Mary Beth Rosson is a Professor at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology

Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology

The College of Information Sciences and Technology, also known as IST, was opened in 1999 in response to the rapidly growing need in almost every field for leadership in information sciences and technology...

. Most of her research concentrates on End User Programming, Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Computer supported cooperative work

The term computer-supported cooperative work was first coined by Irene Greif and Paul M. Cashman in 1984, at a workshop attended by individuals interested in using technology to support people in their work. At about this same time, in 1987 Dr...

 (CSCW) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Prior to teaching at Penn State, Rosson taught at the Virginia Tech Computer Science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 department and worked as a researcher and manager at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center

Thomas J. Watson Research Center

The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for the IBM Research Division.The center is on three sites, with the main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, 38 miles north of New York City, a building in Hawthorne, New York, and offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts.- Overview :The...

. Rosson earned her Ph.D. in experimental psychology

Experimental psychology

Experimental psychology is a methodological approach, rather than a subject, and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception,...

 in 1982 from the University of Texas (1).

Research

Rosson currently co-directs Penn State's CSCL Lab with her husband, John Carroll

John M. Carroll (information scientist)

John M. Carroll is currently Edward M. Frymoyer Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State. Carroll is perhaps best known for his theory of Minimalism in computer instruction, training, and technical communication...

. She is a founding member of the End Users Shaping Effective Software(EUSES) Consortium, which focuses on issues and techniques related to end-user software engineering

Software engineering

Software Engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software...

. Her other research interests include community informatics

Community informatics

Community informatics , also known as community networking, electronic community networking, community-based technologies or community technology refers to an emerging field of investigation and practice concerned with principles and norms related to information and communication technology with...

, environments and tools for object-oriented programming

Object-oriented programming

Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,...

 and design

Object oriented design

Object-oriented design is the process of planning a system of interacting objects for the purpose of solving a software problem. It is one approach to software design.-Overview:...

, and visual programming environments

Visual programming language

In computing, a visual programming language is any programming language that lets users create programs by manipulating program elements graphically rather than by specifying them textually. A VPL allows programming with visual expressions, spatial arrangements of text and graphic symbols, used...

. She has also done work related to scenario-based design and minimalism

Minimalism (technical communication)

Minimalism in structured writing or topic-based authoring is based on the ideas of John Millar Carroll.Like Robert E. Horn's work on Information Mapping, John Carroll's principles of Minimalism were based in part on cognitive studies and learning research at Harvard and Columbia University, by...

 (2, 3). Rosson and Carroll co-developed the task-artifact framework for design (4).

Publications

Rosson and Carroll have co-authored a book, Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction(3). Rosson has co-authored dozens of book chapters. She has authored or co-authored over one hundred journal articles and refereed conference proceedings (2).

Professional Activities

Recently, Rosson has served as the General Chair for CHI

CHI (conference)

The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems series of academic conferences is generally considered the most prestigious in the field of human–computer interaction. It is hosted by ACM SIGCHI, the Special Interest Group on computer–human interaction. CHI has been held annually since...

 2007, Doctoral Symposium Chair for DIS 2006, Program Committee and Graduate Symposium Mentor for VL/HCC 2006, and General Chair for OOPSLA

OOPSLA

OOPSLA is an annual ACM research conference. OOPSLA mainly takes place in the United States, while the sister conference of OOPSLA, ECOOP, is typically held in Europe...

 2000 (2).

Awards and honors

Rosson was awarded the SIGCHI Award for service as CHI

CHI (conference)

The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems series of academic conferences is generally considered the most prestigious in the field of human–computer interaction. It is hosted by ACM SIGCHI, the Special Interest Group on computer–human interaction. CHI has been held annually since...

 1997 Technical Program Co-Chair International and the ACM

Association for Computing Machinery

The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...

Recognition of Service Award in 2001. In 2007 she was recognized as a Distinguished Scientist by the ACM.