Bio
Bio: Dr. Cherri M. Pancake is Director of the Northwest Alliance for Computational Research; she recently retired as Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Intel Faculty Fellow at Oregon State University. She combines backgrounds in anthropology and computer engineering to address how complex software can best support the conceptual models and research strategies of practicing scientists and engineers.
Pancake was among the first worldwide to apply ethnographic techniques to identify software usability problems – an approach which is now mainstream – and she conducted much of the seminal work identifying how the needs of scientists differ from computer science and business communities. Over the past 25 years, she has served as PI or coPI on research grants totaling over $150 million from industry, not-for- profits, NSF, and Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, and Interior. The methods she developed for applying user-centered design to improve user interfaces have been reflected in software products from Hewlett Packard, Convex, Intel, IBM, and Tektronix. As a leader of national standards groups, she developed procedures for consensus-driven design that expedited the adoption of community standards.
A Fellow of ACM and IEEE, Pancake currently serves as ACM’s Vice President and recently stepped down as Chair of SIGHPC, ACM’s Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing.
