Paul Dourish

Paul Dourish (born 1966) is a computer scientist best known for his work at the intersection of computer science and social science. He is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, where he joined the faculty in 2000.

Life and Work

Born and raised in Glasgow, Dourish received a B.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh in 1989. While at Rank Xerox EuroPARC (later the Xerox Research Center Europe) in Cambridge, UK, he completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science at University College London. He has worked in research laboratories at Apple Computer and at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, and held visiting positions at Intel and Stanford University.

His published work is primarily in the areas of Human-Computer Interaction, Computer supported cooperative work, and Ubiquitous computing. He is the author of over 100 scientific publications, and holds 19 US patents.

His research tends to draw both on technical and social domains, and speak to the relationship between them. His research topics have included the role of informal awareness in supporting coordination in collaborative systems, the relationship between 'place' and 'space' in information systems, and methodological questions about the use of ethnographic techniques in information systems design.

At UC Irvine, he is a teaching professor of Informatics in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences department, where he is a member of the Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction (LUCI), and in the interdisciplinary graduate program in Arts Computation Engineering. In addition to his appointment in Informatics, he has courtesy appointments in Computer Science and Anthropology. From 2004-2006, he was Associate Director at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.

At UC Irvine, Dourish is a member of:

• The divisional council of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology
• The Center for Cyber-Security and Privacy
• The Institute for Software Research
• The Center for Organizational Research
• The Center for Computer Games and Virtual Worlds
• The Center for Uncovnentional Security Affairs
• The Center for Biomedical Informatics
• The advisory board of the Center for Ethnography and the Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion
• The executive board of the UC-wide Pacific Rim Research Program

Along with being a member of the aforementioned organizations, Dourish is a co-conspirator in the Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction, a faculty associate of the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations, and a co-coordinator of the People and Practices PAPR@UCI initiative.

In 2008, he was elected to the CHI Academy in recognition of his contributions to Human-Computer Interaction. Dourish won the Diana Forsythe Award in 2002, and the BM Faculty Award in 2006 under the American Medical Informatics Society. He was also awarded the National Science Foundation Career Award in 2002.

Research

Dourish conducts research which strays on the borderline of both computer and social science. He mainly performs research in three specific areas of human-computer interaction (HCI). This includes work under ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), and Social Studies of Science and Technology. He works in collaboration with sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies in an effort that he calls “embodied interaction.”

Previous projects that Dourish has worked on include studies of privacy and spatiality. In this first study, Dourish emphasized privacy as “something that people do rather than something that people have”. He was interested in how people rate information and activities based on privacy and risk. Through the studies, he sought knowledge of private practice as a social phenomenon. His second study involved the impact on shaping spatiality by information technologies. His goal was to study spatiality as a social and cultural production.

Dourish’s recent work has dealt with information technology use in trans-national and trans-cultural contexts. In the process, he has worked with indigenous Australian people, Chinese gamers, mobility between Thailand and the USA, and Indian people regarding IT design. Dourish and his team were drawn by these new settings to dismiss the presumption that “everyone is or wants to be just like us”. The new experience also helped to challenge current technological practices by showing the assumptions made in familiar settings.

Dourish is interested and intrigued by opportunities presented through design as potential means of ethnographic engagement. He combines social theory, empirical examination, and technology design with varying emphasis throughout his projects.

Publications

Dourish has published two books so far. He published "Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction" (MIT Press) in 2001. This book explores the relationship between phenomenological sociology and interaction design, particularly with reference to physically embodied computation and ubiquitous computing. He proposes Tangible computing and Social computing as two different aspects of the same program of investigation, named Embodiment.

His second book, "Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing," written in collaboration with Genevieve Bell, is an exploration of the social and cultural aspects of ubiquitous computing, with a particular focus on the disciplinary and methodological issues that have shaped the ubiquitous computing research agenda. It was published by MIT Press in 2011.

In addition to the two books, he has published conference proceedings, journal papers, conference papers, book chapters, technical reports, essay & position papers, editorial activities, and patents. A full list of his publications can be found at http://www.dourish.com/publications.html Many of the patents that he holds involve document management.

See also

• Lucy Suchman
• Terry Winograd
• Mark Weiser
• Bonnie Nardi
• Critical technical practice

Selected bibliography

• Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Dourish, P. 2004. What We Talk About When We Talk About Context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 8(1), 19-30.
• Dourish, P. and Anderson, K. 2006. Collective Information Practice: Exploring Privacy and Security as Social and Cultural Phenomena. Human-Computer Interaction, 21(3), 319-342.

External links

• Dourish's UC personal home page
• LUCI The Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction
• Dourish's personal website
• Dourish's awards