Below is the list of workshop organizers and staff who contributed their efforts and expertise to plan and make this workshop a success.
Lee Boot
Director, Research Associate Professor. Affiliate appointments: Visual Arts; Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Dr. Lee Boot is a media artist and researcher serving as the Director of the Imaging Research Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He holds affiliate associate professorships in Visual Arts and Computer Science & Engineering at UMBC.
Lee‘s work focuses on integrating artistic values and methods into multidisciplinary teams to address societal challenges, including substance misuse, educational achievement, healthcare, and pandemic epidemiology. His projects aim to shift approaches from technocratic solutions to those informed by artistic insights, emphasizing the role of narrative and aesthetic experience in shaping culture and identity. His work has received support from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, and has been commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences. Notably, his feature film “Euphoria,” which explores the pursuit of happiness, won the Gold Award for Documentary at the Houston International Film Festival in 2005.
Dr. Anita Komlodi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems and the Graduate Program Director for Human-Centered Computing at UMBC. Her research areas span the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Human Information Behavior. She studies information behavior in various contexts and and designs user interaction with information-intensive applications. In her current projects she focuses on information behavior and literacy across cultures and collaborative information behaviors in virtual reality environments.
Vandana Janeja
Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, College of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)
Vandana Janeja is Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development in the College of Engineering and Information Technology, Professor of Information Systems department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). She is the director of iHARP, an NSF HDR Institute for Harnessing Data and Model Revolution in the Polar Regions. Her research is in the area of data science with a focus on spatio-temporal mining, data heterogeneity across multiple domain datasets. She heads the Multi Data lab at UMBC which brings together important societal projects such as climate change, ethics in data science, misinformation detection and security through the lens of her research in data science.
Eric J. Stokan
Director of Center for Social Science Scholarship, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Eric Stokan is the Director of the Center for Social Science Scholarship, an Associate Professor of Political Science, and Affiliate faculty in the School of Public Policy at UMBC. His research examines local government prioritization and planning efforts toward environmental sustainability, climate action, economic development, and community development. Stokan serves on the editorial board of the Urban Affairs Review and State and Local Government Review and co-directs the MGMT Lab at Indiana University Bloomington.
Hemanth Chelluri
Graduate Student, MS ’25, Department of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Hemanth Chelluri is a researcher and designer currently pursuing his Master’s in Human-Centered Computing at UMBC. With over five years of professional experience at IBM and Dassault Systèmes, he specializes in UX research and design, transforming complex challenges into intuitive and impactful digital experiences.
He is currently conducting research at the Imaging Research Center as a volunteer, where he investigates individual sensemaking strategies and learning behaviors exhibited by users interacting with immersive analytics environments in virtual spaces. His work focuses on understanding how users engage with complex, multi-data systems to enhance educational outcomes and inform better decision-making processes.
Hemanth’s expertise spans qualitative and quantitative research, user-centered design, and immersive analytics, particularly in education and virtual reality environments. He is passionate about exploring how technology can better connect with human behaviors and needs and has successfully led projects that improved user satisfaction and accessibility.
Rebecca Williams
Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Dr. Rebecca Williams received her BS in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2008 and her PhD in Engineering Science from Dartmouth College. Before coming to UMBC, she was a research engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, studying artificial intelligence/machine learning/computer vision, remote sensing and image processing, data science and visualization, LiDAR data exploitation, sensor platforms, and stereo depth estimation. She currently teaches courses in Data Visualization at UMBC and Medical Imaging at Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals Program. Her current research interests include immersive media, data visualization, computer vision, computer graphics, brain computer interface, wearable sensor technology, imaging and remote sensing
Dr. WIlliams’ current research includes immersive media, data visualization, computer vision, computer graphics, brain computer interface, wearable sensor technology, imaging and remote sensing.
Josephine M. Namayanja is a Research Associate Professor at the Institute for Harnessing Data and Model Revolution in Polar Regions (iHARP), at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Prior to that, she served as an Assistant Professor of Management Science and Information Systems in the College of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Josephine received her Ph.D in Information Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in May 2015 where she also received her M.S. in Information Systems in May 2010. She received her B.S. in Information Technology from Makerere University Kampala in Uganda in May 2007.
Josephine currently serves as the Research Associate Director at iHARP. Her research is primarily in data mining and big data, where she has proposed models for applications in climate change adaptability, health care, cyber security, urban mobility, e-commerce, project management, fintech, higher education learning, labor management, criminal justice, agricultural sustainability, and value-based data science for developing economies. She has published her research work in various journals and also presented at various conferences. Josephine has also served on regional and international conferences as well as, on the editorial review board of journals in the area of data mining, big data, decision sciences, business intelligence, and information systems.
Nikki Monczewski
Communications and Operations Coordinator, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Nikki Monczewski is the Communications and Operations Coordinator at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). With a focus on optimizing operations and crafting effective communication strategies, she plays a vital role in advancing the university’s mission and strengthening its connection with the community.