gerry@gerrychu.com
Education
University of Toronto, Canada
MSc, Computer Science (Human-Computer Interaction), DGP lab, 2007
Advisor: Prof. Ravin Balakrishnan
Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
BS, Human-Computer Interaction, Mechanical Engineering. May 2006
Graduated with University Honors, GPA: 3.70
Employment
University of Washington
Engineer
Seattle, WA
March 2009-
Engineering improved version of the anatomically-correct testbed (ACT) hand robot. Programming real-time robotic control software.
Hasso Plattner Institute
Visiting Researcher
Potsdam, Germany
Nov 2008-Early 2009
Setup new research lab. Conducted study on why pointing using touchscreens is imprecise. Advised students on interaction design projects.
Microsoft Research
Research Intern
Redmond, WA
June-Sept 2008
Designed interactions, visual metaphors, and conducted user studies for NanoTouch, a small mobile device with a touchpad on the back.
Microsoft Research
Research Intern
Bangalore, India
Jan-May 2008
Designed "featherweight" audio/touchscreen interfaces for illiterate people in India. Observational field research in eye hospital and in villages.
Robotics Institute
Research Assistant
Pittsburgh, PA
2004-2006
Repaired an arm robot that is mentally controlled by a monkey. Designed, machined, and programmed a rotational haptic device.
Xerox
Mech. E. Intern
Wilsonville, OR
Summer 2005
Designed a fixture for printhead alignment using Pro/Engineer. Analyzed stresses using Ansys. Wrote a GUI data graphing program in Matlab.
Mentor Graphics
Web Application Developer
Wilsonville, OR
Summer 2001
Built customized homepages for a Java web application. Examined the needs of users to design interfaces that provided each with relevant information.
Projects
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Built a featherweight multimedia device using audio and a touchscreen for illiterate people in India to teach eye health and sustainable agriculture. Ran user studies. |
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Created software prototypes for and ran user studies on NanoTouch, a very small mobile device that users interact with via a touchpad on the back of the device. |
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Created an innovative kit of cleaning tools for the International Truck as part of the Integrated Product Design course at Carnegie Mellon. This kit was a lifestyle product created to increase brand visibility. |
Publications
Gerry Chu and Tomer Moscovich. Haptic Conviction Widgets. In Proceedings of GI 2009 - Graphics Interface conference. 4 pages.
Gerry Chu, Sambit Satpathy, Kentaro Toyama, Rikin Gandhi, Ravin Balakrishnan, and S. Raghu Menon. Featherweight Multimedia for Information Dissemination. In Proceedings of ICTD 2009 - the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. 11 pages. Honorable Mention.
Patrick Baudisch and Gerry Chu. Back-of-device Interaction allows creating very small touch devices. In Proceedings of CHI 2009 - the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 10 pages. CHI 2009 Best Paper Award nominee.
Skills
IxD - User-centered design, think-aloud, task analysis, heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthough
Engineering - Prototyping, Solidworks, Pro/Engineer, Machining, Matlab
Programming - C#, C++, WPF, XAML, Java, Flash, Visio, Linux, HTML, PHP, SQL
Languages - Spanish, Chinese
Teaching Assistanceships
User Interface Design, Hasso Plattner Institute, Fall 2008
Design of Interactive Computational Media, University of Toronto, Fall 2007
The How and Why of Computing, University of Toronto, Spring 2007
Capstone Design of Games, University of Toronto, Fall 2006
Activities
YokyWorks
Volunteer
2009-
Creating communication device customized for girl with motor disabilities due to cerebral palsy.
Buggy
Mechanic
2002-2006
Used composite materials to help build a vehicle for a university competition.
Oregon Watersheds
Volunteer
2000-2002
Volunteered for an organization dedicated to bring fish back to urban streams.
Food Drive
Volunteer
2003-2005
Organized a food drive for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
Citizenship
USA