Abstract: Information technology is playing an increasing role in enhancing the capability of human creative thinking and problem solving. Can our knowledge of creativity and our experiences in creative practice inspire transformative research and education in computing? We see that research and development of new ideas and areas of study in computer science, information technologies, and human computer interaction are emerging from interaction with creative professionals. The National Science Foundation is starting a funding program that addresses this trend by funding projects that give us a better understanding of creativity as cognitive and computational processes, of the models that lie behind information technology that enhancing human creative thinking, and how design (creative) thinking develops new computational products, methods, organizations in the context of a perceived need or problem.

Short Bio: Mary Lou Maher is developing an emphasis on research in creativity in the National Science Foudnation's CISE directorate (CreativeIT). She joined the Human Centered Computing Cluster in CISE in July 2006. She is the Professor of Design Computing and the Co-Director of the Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition at the University of Sydney. She received her BS (1979) in Civil Engineering at Columbia University and her MS (1981) and PhD (1984) in Civil Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She was an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University before joining the University of Sydney in 1990. She has held joint appointments in the Faculty of Architecture and the School of Information Technologies at the University of Sydney. She is a researcher in NICTA (National Information and Communication Technologies Australia) and a member of the Research Committee in the Collaborative Research Centre for Construction Innovation in Australia. Her current research interests include intelligent rooms, adaptive agents in design environments, motivated learning in physical and virtual worlds, tangible user interfaces for 3D design, empirical studies and new technologies for computer-supported collaborative design, and generative design systems in 3D virtual worlds.