Biography
 
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Joshua Hailpern is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Computer Science Department focusing on Human Computer Interaction. He attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Music Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree with Honors in May 2006.

Personal Research Goals
His approach is to take what he has learned in Computer Science, Music Technology, Graphic Design and Art and move on to the broader field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research, eventually in an industrial research, academic research or advanced technology setting. He is intrigued with the problems inherent in the interfaces to applications, in terms of graphics, sound, and ease of use as well as creating new and unique representations of applications. More specifically, he would like to investigate new ways of interacting with computer systems for average users, those who work comfortably with advanced technology, and for those who have a disability or age-based challenges. He expects that this research would entail studying potential alternative input and output technologies, and portable device design.
In addition to his interest in interfaces, Hailpern also hopes to explore aspects of social networking. Of special interest is the efffect of technology on spreading social rumors, and affecting the behavior of large groups. Examples being how technology affects political opinions (e.g., blogs), and social networking tools (e.g., facebook) causing individuals to act in a certain way outside of the digital world.

Hailpern would like to explore many more aspects of HCI, ranging from the cognitive psychology underpinnings of the field to the hardware components of user interface technology. He feels that pursuing a Ph.D. will allow him to gain the technical understanding and research techniques necessary to succeed in making technology easier to use and make it more accessible to individuals of all backgrounds and ages. Through his experience in video, sound, computer science, graphic design, and theatre, Hailpern believes he can play a unique roll sitting between many fields bringing together many disparate ideas in creative and exciting new ways.


University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Joshua is pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science focusing on HCI. Currently, Hailpern is working with Professor Brian Bailey on research dealing with enhancing creativity of multiple ideas during the early stages of design and brainstorming. The project, currently titled TEAM STORM, focuses on a new design tool for group collaboration on multiple ideas. The end goal is to create a generic design paradigm which can be applied to any system (group text editing, video editing, etc.) to enhance the creative and collaborative process.
Hailpern has been awarded the "Cultural Computing Fellowship" for the 2006-2007 Academic year. Joshua is also a current member of ACM and will be a Student Volunteer in SIG CHI's Annual conference.
In the summer of 2006, Hailpern's work on WISE was accepted into ACM's SIG ACCESS conference ASSETS. In October 2006, he present his work and was awarded frist place in the Microsoft Student Research Competition.


Carnegie Mellon University
As part of his major in Computer Science, Joshua Hailpern has taken the conventional core CS requirements including data structures, algorithms, programming languages, theory and networking. As part of his Music Technology minor he has studied recording technologies, computer music software, music theory, and computer music/sound synthesis. Beyond the core requirements, he has also studied Information Warfare, Virtual Reality Experience Design, Robotics, Graphical Design, HCI, Interface Design and Computer Art. Hailpern conducted senior thesis research with Professor Benoit Morel of Carnegie Mellon, investigating the feasibility and practicality of a distributed virus detection network to recognize new computer viruses faster than current methods basing our model on work by John von Neumann. Their research is titled "Distributed Detection of New Virus Threats in Large Scale Networks". Hailpern is continuing his ongoing research on an HCI project in which he is researching and designing a new graphical interface for the elderly that supports their age related challenges, both physical and cognitive.

Summer Positions and Teaching Assistantships
During the summer of 2003, Joshua Hailpern interned under Dr. Herb Lee at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. He designed and developed authentication and logging programs as part of IBM's Tivoli Internet measurement software product. In the fall of 2003, Hailpern worked for Prof. Rich Pattis and Prof. Mark Stehlik at CMU as a consultant for Intermediate/Advanced programming (15-111) for CS majors. In the summer of 2004, he worked under Mr. Jeff Kaminski at IBM's Software Development Lab in Pittsburgh, PA, where he designed and implemented a reservation database in Lotus Notes, designed and implemented scripts to obtain status information and performed updates of systems on a network. During the summer of 2005, Hailpern interned at Carnegie Mellon University under Professor Roger Dannenberg, where he designed and implemented a programming interface to a music visualization package, as well as converted program to C and debugged Matlab sound analysis code. During that same summer, Hailpern was a Teaching Assistant for Fundamental Data Structures and Algorithms (15-211) for Professor Victor Adamchik at Carnegie Mellon University. Hailpern was a Teaching Assist Computer Networks (15-441) in the Spring of 2006. Following his graduation from Carnegie Mellon, Hailpern worked as a summer intern in the spring of 2006, at IBM Research in Hawthorn, NY. He worked with Dr. Vicki Hanson's accesability team who were researching techniques to aid older adults and individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities to browse the web. In addition to the accesability research, he (with Peter Malkin) filed a pattent on a new VR technique.

John Jay High School
Joshua Hailpern graduated from John Jay High School, Katonah, NY in 2002. During his tenure at John Jay High School, Hailpern participated in a three-year Science Research program, in which he conduced research at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, NY, under the mentorship of Dr. Charles Palmer, on the topic of Internet Privacy and Security. He conceived and developed prototype software to securely protect, encrypt and manage Internet cookies. This resulted in two technical papers. The first one ,"An Analysis of the Prevalence of Cookies on the World Wide Web", was published as an IBM Reserch Report. The second one,"Ceebler:An HTTP Proxy for Secure, Fine-Grained Access Control of Cookies", was part of his submission to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Louisville, KY. At ISEF 2002, Hailpern received 4th place in Computer Science overall and 1st place in Computer Science awarded by the US Army. At the Westchester Science and Engineering Fair (WESEF) 2992, he received 2nd place overall and 1st place in Computers.

Hobbies and Other Activities
In addition to his work in Computer Science at CMU, Joshua Hailpern was involved in other organizations on the Carnegie Mellon campus. He served a two semester term on the Scotch'n'Soda Theatre board of directors as Public Relations Chair. Hailpern was also a member of the No Parking Players (NPP) improv comedy troupe (a part of Scotch'n'Soda). He was a member of NPP's performance troupe between Spring 2003 and Spring 2006, and was head of publicity from Spring 2003 to Fall 2003. During 2005, Josh was the Artistic Director of the NPP troupe.
Hailpern also worked for Hillel: Jewish University Center for Carnegie Mellon University. He served in a Public Relations role to increase interest among the community and to recruit participants for Hillel and the "Birth Right Trip" to Israel in Fall 2003. Hailpern interned at Hillel to publicize and organize major events, such as a performance by Al Frankin and Second City in 2004. Hailpern also created poster designs for general Hillel events from Spring 2004 through Fall 2004. Hailpern served as Treasurer of the CMU Board during the Fall 2004 semester.
In his free time, Hailpern has persued his interests in music. While at Carnegie Mellon he played with three groups whose musical stylings ranged from rock to jazz to folk. Most reciently, he played with Bridget and the J-Boys and released a CD (with most tracks written by Hailpern). The CD was released in the Spring of 2006. It is avalble online at Tower Records, CD Baby, and on iTunes.

Computer Skills
Joshua Hailpern programs in Java, SML, C, C++, Perl, HTML, Assembly, and Matlab. He uses the following operation systems; Windows (95, 98, ME, 2000, XP), OSX, OS9, Linux, Solaris, and Unix. He is proficient at MS Office, Lotus SmartSuite, Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Director, Sonic Foundry Family, ProTools, Reason, Finale, Epsilon/Emacs, Eclipse, Project Builder, Xcode, iLife 04/05, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Live Type, and Web-Sphere Development Studio.