{"id":67317,"date":"2020-06-24T11:05:24","date_gmt":"2020-06-24T15:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=67317"},"modified":"2025-10-17T17:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T21:10:07","slug":"learning-prof-returns-classroom","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/learning-prof-returns-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Grad Stories 2020: Lifelong Learning: York Prof Returns to the Classroom at Carleton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Grad Stories 2020: Lifelong Learning: York Prof Returns to the Classroom at Carleton\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Although York University Prof. Sandra Gabriele has practiced and taught design for almost 40 years, she still loves to be a student.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cEarly in my career, someone told me that one should go back to school every 10 to 15 years to keep current,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That advice seems particularly relevant for designers. Design, especially design centered around users, requires adaptation and response to changing societal conditions and technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sandra
Prof. Sandra Gabriele<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gabriele, a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, first moved away from Toronto to pursue her education in the late 1980s at the Schule f\u00fcr Gestaltung in Basel, Switzerland. In 2003, she moved to Edmonton for two years to complete a Master of Design in Visual Communication Design from the University of Alberta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, living in the city where I was studying was essential for the complete experience and I knew that living in Ottawa would provide opportunities that long-distance learning could not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Lifelong<\/figure>\n\n\n

A Different Approach to Design<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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In her latest effort to keep current, she completed a Master\u2019s in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)<\/a> at Carleton University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many factors attracted her to Carleton: The campus is friendly and intimate, and has a picturesque location near the Rideau Canal. The HCI program in the School of Computer Science focuses on technology and user-centred research. This offered her an interdisciplinary and scientific approach to design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriele, the graduate program director for the York University Master of Design program,<\/a> took a sabbatical from July 2016 to June 2017 and moved to Ottawa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sandra
Sandra is congratulated after successfully defending her Master\u2019s of HCI thesis (Photo: CHORUS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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\u201cI loved it,\u201d she says. \u201cAs a visual communication designer, I enjoyed the hands-on projects that allowed us to make use of our own skills while and applying new knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In her career as a professional designer, Gabriele designed print and digital communications materials for government, corporate and non-profit clients. As she transitioned to academic research, she became interested in using empirical methods to inform and evaluate design solutions. At Carleton, she had the opportunity explore both qualitative and quantitative methods and statistics, as well as data analysis, as a way to dive deeper into human factors that affect user choices and their experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between her coursework and thesis, Gabriele taught a variety of design courses at York. She successfully defended her thesis, User Awareness of Privacy Risks Related to the Collection of Fitness Tracker Data<\/em><\/a> in January. It first examined users\u2019 knowledge, behaviours and attitudes toward the security and privacy of their fitness tracker data. With this data, she designed and tested education posters to see if awareness changed user behaviour around data privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Lifelong<\/figure>\n\n\n

A Big Impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Gabriele says her thesis supervisor, Prof. Sonia Chiasson<\/a>, made a big impact on her work and her whole graduate school experience. During her studies, she became a member of Chiasson\u2019s Carleton\u2019s Human Oriented Research in Usable Security (CHORUS) lab<\/a>, which Gabriele describes as a lively and supportive environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat impressed me was that members of the lab continue their affiliation beyond their studies,\u201d says Gabriele. \u201cI think this is a testament to [Sonia\u2019s] commitment to research, education and her students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chiasson, the Canada Research Chair in User Centric Cybersecurity,<\/strong> says she was initially a bit intimidated at the idea of having a professor as a student. But Gabriele was engaged, enthusiastic and collaborative\u2014a great student.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cSandra brought years of experience in graphic design and pedagogy to the conversation,\u201d says Chiasson.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWe would have conversations about her current research, but also reflections on how these new methods she was learning would be brought back to her own classroom and with her own students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Lifelong<\/figure>\n\n\n

New Skills Gained<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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By becoming a student again, Gabriele says she learned to be more empathetic towards students by focusing on their individual strengths and weaknesses. She also acquired new skills and methods that will inform her work at York.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWhile the user has always been essential to developing design solutions, there is recognition in the field that user research helps to make solutions more relevant,\u201d says Gabriele.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to share my experiences with my students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—
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Although York University Prof. Sandra Gabriele has practiced and taught design for almost 40 years, she still loves to be a student. \u201cEarly in my career, someone told me that one should go back to school every 10 to 15 years to keep current,\u201d she says. That advice seems particularly relevant for designers. Design, especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":67321,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[25,19],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-67317","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-student-experience","cu_story_type-technology-innovation"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/67317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/67317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97758,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/67317\/revisions\/97758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=67317"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=67317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}