Northwestern CS Postdocs Secure Faculty Positions
Current and former Northwestern CS postdocs continue pursuing research goals in faculty positions
Northwestern CS postdoctoral fellows secured faculty positions to continue pursuing research goals during the next stage of their careers.
Huck BennettBennett’s research focuses on theoretical computer science, with an emphasis on lattices and geometric algorithms. He is currently an assistant professor at Oregon State University.
A postdoc from 2017-19, Bennett was a member of the Northwestern CS Theory Group. Bennett was an instructor for several courses, including COMP_SCI 212: Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, COMP_SCI 396/496: Computational Geometry, and COMP_SCI 496: Lattices in Computer Science.
Stevie Chancellor
Postdoc mentor: Darren Gergle
Chancellor designs and evaluates human-centered machine learning for high-risk health behaviors in online communities. Chancellor is currently an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Minnesota.
A CS + X postdoctoral fellow from 2019-21, her research interests include quantitative social computing, human-computer interaction, data science, online communities, and mental health. Chancellor taught COMP_SCI 295: Lifting the Black Box: Computation for Social Scientists and COMP_SCI 396, 496: Human-Centered Machine Learning course.
Kathryn Cunningham
Postdoc mentor: Eleanor O'Rourke
Cunningham aims to broaden pathways to computing education by applying human-centered computing methods to improve the cognition and motivation of novice programmers. A 2021-22 Computing Innovation Fellow supported by the National Science Foundation, Cunningham will start a position as an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in fall 2022.
Cunningham is a member of the Delta Lab, an interdisciplinary research lab and design studio at Northwestern focused on social and crowd computing, human-computer interaction, learning sciences, civics, and innovation. She also works with the Center for Human-Computer Interaction + Design (HCI+D), a collaboration between the McCormick School of Engineering and the School of Communication.
Shravas Rao
Postdoc mentor: Aravindan Vijayaraghavan
Rao studies theoretical computer science, with an emphasis on derandomization and pseudorandomness. Rao will join the faculty at Portland State University in fall 2022.
A Warren postdoctoral fellow since 2019, his recent work relates to restrictions on the slice theorem and the relationship between the slice and the concept of high dimensional expanders.
Rao instructed several courses, including COMP_SCI 212, COMP_SCI 396/496: Foundations of Quantum Computing and Quantum Information, COMP_SCI 396/496: Analysis of Boolean Functions, and COMP_SCI 496: Expander Graphs and their Applications.
Emily Wall
Postdoc mentors: Jessica Hullman and Steve Franconeri
Wall, currently an assistant professor of computer science at Emory University, was a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern from 2020-21, where she worked on visualization recommendation systems for statistical inference. Her research was funded by a gift from Adobe Research.
Wall’s research focus centers around decision making using data visualizations and visual analytics. She leads the Cognition & Visualization Lab, which aims facilitate effective data exploration and decision making by quantifying potential human or algorithmic biases and designing interfaces that promote user reflection.
Jason (Willie) Wilson
Postdoc adviser: Ken Forbus
Wilson, currently an assistant professor of computer science at Franklin & Marshall College (F&M), leads the F&M Computational, Affective, Robotic, and Ethical Sciences lab. He aims to use computational approaches to study human reasoning and communication and then apply that research to develop socially aware agents. His research interests include affective computing, multimodal interaction, and human-robot interaction.
From 2017-20, Wilson contributed to Northwestern’s artificial intelligence curriculum and served as a mentor for undergraduate and master’s research projects. He instructed several courses, including COMP_SCI 396, 496: Affective Computing Seminar and the MSAI 348: Intro to Artificial Intelligence course.