I just finished the 3rd year of the Ph.D. program in Cognitive
Science at UC San Diego. Coming from Stanford with a dual degree (B.A. in Psychology and B.S. in Science and Technology in Society), I've been deeply interested in how technology affects human cognition and behavior, and how technology can be better designed to work with people. I began studying the social and informational uses of web technologies during my first internship at PARC (summer 2007).
Since then, my research has focused on the role of social interactions during search, or social search. I've tried to understand the circumstances for when they occur and how they support search (both the informational and cognitive benefits). My work has been more concerned with social answering behaviors (question-answering) than collaborative filtering, although I believe that both "social search" approaches will provide valuable support to searchers.
This summer (2009) I'll be working in San Francisco on some independent projects.
Where To Find Me
I blog on brynnafred. I also maintain accounts on Twitter, Friendfeed, Flickr, and Brightkite.
Resume
You can download my current resume.