Rhonda McEwen

Rhonda McEwen, Vice-Principal Academic and Dean at the University of Toronto Mississauga is a Canada Research Chair in Tactile Interfaces, Communication and Cognition and a Professor of New Media & Communication. Dr. McEwen combines communication studies, applied, and behavioral sciences to examine the social and cognitive effects of technologies. Her pioneering approach to communication research employs experimental techniques, eye tracking, observations, sensor data, and interviews to investigate Human-Machine Communication involving children and adults across the user spectrum, and including those diagnosed with communication and learning disorders.

Dr. McEwen has worked with and researched digital communications media for over 20 years, both in companies providing services, and in management consulting to those companies. Journalists from CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes covered McEwen’s research in 2012 & 2013, and she has recent publications in Information, Communication & Society, Computers and Education, Learning & Instruction, New Media and Society, and in library and information science journals. Understanding Tablets from Early Childhood to Adulthood is her recently co-authored book.

Key Interests
Human-Machine Communication; Cognitive Effects of Media; Tactile Interfaces; Tablet Communication; Cognitive Informatics; Device Mediation; Virtual Reality.

Media availability: TV, Radio, Print/Online