-- Interview with Ginar Niwanputri --
S: Tell us a bit about your background!
G: I am a proud Indonesian, one of the most beautiful countries in the world!
Having an Informatics and Technology Management educational background with experience as IT business analyst on mining industry.
Since I am passionate doing teaching, I had one-gap-year on voluntary teaching kids in Indonesian rural area. More on that, I had experience as a lecturer at the best engineering school in Indonesia, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). Beside teaching, I worked as well on some research under Informatics Research Group at ITB, specializing in Information System and Human Computer Interaction. I also had an opportunity to lead one initiative on promoting computational thinking in Bebras Indonesia, as a part of Bebras International.
S: How did you find out about DoSSIER and what made you decide to apply?
G: Actually, one of my colleague who works at TU Wien sent the vacancies on a group chat. I was excited to catch this opportunity since I found DoSSIER is funded by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) hence it must be a very prestigious project. I was also thrilled to know that this project involves a numbers of world-leading HCI-IR experts and a lot of academic and industrial partners. Since I do love travelling, three secondments in different countries during the project were the sweet treats that gave me a bold yes to apply.
S: How long are you already working on the project?
G: I’ve been working on the project at Sheffield since January 2021, so this month would be my fourth month!
S: What are your initial thoughts on DoSSIER and your experience?
G: DoSSIER gives the opportunity to meet and collaborate with a lot of new peoples. Joining DoSSIER leads me into different experience than the regular PhD journey. DoSSIER prepared me to become the “real” researcher whilst currently we are all still at the early stage of research career. It was fun yet challenging journey so far.
S: What project are you currently working on?
G: My project is Augmenting Human Cognition Interfaces in the Workplace (Project 3). This project will produce the specification for a suite of tools needed to assist people in extracting information from and making use of search results, and additionally augment existing information interaction models of the search process.
S: Tell us about your team environment. What do you enjoy about collaborating with your small team and the larger lab?
G: I have a small research group of 5 persons right now in Sheffield. Due to the pandemic, not so many chances for me to feel the real ambience on working in the larger team environment right now. However, I really enjoy the collaboration works both in my Sheffield team and the big network of DoSSIER.
S: What excites you the most about the field of IR and HCI?
G: I’ve always been passionate about how information being utilised especially in the enterprise. Then I found my topic is so relatable with my experience in information search on professional setting. It also somehow rhymes with my prior research on HCI. The beauty of both fields meets is something that excites me the most!
S: Walk us through a day in the life of a DoSSIER PhD student.
G: I am quite a morning person who never start a day without a full breakfast. After that, I am ready to work from my home office. Since the beginning of my project, I haven’t got any chance to work at the office. Then I do some readings, attend classes if any, also participate in workshops until noon. Cooking a bit, having lunch, and making a video call with my family before continue working. I always try to do some daily walks to wrap up my day, though the timing is depending on the weather. Yes, you couldn’t trust UK weather, really! Sometimes the walks become a jog if I am on the mood for running. Yoga turns out to be my last resort if it’s too gloomy outside. Namaste!
S: Sounds like a nice day structure, thanks for the interview!