|
Gary M. Olson is Paul M. Fitts Collegiate Professor of Human Computer Interaction at the U-M, a professor in the School of Information, and a professor in the Department of Psychology.
Olson is a member of the prestigious CHI Academy, along with Professors Judy Olson and George Furnas. Together they form one of the largest groups of members from a single human-computer interaction program anywhere. The CHI Academy honors individuals who have made substantial contributions to the field of human-computer interaction. Members are the principal leaders of the field, whose efforts have shaped the disciplines and led the research. Selection criteria are cumulative contributions to the field, influence on the work of others, and development of new research directions. The Special Interest Group for Computer-Human Interaction of the Association for Computing Machinery oversees the CHI Academy.
In 2006, he served as chair of the CHI 2006  annual conference in Montreal. It is the premier international conference for students, faculty, and researchers in the human-computer interaction field.
At the CHI conference, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award . The Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to individuals for outstanding contributions to the study of human-computer interaction. The award recognizes a lifetime of innovation and leadership. Criteria for the award are cumulative contributions to the field, influencing the work of others, and developing new research directions.
Olson served on active duty as a lieutenant in the Medical Service Corps of the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1970-73, working as an experimental psychologist at the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in Groton, Connecticut. In 1973 he joined the faculty of Michigan State University as an assistant professor of psychology. He moved to the University of Michigan in 1975, where he has been since. During 1989-90 he was on sabbatical leave in Cambridge, England. Since 1993 he has been professor of psychology at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing.
Olson has published numerous articles and chapters on topics in basic and applied cognitive science. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Education, Arthur Andersen & Co., Ameritech, Apple Computer, Steelcase, Inc., the Grant Foundation, and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. He has also directed several activities in cognitive science funded by the Sloan Foundation.
He has served on the editorial boards of Psychological Review, Memory and Cognition; Development Psychology; Journal of Organizational Computing; Human-Computer Interaction, and Cognitive Science; as well as serving as an ad hoc reviewer for dozens of other journals. He has also served on grant review panels at the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health. He is a member of the Governing Board of the Cognitive Science Society. He was co-chair of the overall technical program for CHI '91 and CSCW '96, and co-chair of DIS '95 and DIS '97, all conferences sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery.
His research interests are in the areas of applied cognitive science, particularly human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work. Specifically, he is working on topics in the area of computer support for collaborative activities, particularly when conducted at a distance. He has conducted both laboratory and field studies of teams carrying out various forms of complex intellectual activities. A major current interest is the design and evaluation of collaboratories to support distributed science and engineering. He has published more than 80 scientific papers, and edited three books. He has also done collaborative research with colleagues in China and Japan.
From 1985-94, Olson served as the director of the Cognitive Science and Machine Intelligence Laboratory (CSMIL), a joint venture of the School of Business Administration, the College of Engineering, and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. From 1994-97 he served as director of the Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work , an interdisciplinary laboratory with faculty from five different schools and colleges.
Olson was appointed interim dean of the School of Information on September 24, 1998 and served until December 31, 1999. Until April 30, 2006, Olson served as associate dean for research at the School of Information.
|
|
