Abhijit Rao - United States of America
About the artist
Member since the very beginning
ABHIJIT RAO
1110 W. Stoughton St., Apt #203, Urbana IL 61801
Email: [email protected]
URL:http://www.uiuc.edu/~ajrao
Citizenship: Indian
Date Avaliable:12/12/03
Willingness to Relocate: Yes
EDUCATION
* University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, IL, USA
o Master of Science in Library and Information Science, expected December 2003
o Program Objective: Special focus in Human Computer Interaction
o Overall GPA: 3.72/4.00
* Manipal Institute of Technology, Karnataka, India
o Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and Engineering
o Result: Passes in First Class with Distinction (74.5%), July 2002
RELEVANT EXPERIENCE
* August 2003-December 2003, ResearcherWeb: Exploring Research using Network Visualization, Masters Thesis
This masters project involves development of Network Visualization which will enable users to explore various research areas using network theory. Rapid protoyping is done using Scalable Vector Graphics(SVG) and JSP.
* June 2003-August 2003, Summer Intern, Corporate R&D, Procter and Gamble, Cincinnati, Ohio
The internship gave me an opportunity to work on some of the current projects in innovation networks. Some of my accomplishments were as follows:
- Introduced the principles of Social Network Analysis to the Corporate R&D team.
- Designed and rapid prototyped a Dynamic Network Visualization tool named "Nvizio" using JAVA 2D.
- Presented a report on Innovation network that will help company take strategic decisions.
- Several of my conceptions are in the process of being patented by the company.
* February 2003-May 2003, Project Member, Class Project, Design of Virtual Menus in Immersive and non-immersive 3D environments
o Reinvented virtual reality user interfaces that demonstrate use of menu systems in 3D environments like CAVE. The project investigated some of the prominent issues of usability and usefulness of these 3D interfaces. In addition to that ethnographic studies were conducted to study how users operate virtual menus in virtual reality.
* January 2003-May 2003, Technical Support, Silicon, Carbon Culture: Knowledge Networks project
o Helped students in rapid prototyping of visualization tools and knowledge navigation systems. In addition to that, my duty was to provide guidance to students in 2D and 3D Information Visualization. All these projects were experimented in various NCSA Virtual Reality environments including CAVE, CUBE and Tiled display WALL.
* February 2003-April 2003, Usability Team Member, Over-The-Shoulder-Learning(OTSL) project
- Assisted the usability analysts in pilot studies.
- Recommended key User interface elements to software programmers to make it more usable.
- Involved in user testing and interface evaluation.
* October 2002-January 2003, System Designer, Desktop Aksi
Desktop Aksi is a Virtual Workspace concept that integrates personal social communication and task management on the desktop. This design was selected for the prestigious CHI 2003. This project completed its first stage of development that comprised of Initial User Study, Rapid Prototyping, User Interface evaluation, Systems Design.
* September 2002-November 2002, Usability Team Member, Microsoft Share Point Team Services(STS) Research Project
Research project-collaboration between Usability Office, Microsoft Corporation and University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. This project consisted of the following tasks: User Research and User-Centered Design of STS version 1, low level prototype designing for the Shared Documents feature in STS. Task analysis and heuristic analysis were significant part of the project. Represented my team for the final Presentation to the Program Managers of STS and members of the Office Usability group at Microsoft Corporation, Redmond.
* ANÄNTH- Research Portal functioning on Digital Gestures
o This meta-search engine design won a consolation prize during the highly competitive national-level technical festival Showcase 2001, organized by Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India, 1&2 September 2001. The objective of the design was on user-centered design. Conducted Heuristic analysis, Cognitive Walkthroughs and Task Analysis on design interface.
WORK EXPERIENCE
* January 2003-May 2003: Graduate Teaching Assistant, LIS 350 Visualizing and Navigating Knowledge Networks course, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, UIUC, Champaign, IL
o Demonstrated 3D models to the class using VRML
o Generated 3D Visualization in NCSA CAVE and on NCSA Wall
* August 2002-December 2002: Graduate Assistant, Assistant Webmaster, UIUC Library, Champaign, IL
o Updated Library WebPages
o Provided web programming support (used JavaScript and ASP) to various Library Units
o Updated the Electronic Journal Proxy
o Carried out database migration from Microsoft Access to Microsoft SQL
* March 1998-April 1998: Statistical Analyst, MS Access Database implementation and statistical data analysis, IDP EDUCATION Australia, Mumbai, India.
o Provided the management, statistical report of their annual educational exhibition
o Used Access and Microsoft Excel for furnishing the report
* December 1997-Febuary 1998: Hardware Trainee, Hardware maintenance and support, Talfield Technologies, Melbourne, Australia.
o Assisted Network Specialist in Software Installation and hardware maintenance
* June 1997-July 1997: Statistical Analyst, MS Access Database implementation and statistical data analysis, IDP EDUCATION Australia, Mumbai, India.
o Provided the management statistical report of their annual educational exhibition
o Used Lotus SmartSuite for furnishing the report
COMPUTER SKILLS
* OS Platforms: UNIX, Windows 95/98/NT/2000
* Databases: Sybase SQL Server, Oracle PL/SQL, Microsoft Access, TOAD
* Languages: C, C++, Java, JSP, HTML, XML, Scalable Vector Graphics
* 3D Authoring tools: 3D Studio Max, AC3D 3D-authoring tool, VRML
* Applications: Macromedia Director, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Fireworks, Adobe Premier, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office
* Social Network Visualization tools: UCINet 6, NetVis, IKNOW, MAGE
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
* Rao, Abhijit, Usability of Tiled Display Wall, proceedings of UPA 2003, Arizona, June 23-25th 2003.
* Rao, Abhijit, Deploying Microsoft(r) Share Point Team Services for Committee Management in the Library, Information Technology and Libraries journal, to be published in September 2003.
* Rao, Abhijit, Desktop Aksi: Virtual Workspace concept integrating personal social communication and task management, Proceedings of CHI 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, USA, April 5-10, 2003.
* Rao, Abhijit, Process of Knowledge Building in Educational Departments, Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, August/September 2002.
* Rao, Abhijit, ANANTH: Quest for Colossal Knowledge Internet Research Portal functioning on Digital Gestures, Proceedings of Association of Management (AOM) Conference 2002, Quebec, Canada, July 31 - August 03, 2002.
* Rao, Abhijit, Digital Behavior: Looking for a Bright and Intelligent Internet future, Proceedings of International Applied Business Research Conference 2002, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, March 14 - 19, 2002.
* Rao, Abhijit, Novel adaptive learning approach in Higher Education using Data Mining techniques, Proceedings of Quality Innovation Knowledge Conference, Malaysia, Feb 2002.
* Rao Abhijit, Realization of Déjà Vu: a User Authentication system using High Performance Real-Time Digital Libraries, Proceedings of 8th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Hyderabad, December 2001.
* Rao, Abhijit, Inception of Relation-based User Authentication system coupled with User Behavior Analysis, December 2001, Internet Technical Group online publication INTERNETWORKING.
* Rao, Abhijit, Innovative multi-layered conceptual model used for Customer Behavior Analysis in E-Business environment, Proceedings of Annual WebDev Share Conference, Indiana University, Bloomington USA. Oct 2001.
* Rao, Abhijit, Prospects of Customer Behavior Analysis in Passfaces-an identity verification technique, Proceedings of International Business and Economic Research Conference (IBERC), Nevada, USA, Oct 2001.
* Rao, Abhijit, Recognition of Conative and Affective behavior in Web Learning using Digital Gestures, Proceedings of 2001 World Congress in Mass Personalization and Customization, Kowloon, Hong Kong, Oct 2001.
* Rao Abhijit, Recognition of Conative and Affective behavior in Web Learning using digital gestures, Proceedings of Web Based Learning Conference, New Brunswick, Canada, Oct 2001.
HONORS, AWARDS and ACTIVITIES
* Awarded Travel Grant by the University and the Graduate School to present poster during CHI 2003.
* Wilkinson Scholar Fellowship awarded by Graduate School of Library and Information Science, UIUC for 2002-2003.
* Student Volunteer, CHI 2003, April 6-10 2003, Fort Lauderdale, USA
* Student Volunteer, Supplemental Proceedings Editing, CSCW 2002, Nov 16-20 2002, New Orleans, USA
* Student Volunteer, Reflections|Projections, ACM Midwest Student Conference, October 2002, UIUC
* Recipient of the Intel Travel Scholarship, 8th International Conference on High Performance Computing Conference, Hyderabad Dec 2001.
* High Performance Computing Travel Grant, High Performance Computing and 1st Grid Computing Conference, Bangalore Dec 2000.