Human-computer interaction expert Cliff Lampe is the General Chair of international CHI22 Conference

When planning an international conference of scholars, you want a chair who is a noted expert in the field and can handle a diverse array of challenges in organizing a large event. Cliff Lampe, professor at University of Michigan School of Information, is a great choice for this important job. 

Lampe is the General Chair of this year’s Association for Computing Machinery Computer-human interaction, also known as the CHI Conference. He is co-chairing the event with Simone Barbosa, associate professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.

CHI is an international conference of human-computer interaction (HCI) that annually brings together researchers and practitioners from diverse cultures, backgrounds, and positionalities. These scholars research how to make the world a better place with interactive digital technologies.

This year, CHI is taking place from April 30 to May 5 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The annual meeting is typically organized by hundreds of volunteers, including an organizing committee (including the meeting chairs), sub-committee chairs, student volunteers, and reviewers. 

“General chairs are picked from among the strongest, most central scholars in the community,” says Eric Gilbert, John Derby Evans Endowed professor of Information and associate professor at UMSI. “CHI chairs have a commitment to doing really tremendous amounts of service.”

Lampe’s position as chair was approved by a SIGCHI (Special Interest Group on Computer-Human-Interaction) steering committee. Being chosen for the chair is significant, says Gilbert. “It’s essentially the research community handing over the keys of its most prized possession to him. CHI is arguably the most prominent conference in HCI.” 

“It’s a huge honor — for Cliff and for UMSI,” says Gilbert. “It also signifies UMSI’s important role in the HCI community.”

Being the meeting chair showcases Lampe’s professional dedication to combine top quality research with community engagement. His research centers on the social and technical structures of large-scale technology-mediated communication, working with sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, Slashdot and Everything2. Lampe has also been involved in the creation of multiple social media and online community projects, usually designed to enable collective action. 

— Sarah Derouin, UMSI public relations specialist

Learn more about CHI 2022.

Learn more about professor Cliff Lampe.