Plaisant, Catherine
Catherine Plaisant is Associate Research Scientist and Associate Director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. She earned a Doctorat d'Ingenieur degree in France in 1982 and worked on developing and evaluating user interfaces since then. In 1987 she joined Professor Ben Shneiderman at the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory of the University of Maryland. She works with graduate students and other members of the lab on designing and evaluating new interface technologies that are useable, useful, and appealing; with support from industry and government agencies. Research contributions range from focused interaction techniques to innovative visualization techniques validated with user studies and practical applications.