Mary Beth Rosson

Co-developer of the task-artifact framework for design, an "action science" approach to human-computer interaction (HCI), Rosson has served as Associate Dean of Information Sciences and Technology and Professor at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology, with most of her research concentrated on End User Programming, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). She has also served as Affiliate Professor of Instructional Systems in the College of Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology in 1982 from the University of Texas.

Prior to joining the new School of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State in 2003, she held a professorship in Computer Science at Virginia Tech's Computer Science department for 10 years and worked as a research staff member and manager at IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center for 11 years. She co-directed Penn State's Computer-Supported Collaboration and Learning (CSCL) Lab with her husband, Dr. John Carroll. Within the CSCL, Rosson directed the Informal Learning in Software Development (ILSD) group.

The group studied a variety of end-user software construction tasks, with a focus on web application design, development, and debugging. They also began working with younger learners — for example, middle and high school girls who were first learning about programming. She has been a founding member of the End Users Shaping Effective Software (EUSES) Consortium, which focused on issues and techniques related to end-user software engineering.

Her other research interests have included community informatics, environments and tools for object-oriented programming and design, and visual programming environments. She also did work related to scenario-based design and minimalism. She and Carroll co-developed the task-artifact framework for design, an "action science" approach to human-computer interaction (HCI).

Also with John Carroll, Rosson helped develop and study the Blacksburg Electronic Village online community center, a seminal contribution to the understanding of the dynamics of participation in online communities. She and Carroll co-authored a book, "Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction," and she co-authored dozens of additional book chapters. Rosson has authored or co-authored over one hundred journal articles and refereed conference proceedings.

She has been a founding member of the EUSES Consortium (End Users Shaping Effective Software), a group of researchers from Oregon State, CMU, Drexel, the University of Nebraska, and Penn State, who collaborated on a broad range of issues and techniques related to end-user software engineering. Rosson has served as General Chair for CHI 2007, Doctoral Symposium Chair for DIS 2006, Program Committee and Graduate Symposium Mentor for VL/HCC 2006, and General Chair for OOPSLA 2000. She received the SIGCHI Award for service as CHI 1997 Technical Program Co-Chair International and the ACM Recognition of Service Award in 2001. In 2007, she was recognized as a Distinguished Scientist by the ACM.