through the lenses of sustainability, environmental justice and astronomy. Students will study the sources and consequences of excessive nighttime lighting and learn how it affects biological systems, human well-being and cultural relationships with the night sky. Students will carry out individual or small-team research projects that document light pollution and communicate evidence-based solutions to specific target audiences (such as policymakers, educators, and business owners). Projects emphasize real-world impact and public communication and will be shared as public-facing resources via DarkSky International’s Pennsylvania chapter.

Haoyong Lan

• Meeting Times: Wednesday, 1 - 3 p.m.
• Modality: Remote
• Prereqs: None

This undergraduate research course offers a unique opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge research on generative AI literacy through systematic review methodology. Students will conduct systematic reviews investigating how generative AI literacy is conceptualized, implemented, and assessed across educational and professional contexts. The cohort will collaboratively develop systematic review protocols, conduct literature searches, assess study quality, extract and synthesize data, and produce scholarly outputs. Key areas of investigation include technical skills such as prompt engineering, ethical considerations, detection of AI-generated content, and context-appropriate application of generative AI tools. This research will contribute to the emerging scholarship on generative AI literacy while providing students with hands-on experience with systematic review methodology.