Steve has worked on distributed systems over the last 16 years, as a technologist and manager. His recent professional work has concerned security (usable and otherwise) at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Steve's academic research interests revolve around visualization, collaboration and understanding how technology shapes and is shaped by the surrounding social context. Steve brings tasty munchies to our weekly group meetings, usually from Cheeseboard or some other fantastic Berkeley source of fresh baked goodies.
Sarai's primary interest is in the attempt to make stuff that can be described as "deceptively simple." Her focus is HCI, Interface Design, and Usability. She is also interested in technology within the domain of education and, more broadly, learning. Sarai bakes a stellar cranberry banana bread, although she has yet to bring any to our weekly group meeting.
Sarita loves to work at the intersection of ethnography, design, and education. Rather, she hopes to better understand and demonstrate how the three fields do, in fact, intersect. She is currently researching how kids use technology and hopes to use these findings to inform the design of new methods and tools for learning. Sarita doesn't contribute any food to the group. She does, however, keep meetings at under 12 minutes so that everyone has time to go out to lunch after the meeting anyway.