Alex Eiser

Research Computer Scientist -- NASA

Academic Background

Master in Human-Computer Interaction, Carnegie Mellon University, 2006
B.Comp. in Software Design, Queen's University, 2004

Research and Applied Work

Alex is a Senior Research Programmer working in the Human-Computer Interaction group at NASA Ames Research Center. He graduated from Queen's University with a Bachelors of Computing specializing in software design. In between his third and fourth years at Queen's, Alex spent sixteen months working as a software developer with IBM Canada. While working full time on the CogTool project with Bonnie John, Alex completed the Masters of Human Computer Interaction program as a part-time student.

His experience working on CogTool, IBM's DB2, and several other projects makes his perspective unique in the HCI group. Alex's masters thesis at Carnegie Mellon focused on building efficient interfaces for robotic planning, providing a direct relationship to the work done in the HCI group at Ames.

Since coming to Ames in early 2006, Alex has been working on ACES, an issue tracking application for robotic and human space missions, and SPIF-e a constraint-based planning tool. With his experience working in unix and linux based environments, he is responsible for the maintenance of several of the groups shared computing resources. In addition to the continuing work with ACES, and SPIF-e, Alex is currently working on a tool to help the FAA train future flight controllers.

Recent Papers

Dickie, C., Hart, C., Vertegaal, R., Eiser, A. (2006) LookPoint: An Evaluation of Eye Input for Hands-Free Switching of Input Devices between Multiple Computers. Proceedings of OZCHI 2006, November.