Janet Davis
Interests
Scholarship
My mission as a scholar: Nurture
humanity in and through technology. Foster connections among people,
disciplines, and ideas.
My chief scholarly interests
lie in the area of human-computer
interaction (HCI). I see this
area as broadly addressing a scientific question and a design question:
How do people interact with computers? And how can we design computer
systems to enhance rather than detract from the human experience?
My work as a computer scientist emphasizes the latter.
I am particularly interested in how we do design. My
dissertation research applied Value Sensitive Design
to UrbanSim,
a large scale urban planning simulator, with an eye to transparency,
fairness, and democracy to
support the legitimacy of using UrbanSim as part of the political
process.
Much of my work has applied participatory
design
methods that engage future users in the processes and procedures of
design, respecting equally the expertise of designers and participants.
My current work investigates the design of persuasive
technology to influence users' speech and writing.
This past summer, I worked with Whitman students
Kalilou Ali Kadiri '22, Ahmed Elsayed '23,
Zoë Hill '21, Nidhi Jaltare '21, and Dylan Wu '21
to develop a Web interface for
Reading for Gender Bias, an API to provide feedback on possible gender bias in recommendation letters.
See our work on GitHub!
Teaching
My mission as a teacher: Create
transformative experiences while fostering a supportive learning
community.
My
teaching interests span introductory computer science, computer
systems, design, and the social influences and implications of
computing and other technology. In my time at Grinnell, I taught
Functional Problem Solving, Computer Organization
& Architecture, Operating Systems & Parallel
Algorithms, Computer Networks, Software Development,
Human-Computer Interaction, Evolution of Technology, and two Tutorials
on technology and society.
Personal
My personal interests and pleasures include beadwork,
knitting, sewing,
and other crafts, walking, gardening, cooking,
architecture, reading (especially YA fantasy, cozy mysteries, and light
nonfiction), and collecting computer science jokes. Ask me about my daughter, my
cat, the home my husband and I built in Walla Walla, or any of
my other interests.
Education
Selected Teaching Publications and Presentations
- Janet Davis, Andrea Tartaro, and Tammy VanDeGrift. Demystifying the Tenure-Track Faculty Search in Computer Science at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions: A Handbook of Advice for Job Seekers. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '21).
- Janet Davis. 5 Ways to Welcome Women to Computer Science.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 18, 2019.
- Janet Davis and Samuel A. Rebelsky. Developing Soft and Technical Skills Through Multi-Semester, Remotely Mentored, Community-Service Projects. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, March 2019.
- Janet Davis and Christine Alvarado. 2017. Supporting undergraduates to
make the most of conferences. ACM Inroads 8, 3 (September
2017), 32-35.
- Janet Davis. 2017. Liberal arts academia wants
YOU! Communications of the ACM 60, 2 (February 2017), 12-13.
- Janet Davis, Jeannie
Albrecht, Christine Alvarado, Tzu-Yi Chen, Amy Csizmar Dalal, and Sohie
Lee. 2015. Computer
science faculty careers at liberal arts colleges. XRDS 21, 3 (March
2015), 13-15.
- Janet Davis, Jeannie Albrecht, Christine Alvarado, Tzu-Yi
Chen, and Sohie Lee. Faculty careers at liberal arts colleges: Myths
and
reality. Panel presented at the Grace Hopper Celebration of
Women in Computing (GHC 2013), Minneapolis, October 2-5, 2013. [proposal]
- Samuel A. Rebelsky, Janet Davis,
and Jerod Weinman. Building
knowledge and confidence with mediascripting: A successful
interdisciplinary approach to CS1. In Proceedings of the 44th ACM
Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, March 2013.
- Chase Felker*, Radka Slamova*, and Janet Davis. Integrating UX with Scrum
in an Undergraduate Software Development Project. In Proceedings of the 43rd ACM
Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, March 2012.
- Janet Davis and Henry
Walker. Incorporating
Social Issues of Computing in a Small, Liberal Arts College: A Case
Study. In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education,
March 2011.
- Samuel
Mann, Logan Muller, Janet
Davis,
Claudia Roda, and Alison Young. Computing and
Sustainability:
Evaluating Resources for Educators. ACM
SIGCSE Bulletin 41(4):144-155, January 2010.
- Janet Davis. Experiences with
Just-in-Time Teaching in Systems and Design Courses. In Proceedings of the SIGCSE 2009 Annual
Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, March
2009. [slides]
- Janet Davis and Samuel A.
Rebelsky. Food-first CS:
Starting the First Course Right with PB&J. SIGCSE 2007.
- Janet Davis and Tammy
VanDeGrift. The
Journey to a Teaching-Oriented Faculty Career: A Handbook of Advice for
Graduate Students. In Proceedings
of the 2006 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 2006.
Selected Research Publications and Presentations
- Janet Davis and Buyaki Nyatichi*. Values and Politics of a Behavior Change Support System.
Societal Challenges in the
Smart Society (ETHICOMP 2020), ed. Mario Arias-Oliva, Jorge Pelegrin-Borondo, Kiyoshi Murata, and Ana Maria
Lara Palma, pp. 299-313.
- Emma Twersky* and Janet Davis.
"Don't say that!" An
analysis of persuasive systems in the wild.
In de Vries, P.W., Oinas-Kukkonen, H., Siemons, L., Beerlage-de Jong,
N., van Gemert-Pijnen, L. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 12th International
Conference on Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE 2017), Amsterdam, The
Netherlands, April 4-6, 2017. Springer, LNCS 10171, pages 215-226.
- Janet Davis. Reframing
Persuasive Technology for Sustainability. Presented at the workshop
on “Design patterns, principles, and strategies for Sustainable HCI” at
the ACM Conference on Human Factors
in Computer Systems (CHI 2016), San Jose, CA, May 7-8, 2016.
- Bran Knowles and Janet Davis.
Is
Sustainability a Special Case for Persuasion? Interacting with Computers,
February 2016.
- Janet Davis and Lisa P.
Nathan. Value
Sensitive Design: Applications, Adaptations, and Critiques.
I. van de Poel, P. Vermaas, & J. van den Hoven (Eds.), Ethics and
Values in Technological Design, Springer Reference Works, January 2015.
[manuscript]
- Nediyana Daskalova**, Nathalie Ford**, Ann Hu**, Kyle
Moorehead**,
Benjamin Wagnon**, and Janet Davis (2014). "Informing Design of
Suggestion and Self-Monitoring Tools through Participatory Experience
Prototypes." In Anna Spagnolli, Luca Chittaro, Luciano Gamberini (Ed.)
The 9th International Conference on Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE
2014), 8462, Springer, 68-79. [local
PDF]
- Janet Davis. Early Experiences with Participation in
Persuasive Technology Design. In Proceedings of the 12th
Participatory Design Conference: Research Papers - Volume 1 (PDC 2012),
Roskilde, Denmark, August 12-16, 2012. [local
PDF]
- Scott Kaitz** and Janet Davis.
Facebook Support Groups: Toward Understanding Member
Usage. Presented at the Sixth
International Conference on Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE 2011),
Columbus, OH, June 2-5, 2011.
- Janet Davis. Generating
Directions for Persuasive Technology Design with the Inspiration Card
Workshop. In Proceedings of the
Fifth International Conference on Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE
2010), Thomas Ploug, Per Hasle, Harri Oinas-Kukkonen (Eds.),
LNCS, vol. 6137, pp. 262-273, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 7-10,
2010. [local PDF] [slides] The
original publication is available at http://www.springerlink.com.
- Janet Davis. Design Methods for Ethical
Persuasive Technology. In Proceedings
of the Fourth International Conference on Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE 2009), Claremont, CA,
April 28-30, 2009.
- Timothy M. Miller**, Patrick Rich**, and Janet Davis. ADAPT: Audience
Design of Ambient Persuasive Technology. In Extended Abstracts of the 27th International Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2009), Boston, MA, April 2009.
- Batya Friedman, Alan Borning, Janet
Davis, Brian Gill, Peter Kahn, Travis Kriplean, and Peyina Lin. Laying
the Foundations for Public Participation and Value Advocacy:
Interaction Design for a Large Scale Urban Simulation. Proceedings
of the 9th Annual International Conference on Digital Government
Research, Montréal, Canada, May 2008.
- Janet Davis. Engaging
and informing citizens with household indicators. In Proceedings
of the Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-41),
January 2008, Waikoloa, Hawaii.
- Janet Davis, Peyina Lin,
Alan Borning, Batya Friedman,
Peter H. Kahn, Jr., and Paul Waddell, Simulations
for Urban Planning:
Design for Human Values. IEEE
Computer 39(9): 66-72, September 2006.
- Janet Davis. Household
Indicators:
Design to Inform and Engage Citizens. ACM CHI 2006 Extended
Abstracts, April 2006.
- Alan Borning, Batya Friedman, Janet
Davis, and Peyina Lin. Informing
Public Deliberation: Value Sensitive Design of Indicators for a
Large-Scale Urban Simulation. Proceedings of the 9th
European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work,
Paris, September 2005.
- A.J. Brush, Morgan Ames, and Janet
Davis. A
Comparison
of Synchronous Remote and Local Usability Studies for an Expert
Interface. In Extended
Abstracts of CHI 2004, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, pages 1179-1182. ACM Press, April 2004.
- Robert Grimm, Janet Davis,
Eric Lemar, Adam MacBeth,
Steven Swanson, Thomas Anderson, Brian Bershad, Gaetano Borriello,
Steven Gribble, and David Wetherall. System
support for pervasive applications (PDF, 1,777 KB). ACM
Transactions on Computer Systems, 22(4):421-486, November
2004.
- Janet Davis. REP:
A communication mechanism for pervasive computing (PDF, 218
KB). Technical report, May 2001.
- B. Barden, J. Davis, R.
Libeskind-Hadas, and W. Williams. On
Edge-Disjoint Spanning Trees in Hypercubes. Information
Processing
Letters, 70(1):13-16, April 16, 1999.
* Co-authors are Whitman students or alumni.
** Co-authors are Grinnell students or alumni.
Janet Davis (davisj@whitman.edu)
Created August 7, 2015
Last modified March 08, 2021, 02:48:10 PM PST