Rate My Professor Dana McKay

Dr. Dana McKay serves as Associate Dean for Interaction, Technology and Information (Associate Professor) in the School of Computing Technologies at RMIT University, a position she has held since March 2024. She previously served as Senior Lecturer in Innovative Interactive Technologies at RMIT from July 2021. McKay's academic journey includes a PhD in Computing and Information Systems from the University of Melbourne, awarded in 2019 for her thesis "Down the Superhighway in a Single Tome: Understanding information browsing and how to support it online." She also completed a Graduate Certificate in University Teaching at the University of Melbourne in 2020 and an MSc (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Earlier in her career, she was Lecturer (2020-2021) and Teaching Fellow (2017-2020) at the University of Melbourne's School of Computing and Information Systems. Prior to full-time academia, McKay worked for nearly ten years at Swinburne University of Technology as UX Architect (2008-2017) and UX Manager (2014-2016), focusing on improving information systems usability for students and staff.

McKay's research centers on information science, human-computer interaction (HCI), information interaction, view change processes, misinformation, and technology-facilitated abuse. Her influential publications include "Investigating the role of human information behavior in view change" (2024, JASIST), "Keepin' it Reel: Investigating how Short Videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels Influence View Change" (2024, CHIIR), "Who am I, and who are you, and who are we? A Scientometric Analysis of Gender and Geography in HCI" (2022, CHI), and "Discovering the Unfindable: The Tension Between Findability and Discoverability in a Bookshop Designed for Serendipity" (2019, Interact – Best Paper Award). She has received prestigious honors such as the Google PhD Fellowship in HCI (2016), Best Paper at OzCHI 2010, Best International Paper at JCDL 2014, and Honourable Mentions at CHIIR 2017 and JCDL 2019, along with the Dyason Fellowship in 2021. McKay has significantly impacted her field through leadership roles, including Program Chair for CHIIR 2024, JCDL 2021, and OzCHI 2018, 2022, and 2023, as well as Workshops Chair for several international conferences. Her teaching emphasizes student-centric, ethics-driven approaches in computer science, information systems, research methods, and HCI.