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or see a "morph" (requires MPEG player). It's crude, but that's because I put it here 10 (!) years ago.

Cherri M. Pancake
Professor and Intel Faculty Fellow
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University
pancake@eecs.oregonstate.edu

Research Interests | Online Publications/Presentations | Interactive Access to Large-Scale Data
Usability Issues in High-Performance Computing Software Standardization Efforts Course Materials
Affiliations | Additional Information

See a picture of my newest skill or from a recent trip to France or a (boring) picture

Research Interests

My research focus is usability engineering, or the study of how we can engineer software to be more usable. The particular target audience I focus on is practicing scientists and engineers.

For ten years, I applied usability engineering techniques to software tools for high-performance computing (HPC). During this time, I worked with IBM, Intel, HP, and other HPC companies to improve their graphical tools so that technical programmers could be more effective in developing large parallel applications. I have also been active in developing national and international standards for HPC software, helping to found such groups as the Parallel Tools Consortium and the High Performance Debugging Forum. More recently, I have focused on the special problems scientists and engineers have when they need to find and access very large databases across the Internet.

The "Pancake Research Group" -- no, we don't study breakfast foods -- has pioneered the use of multi-level Web-to-database interfaces, which make it possible to customize access to meet the needs of very different user groups (e.g., middle school children versus professional scientists). We have also developed software infrastructure that allows scientists to construct their own Web interfaces without needing to learn specialized computer science skills. We're currently most active in the "data discovery" process, applied to the natural environment, bioinformatics, and earthquake engineering.

I currently serve as Director of the Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering (NACSE) and Usability Advisor for several groups, including the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the Protein Data Bank, and the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Consortium Development project.

  • Short biography
  • Recen t interview that appeared in ACM's online magazine, Ubiquity.

    Activities

    Online Publications

    Online Presentations

    Guidelines for Web Usability developed for George E. Brown, Jr., Network for Earthquake Engineering System (NEES) Program

    Interactive Access to Large-Scale Data

    Software Standardization Efforts

    Usability Issues in High-Performance Computing

    Course Materials

    Affiliations

    Additional Information

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