Ph.D. student Daniel Rea wins Bill Buxton Dissertation Award

Daniel Rea. Photo credit. Kira Koop.

The Bill Buxton Dissertation Award is given out annually to one outstanding doctoral dissertation in the Human-Computer Interaction research area of Computing Science. It is presented by the Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society. This is the first year that the award has been granted to a member of the University of Manitoba.

Daniel Rea received the Award for the 2020 doctoral dissertation, “Now You’re Teleoperating with Power: learning from video games to improve teleoperation interfaces,” completed under the supervision of Dr. Jim Young in the UM Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCI).

Born and raised in Winnipeg, Rea says computer science was a natural fit, because of its focus on problem-solving.

“I ended up getting into human-computer interaction because, in the end, technology is for making people’s lives better, so we need to consider the needs of people at all stages of technology development.”

Rea completed three degrees at the University of Manitoba, during which time Rea interned in Calgary, the University of Tokyo and more. Rea is now looking forward to beginning his new career as an Assistant Professor at the University of New Brunswick, after completing a post-doctorate position at Kyoto University, in Japan.

“I hope to continue making robots that can create helpful, engaging, and meaningful experiences for all sorts of people while contributing back to my friends, colleagues, and communities in Canada, Japan, and around the world.”

For more information please visit the Bill Buxton Award website.