Rebecca Grinter facts for kids

Rebecca Elizabeth "Beki" Grinter is a smart professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). She works in the School of Interactive Computing. Her main job is to study how people use computers and technology.

Professor Grinter is an expert in two fields. These are human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). She has written many important papers and led big meetings about these topics. Her ideas about technology have even been shared in major news.

About Rebecca Grinter

Early Life and Schooling

Rebecca Grinter was born in Norwich, England. She went to school there when she was younger. Later, she studied at the University of Leeds and earned a degree in Computer Science in 1991.

After that, she moved to the United States. She studied at the University of California, Irvine. There, she earned two more degrees. She got her Master's degree in 1994 and her Ph.D. in 1996. Her Ph.D. was about how people work together when they create computer software.

Her Career in Research

After finishing her studies, Dr. Grinter worked at Bell Labs. This was a famous research company. She worked there from 1996 to 2000. Then, she moved to another research center called Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). She worked at PARC until 2004.

At PARC, she led a study about how people used iTunes at work. This study showed that people could feel "playlist anxiety." This means they worried about what music to play for others. News outlets like The Washington Post reported on her findings.

In 2004, Dr. Grinter became a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. She started a special lab there called the Work2Play Lab. She also helped organize a big conference called CHI in 2006. This conference is very important for people who study human-computer interaction. Her work and opinions have been shared by news channels like CNN.

What Rebecca Grinter Studies

Rebecca Grinter's research focuses on how people and computers work together. This is called human-computer interaction (HCI). She also studies how groups of people use computers to work together. This is known as computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW).

Her early work looked at challenges in making software with many people. More recently, she has studied how people use technology in everyday life. This includes things like instant messaging and SMS (texting) among teenagers. She also looked at how people use technology in museums and at home.

Dr. Grinter likes to do research by talking to people. She also watches how people use technology in real life. This helps her understand the connections between humans and technology. One of her most famous papers is "Instant Messaging in Teen Life." She wrote it with Leysia Palen. It was one of the most downloaded papers in 2006!