Human-Centered Future of Work Symposium set for Nov. 3
As technology continues to revolutionize industries and alter the nature of everyday life, the future of work can seem unclear. Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT) is bringing together a wide breadth of expertise to discuss this topic during the Human-Centered Future of Work Symposium.
“This event will primarily pinpoint the most significant issues that have policy implications,” said Suqin "Sue" Ge, director of ICAT’s Center for Future Work Places and Practices. “We aim to create innovative areas of translational research, establish the roadmap for our future research initiatives, and position the center as a global leader in the future of work research and education.”
Hosted by the center, the event will be Nov 3. from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Room 2420 of the North End Center. Attendees are encouraged to register in advance; seats are limited. Researchers from a variety of fields, including health care, higher education, privacy and security, and design, all are crucial to shaping the future of work, will engage in the conversation.
Sponsored by the Department of Economics and the Kohl Center, AAEC, the symposium will also feature a policy roundtable discussion that aims to search for the common ground on the human-centered future of work.
Roundtable panelists
Rishi Jaitly
Jaitly is a professor of practice and Distinguished Humanities Fellow at Virginia Tech. He founded and leads the Institute for Leadership in Technology, which offers rising stars in the digital landscape the nation's first executive credential in the humanities. Jaitly has spent 20 years as an entrepreneur and executive in the technology industry: first as a speechwriter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt; later, as an early leader for Google and YouTube in South Asia; and 11 years ago, as Twitter's first executive in Asia Pacific, overseeing the launch of businesses from the Middle East and India through Southeast Asia and Australia.
Nancy Lutz
Lutz is program director for economics at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Social and Economic Sciences. She is also a member of the coordinating committee for NSF's Spectrum Innovation Initiative. Her responsibilities include coordinating the review process, making funding recommendations, and participating in the development of new NSF efforts. She helped to establish the Future of Work at the Technology Frontier program. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and held previous faculty positions at Yale and Virginia Tech.
Erika McEntarfer
McEntarfer is the senior economist for the U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies. She leads the labor markets group, which conducts research in labor and macroeconomics. She develops new labor market indicators and maintains linked employer-employee data. Her research is focused on labor and macroeconomics issues, particularly worker mobility, job loss, retirement, and wage rigidity. McEntarfer also recently served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisors. She was previously an economist at the U.S. Treasury Department and is currently serving as Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Chris North
North is a professor of computer science at Virginia Tech and the associate director of the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics. He is a core member of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction who leads the visual analytics research group and a co-designer of the Visualization Classroom. During his career, North has graduated 20 Ph.D. students, been awarded over $17 million in grants, and co-authored over 140 peer-reviewed publications with h-index=59.
Launched earlier this year, the center uses transdisciplinary research related to the design, development, and deployment of future work spaces, processes, and domains, with an emphasis on human-centered approaches to focus on the individual and the broader workplace.
Housed in ICAT, the center leverages existing research strengths across the university in a range of areas that impact the future of work including immersive environments, human-computer interaction, machine learning/artificial intelligence, human-centered design, the intersection of digital technologies and work, crowdsourcing, autonomous systems and labor policy.
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