Drexel University College of Computing & Informatics (CCI) Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Research,
Dario Salvucci, PhD, has been selected as the Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in Information and Communications Technologies for 2015-2016. The award, made possible by the Fulbright Center's Distinguished Chairs program in conjunction with Finland's Fulbright Commission and the Nokia Foundation, aims to foster engagement in international research collaboration by offering American scholars research and lecturing opportunities at higher-education institutions in Finland. The
Fulbright Distinguished Chair Awards are viewed as among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholar Program, with approximately 40 awards given each year to eminent scholars with a significant publication and teaching record.
In the fall of 2015, Salvucci will spend four months working at the
University of Jyväskylä—one of Finland’s largest universities that combines expertise in education, natural sciences, humanities and social sciences, sport and health sciences, and economics and business administration. In his position as chair, Salvucci will collaborate with colleagues at the University of Jyväskylä on a project titled “Predicting Driver Distraction with Cognitive Architectures.” In exploring how computer models of human behavior can help to address the worldwide problem of driver distraction, the project’s research component aims to develop novel techniques for simulating driver distraction using computational representations of human-like skills and limitations. The teaching component of the project involves offering a new course on computational cognitive modeling at the University of Jyväskylä.
A Drexel faculty member since 2001, Salvucci focuses his research on computational models of human cognition and behavior, with a particular emphasis on multitasking and driving. His recent book,
The Multitasking Mind (with Niels Taatgen), describes a new theory for how people manage multiple tasks in everyday situations. He has received a number of awards including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Drexel College of Engineering Outstanding Teaching Award, the Fred Burggraf Prize at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, and the Siegel-Wolf Prize at the International Conference on Cognitive Modeling. He has also served on the Franklin Institute Committee on Science and the Arts and the editorial boards of
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ToCHI),
Human Factors, and
Psychological Review.
According to the Fulbright Center, Finland is technologically one of the most advanced countries in the world. One quarter of the Finnish labor force is directly or indirectly employed by the technology industry and three quarters of private-sector R&D investment goes to the technology sector. The size and the role of Information and Communications Technologies in the Finnish economy and R&D have grown considerably along with the Nokia’s worldwide success.
The Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in Information and Communications Technologies is funded by the Nokia Foundation, the Finnish Fulbright Commission, and the Fulbright Center. The U.S. program partner is the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES). For more information,
please visit CIES' website.
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