Research Interests

My research focuses on how people use interactive search systems, as evidenced by their behavior. Specifically, I am interested in what people do when search is difficult or complex. In my dissertation, I studied this question by intentionally making a system perform poorly, and then observing how behavior changed.

I use theories from cognitive psychology in exploring and explaining why people behave as they do. My work has applications in the design and evaluation of interactive search systems. I am motivated by the idea that advanced systems should help people learn how to search when information needs are unfamiliar, uncommon, or complex.

My primary research goal is to develop a descriptive general model of adaptive search interaction. In contrast with user models that describe individual searchers, this model will describe global characteristics of interaction. The objective is a user-centered basis for analyzing, comparing, and explaining the effectiveness of alternative designs for interactive search systems.

I am also interested in search expertise, the behavior of expert searchers such as professional librarians, and how expertise is gained through education and experience.