HCC Faculty
Dr. Lisa Anthony
Associate Professor
Dr. Lisa Anthony is an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. She holds a BS and MS in Computer Science (Drexel University, 2002) and a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction (Carnegie Mellon University, 2008). After earning her PhD, Lisa worked in both industry and academic research, including two years in a DARPA- and ONR-funded R&D lab and two years at the University of Maryland Baltimore County focusing on multimodal interaction. Her lab has made its primary impact in understanding how to develop advanced interaction interfaces and algorithms for children in a variety of contexts, including education, healthcare and serious games. Dr. Anthony has received industry and government funding, including the NSF CAREER award, and is known for her work on multistroke gesture recognition, particularly the $N and $P gesture recognizers, and gesture applications for children. Her research has earned multiple best paper awards, including two “Ten Year Impact” awards (ACM ITS/ISS 2021, ACM ICMI 2022). Currently, Dr. Anthony is focusing on efforts to create a symmetrical mentoring program within UF and beyond.
Dr. Kristy Elizabeth Boyer
Professor
Dr. Kristy Elizabeth Boyer is the Director of the LearnDialogue Research Group at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on dialogue for teaching and learning, with an emphasis on building computational models of dialogue and learning that drive the adaptivity of intelligent systems. The LearnDialogue group designs, develops, and investigates innovative learning environments for individuals and collaborative groups, including tutorial dialogue, intelligent tutoring, virtual agents for learning, and game-based learning. In addition, the group aims to transform how young learners experience computer science by engaging in evidence-based, multidisciplinary research and computer science curriculum development.
Dr. Sharon Lynn Chu
Associate Professor
Dr. Sharon Lynn Chu is an Associate Professor in the Computer & Information Science & Engineering Department at the University of Florida. She is part of the Human-Centered Computing group, where she leads the Embodied Learning and Experience (ELX) Lab. The ELX Lab conducts research in two main areas: technologies for learning and technologies for mental health. Her research is oftentimes vision-driven and seeks to impact real people in authentic settings. Current research interests include personalized learning, connected learning, AI for education, and storytelling-based mental health technologies amongst others. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, including by a CAREER award. She serves on the organizing committee of the International Conference on Interaction Design and Children and is an editor for the International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction.
Dr. Bonnie J. Dorr
Professor
Dr. Bonnie J. Dorr is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Florida and member of the Florida Institute for National Security (FINS). Dr. Dorr leads the Natural Language Processing (NLP) Research Laboratory. Her research and project management experience includes deep-language understanding and semantics, large-scale multilingual processing, summarization, and explainable AI and NLP. She has carried out seminal work in cross-language divergence detection, machine translation, paraphrasing and automatic evaluation metrics. Professor Dorr is a Sloan Fellow, an NSF Presidential Faculty (PECASE) Fellow, and a former president of the Association for Computational Linguistics. She has served on the Executive Council of the Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and on the Executive Board of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). She was elected AAAI Fellow in 2013, ACL Fellow in 2016, and ACM Fellow in 2020, and graduated in Class XXXIII of Leadership Florida in 2015. She was named by DARPA to the Information Science and Technology (ISAT) Study Group in 2020.
Dr. Emmanuel Dorley
Associate Professor
Dr. Emmanuel Dorley is an assistant professor at the University of Florida. His research focuses on the design and development of intelligent transportation systems, connected and autonomous vehicles, and smart city technologies. He investigates ways to integrate advanced data analytics, machine learning, and simulation tools to improve transportation safety, efficiency, and sustainability. His work aims to create innovative mobility solutions that enhance traffic management and support the future of connected communities. He also leads the Intelligent Agents Research Group (IARG), which explores how intelligent agents can be designed, developed, and applied to support human learning and collaboration across diverse domains.
Dr. Christina Gardner-McCune
Associate Professor
Dr. Christina Gardner-McCune is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering at the University of Florida. She holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University and earned both her M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she specialized in Software Engineering and Learning Sciences and Technology. She also completed a postdoctoral research position in Computer Science Education at Georgia Tech. Her research focuses on integrating computing across middle and high school curricula. Through her work, she designs interest- and discipline-based curriculum as well as after-school and summer camp programs that engage middle and high school students in science and computing.
Dr. Juan E. Gilbert
Distinguished Professor
Dr. Juan E. Gilbert is the Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor and UF Distinguished Professor in the Computer & Information Science & Engineering Department at the University of Florida where he leads the Computing for Social Good Lab. He is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Dr. Gilbert is the inventor of Prime III, an open source, secure and accessible voting technology that has been used in numerous organization elections and recently in statewide elections in New Hampshire and Butler County, Ohio. Prime III was the first open-source voting system to be used in state, local and federal elections in the U.S.A. Dr. Gilbert was a member of the National Academies Committee on the Future of Voting: Accessible, Reliable, Verifiable Technology that produced the report titled, “Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy”. Dr. Gilbert was named a laureate of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Joe Biden for pioneering and championing universal design in elections technology to make voting accessible for everyone and increasing diversity in the computer science workforce. President Biden also appointed Dr. Gilbert to the National Science Board in 2024.
Dr. Eakta Jain
Associate Professor
Dr. Eakta Jain is Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. She received her PhD and MS degrees in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and her B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur. She has industry experience at Texas Instruments R&D labs, Disney Research Pittsburgh, and the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Dr. Jain is interested in the safety, privacy and security of data gathered for user modeling, particularly eye tracking data. Her areas of work include graphics and virtual reality, generation of avatars, human factors in the future of work and transportation, and human-robot interaction. Her research has been nominated for multiple best paper awards and featured in news articles and popular podcasts. Her lab has been funded through faculty research awards from Meta and Google, federal funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, US Department of Transportation, and state funding from the Florida Department of Transportation. Dr. Jain is an ACM Senior Member. She served as the Technical Program Chair for ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research (2020) and Applications and ACM/Eurographics Symposium on Applied Perception (2021). She served on the ACM SAP Steering Committee (2022-2024) and as elected Director on the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee (2022-2025, Chair 2024-25)
Dr. Benjamin C. Lok
Professor, CISE Graduate Program Director
Dr. Ben is a Professor and Graduate Program Director in UF’s CISE department and CTO of Rovex, Inc. He co-founded Shadow Health (acquired by Elsevier) and leads the Virtual Experiences Research Group, where we build virtual humans and mixed-reality systems to train real-world communication skills—especially in healthcare. He’s UF’s Faculty Lead for the NSF I-Corps Southeast Regional Hub and was inducted into the inaugural IEEE VGTC VR Academy. Our group publishes and wins awards at IEEE VR, IVA, and ACM I3D; we like projects that ship, not just papers. If you want to turn ideas into tools used by clinicians, learners, and robots, come talk to us.
Dr. Kyla McMullen
Associate Professor, HCC Program Director
Dr. Kyla McMullen, an associate professor in Computer & Information Science & Engineering at the University of Florida, has made notable contributions to human-centered computing, particularly in the realm of 3D audio technology. Her work aims to improve perception, navigation, and situational awareness using immersive audio cues. Her projects have been primarily supported by the National Science Foundation. She has received the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, funding work to address the challenges of realistic 3D sound rendering, rapid change detection, and the effects of competing sounds in noisy environments. McMullen’s dedication extends beyond research; she actively engages in efforts to make the field of computing more inclusive. Through her involvement with initiatives, such as hosting “Modern Figures Podcast”, she aims to inspire a diverse new generation in STEM. McMullen’s journey from being the first underrepresented woman to earn a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan to her impactful role in academia underscores her commitment to both technological advancement and community outreach.
Dr. Eric Ragan
Associate Professor
Dr. Eric Ragan leads the Indie (Interactive Data and Immersive Environments) research lab. The Indie Lab conducts research in areas including human-computer interaction (HCI), human-centered AI (HCAI), interactive visualization, virtual reality (VR), and visual analytics. Examples of current projects include the topics of adaptive augmented reality (AR), explainable AI, interaction design for large-language models (LLMs) and vision-language models (VLMs), and 3D interaction techniques.
Dr. Jaime Ruiz
Associate Professor
Dr. Jaime Ruiz is the Director of the Ruiz Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Florida. His research focuses on advancing the field of human-computer interaction through the design and development of innovative Natural User Interfaces that support non-verbal communication in new and meaningful ways. The lab explores novel gestural interactions for virtual reality and augmented reality, aiming to create more intuitive and immersive experiences between people and technology.