Jessica Mullins

Nice to meet you!

I am a graduate Computer Science student at the University of Illinois. I work mostly on problems in human-computer interaction and brain-computer interfaces (check out our group here!!). Recently, I've begun exploring social media and its applications to creativity tools for designers.

I received my Bachelor's of Arts from Lewis & Clark College in Mathematics & Computer Science. Following graduation, I worked at Columbia Sportswear Company for 3 years as a Java developer.

Projects

Take a peak at some of my work.

Kids & Brain Computer Interface

This on-going project explores the impact of gamification on performance for children using a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) based on the steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP).

Brain Computer Interface & Wearable Computing

One challenge in the development of non-invasive brain-computer interfaces (BCI) is creating a system for a real-world BCI. This project explores integrating BCI as an input mechanism on a wearable head-mounted display (HMD), for example a Google Glass. The project aims to consider the design implications for the user interface, as well as the structure of the hardware for the HMD.

Creativity & Social Media

The structure of social media is used to assist designers in finding inspirational images. One challenge designers face when brainstorming is knowing how to search for unlikely sources of inspiration. This project presents a web-based tool which organizes visual stimuli through a tag co-occurrence using Instagram data. This allows users to easily navigate from relevant to unexpected images.

"Using Human Knowledge to Improve Computer Go"

2010 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Opening moves are crucial in the game of Go. We extracted human knowledge from a database of professional games to build a book of strong opening moves. This paper presents experimental results on the effects of this database on the program's win percentage. [pdf]

Computer Vision for Robots

Incorporating Computer Vision techniques with Robotics, this fun class project gave BAXTER (a robot made by Rethink Robotics), the ability to slam dunk a basketball [video] and sort colored balls into buckets [video]. For more information: [pdf].

Impact of Textual Content on Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding has beome popular in recent years. One challenge project creators have is understanding how different driving factors help campaigns to reach their funding goal. This class project investigates the role of language in crowdfunding campaigns. [pdf]