Insuk/Joy OH
Experience


Education | Research | Teaching | Work

EDUCATION

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, NJ
Ph.D. candidate
School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies
(Expected to earn a Ph.D. degree in Oct., 2006)
Graduate Assistant in Computer Science
Graduate Certificate in Cognitive Science

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, NJ 1997- 1999
M.L.I.S. in Library & Information science
Areas of Concentration: Information use and user studies, Human information behavior, Information Retrieval (IR) system design & evaluation

Chung-Ang University
Seoul, Korea 1993-1996
B.A. Highest Honors in Library & Information science
Areas of Concentration: Information Retrieval, Digital Libraries

Ph.D. Areas of Concentration:
Human-Computer Interaction
2002 - 2006 Interactive Dialogue system, Embodied Conversational Agent design, Verbal & Nonverbal communication
2000 - 2005 Human Information Behavior, User studies, Investigating methodologies for studying human cognition and behaviors
1999 - 2002 Information system evaluation & Customized user interface design

Dissertation:
"Modeling Believable Social Interaction with Embodied Conversational Agent: Communicating Uncertainty in Face-to-Face Conversation"

The primary goal of this interdisciplinary research was to establish an integrated framework for a systematic way of studying human behaviors for applied systems to achieve believable human-computer interaction. I conducted in-depth investigation of verbal and nonverbal behaviors through multiple user studies and modeled/evaluated human-computer interaction based on the observations.

Dissertation Committee
Mark Frank Advisor, Professor in Communication
Matthew Stone CO-Advisor, Professor in Computer Science
Nick Belkin Professor in Library & Information Science
Dan O'Connor Professor in Library & Information Science

RESEARCH

Creating Virtual Characters/ Human-Computer Interaction Research, 2003-current
Rutgers, VILLAGE lab (Dept. of Computer Science and Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science)

I. Making discourse visible: Coding and animating verbal & non-verbal behaviors
Sponsored by NSF
Studying human behaviors to model believable social interaction with a computer agent/ developing interactive applications for computational vision and language

II. Designing the Virtual Announcer, (2005 - current)
Sponsored by Electronic Arts
Researching human factors in the collaborative process of developing the EA Sports video game

Under the supervision of Dr. Matthew Stone and Dr. Doug DeCarlo

Nonverbal Communication & Emotion Research, 2003 - current
Rutgers, SCILS (School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies)

Collaborative research: Automatic analysis of spontaneous facial expressions
Sponsored by NSF and DARPA

Working on nonverbal communication, with a focus on emotion recognition in deception detection context through multimodal analyses (face, voice, words, physiological changes, etc.)

Under the supervision of Dr. Mark Frank

The Cognitive Science Certificate Program,
Rutgers, 1999 - 2001
Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science

Interactive Information System Development Project
Sponsored by NSF

I. Proposing a triangulated approach to elicit users' feedback for designing and evaluating information systems: studying the impact of measuring and analyzing users' emotional states

II. Working on designing the user study of the vocabulary problems in Spoken Dialogue Systems
Under the supervision of Dr. Matthew Stone

RDLDL Interdisciplinary Research Project
Rutgers, 1999 - 2001
Rutgers Distributed Laboratory for Digital Libraries

AntWorld Project: Information Filtering in Networked Environments
Sponsored by DARPA

This was a collaborative interdisciplinary project which I conducted:

I. Usability analysis of the collaborative information filtering system, AntWorld
II. Protocol analysis, examining "Thinking Aloud" method in the laboratory setting

Under the supervision of Dr. Paul Kantor

Publication:
Speaking with Hands: Creating Animated Conversational Characters from Recordings of Human Performance
ACM Transactions on Graphics 23(3), Special Issue: Proceedings of the 2004 SIGGRAPH conference, 506-513

Authors: M. Stone, D. DeCarlo, I. Oh, C. Rodriguez, A. Stere, A.W. Lees, C. Bregler

We describe a method for using a database of recorded speech and captured motion to create an animated conversational character. People's utterances are composed of short, clearly-delimited phrases; in each phrase, gesture and speech go together meaningfully and synchronize at a common point of maximum emphasis. We develop tools for collecting and managing performance data that exploit this structure. The tools help create scripts for performers, help annotate and segment performance data, and structure specific messages for characters to use within application contexts. Our technique supports the rapid construction of animated characters with rich and appropriate expression.

Facial and vocal signals of uncertainty (in progress):

I. Oh, M. Frank

The first experiment studies our daily conversational practice of communicating uncertainty. It is designed to elicit various kinds and levels of uncertainty signals so that we can see how people communicate their understanding and lack of understanding verbally and nonverbally. The second experiment involves identifying reliable signals of uncertainty. As a validity check, the signals are going to be rated by a different group of participants.

Communicating level of uncertainty with a computer agent (in progress):
I. Oh, M. Stone

The primary goal of the research is to establish an integrated framework for a systematic way of studying human behaviors for embodied conversational agents to achieve believable interaction. The three foremost objectives of the research are: 1) to identify agreeable and reliable audiovisual cues of uncertainty 2) to investigate and assess the practical and reliable coding practice for ECA and 3) to evaluate whether humans are able to successfully interpret the meaning of originally encoded behaviors.
Research Proposal (in progress):

Utilizing Users' Emotional States in Human-Computer Interaction (in progress):
I. Oh, C. Lee

With this collaborative project, we present the holistic analyses of users' emotional, behavioral, and cognitive state as alternatives to directly asking what users think or feel. We aim at implementing automatic emotion recognition using computer vision technology. The vision-based recognition of human emotion and applying the recognition result for a new utility computation will open new possibility in human computer interaction.

Panel:
Linking Theory to Research to Practice and Back
National Communication Association (NCA) Annual Conference 2005
Panelists: M. Frank (Chair), D. Sweet, I. Oh, S. Kang, M. Herbasz, P. DiDomenica

New Jersey Communication Association (NJCA) 9th Annual Conference 2005
Panelists: Sweet, D., Herbasz, M., Oh, I., Kang, S.

During the panel, I discussed various measurements of verbal/nonverbal behaviors of human subjects. Overall, this panel brings together communication researchers with a law enforcement practitioner to discuss how systematic communication research can meaningfully inform the real-world practice of detecting deception, and how attention to real world constraints on law enforcement can likewise inform the development of scholarly research paradigms.

Poster Sessions:
I-Conference 2005 (Conference of the Top Information School Community)
NJCA 2005 (New Jersey Communication Association)
Rutgers SCILS Research Day 2005

TEACHING

Instructor

  • "Multimedia Production"

    Rutgers, 2001 - 2004
    Rutgers, Master program, School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies
    (Teaching evaluation of the last session: 4.83/5.0)
    Developed syllabus and overall course structure, including weekly lab practicum, and administered all grades.

  • "ITI Technology Workshop"

    Rutgers, 2001 - 2002
    Information Technology Informatics (ITI) Dept.
    Developed syllabus and overall workshop structure.

  • Teaching Assistant

    Human Information Behavior
    Human Computer Interaction
    Information Visualization
    Multimedia Production
    Application of Research in Information Technology
    TA to the Director of Information Technology Dept. at SCILS

WORK

  • Information Specialist
    Lucent Technology, AT&T Bell Lab.
    Raleigh, NJ, Summer 2001
    Internship
    Provided integrated information solutions to the clients by conducting comprehensive and competitive analyses on the target corporate or industry using various information systems

  • Ovid Technologies, Inc., Commercial Database Company
    New York, NY, Fall 1999
    Internship
    Debugging and testing the performance of the software, which removes the duplicates on multifile searching


  • Electronic Services Librarian
    Rutgers University Library of Science and Medicine
    Piscataway, NJ, Summer 1999
    Temporary full-time faculty
    Organized and managed electronically available resources/ Provided instructional trainings to other faculty, staff, and students


"The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love." (Psalm 145:8)