Elizabeth Churchill - Principal Research Scientist

Research Area: Econ and Social Sys
Location: Yahoo! Research Silicon Valley

Profile

I am a Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo! Research in Santa Clara, CA, where I manage the Internet Experiences Group. I am also the current Vice President of SigCHI, the ACM's Special Interest Group for Human Computer Interaction.

My research focus is social media. At the highest level, I am interested in emerging digital media ethnoscapes - the fluid, shifting landscape of people and groups - that make up internet life. I take a human centered approach to design and innovation, and believe that lasting innovations derive from a deep understanding of how technologies are woven into everyday lives. Therefore my work centralizes the influence of social and cultural factors on people's adoption and adaptation of technologies. Over the last decade, I have conducted studies to address how social technologies and social media are created, consumed, adopted and adapted in different regions: in Japan, the US and the UK - and also in virtual worlds. I have designed applications for personal (mobile, desktop) and public space settings.

My work at Yahoo! Research continues threads that have been previously developed: mediated collaboration, mobile connectivity, transmedia technologies, digital archive and memory, and the development of emplaced media. My work and ideas elaborated in more detail in my written publications, and embodied in technology prototypes and products.

Recent Publications, Projects and News

  • The Dating Game - How do busy people find love? Increasingly, they turn to online dating sites like Yahoo! Personals. And, just as important, how do people use technology to initiate new relationships? Do they use online calendaring tools to schedule a date weeks in advance? Or do they use mobile devices to micro-coordinate their plans, adjusting the time and place of their meeting according to what’s going on at that particular moment?
  • Yahoo! at ACM International Conference on Multimedia - Yahoo! Labs had a prominent presence at the 2009 ACM International Conference on Multimedia held on October 19 -23, 2009 in Beijing, China.
  • 7 cool research projects from Yahoo - We meet the experts on the cutting edge of web innovation
  • Yahoo! at VLDB 2008 - Yahoo! walked away with a total of 10 accepted papers, and several Yahoo! researchers served on various program committees.
  • EPIC 2007 - Being Heard - The third international Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) recently took place in Keystone, Colorado. Representing Yahoo! Research at the conference was Elizabeth Churchill, who served on the EPIC steering committee and was a curator for workshops.
  • Featured Researcher - Elizabeth Churchill - A psychologist by training, Churchill has devoted her career to studying people—especially how they adopt and adapt technologies into their everyday lives.