Sharon Ferguson (She/Her)

Dr. Ferguson is an Assistant Professor in the Management Sciences Department, Faculty of Engineering and a Faculty Affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society https://srinstitute.utoronto.ca/. Her research focuses on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, studying how teams collaborate using the digital trace data created from online platforms, in order to design more effective technology. Her research draws on theories from Management, Engineering Design and Psychology, and uses methods from Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Social Science. She has also led projects investigating Human-AI collaborative decision-making and student persistence in Machine Learning careers. Her work has been published in HCI venues such as CHI and CSCW, and Engineering Design venues such as Design Science. She completed her PhD in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, where she received the NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship and fellowships in Human-AI Interaction, Ethics of AI, and Technology and Society. During her PhD, she also completed an internship in the Research and Analytics department at Slack, and served as the President of the Graduate Society of Women Engineers. She completed her undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto.

• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Future of Work
• Virtual Collaboration
• Engineering Design
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Collaboration Support

• 2024, PhD, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto
• 2020, BASc, Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto

• 2023 Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Teaching Assistant Award, University of Toronto
• 2023 "Reviewer's Favourite" Award, International Conference on Engineering Design

• Ferguson, S., Aoyagui, PA., Rizvi, R., Kim, Y-H., Kuzminykh, A. The Explanation That Hits Home: The Characteristics of Verbal Explanations That Affect Human Perception in Subjective Decision-Making. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW). https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3687056
• Naghshbandi, M., Ferguson, S., Olechowski, A. Social Capital and Persistence in Computer Science of Google’s Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI) Students. American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference, 2024. https://peer.asee.org/social-capital-and-persistence-in-computer-science-of-google-s-computer-science-summer-institute-cssi-students
• Ferguson, S., Massimi, M. Circle Back Next Week: The Effect of Meeting-Free Weeks on Remote Workers' Unstructured Time and Asynchronous Collaboration. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2024. https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3613904.3642175
• Ferguson, S., Van de Zande, G., Olechowski, A. No Risk, No Reward: Towards An Automated Measure of Psychological Safety from Online Communication. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Late Breaking Work, 2024. https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3613905.3650923
• Ferguson, S., Olechowski, A. Are We Equal Online?: An Investigation of Gendered Language Patterns and Message Engagement on Enterprise Communication Platforms. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 7, Issue CSCW2, 2023. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610173
• Mao, K., Ferguson, S., Magarian, J., Olechowski, A. `Just a little bit on the outside for the whole time': Social belonging confidence and the persistence of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence students. American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference, 2023. https://peer.asee.org/just-a-little-bit-on-the-outside-for-the-whole-time-social-belonging-confidence-and-the-persistence-of-machine-learning-and-artificial-intelligence-students.
• Flus, M., Ferguson, S., Olechowski, A. Let’s take this offline: a thematic analysis of virtual conflict in hybrid collaborative design teams. International Conference on Engineering Design, 2023. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-design-society/article/lets-take-this-offline-a-thematic-analysis-of-virtual-conflict-in-hybrid-collaborative-design-teams/3D73C979DBC1816B9D3933D471106FEE
• Ferguson, S., Aoyagui, PA., Kuzminykh, A. Something Borrowed: Exploring the Influence of AI-Generated Explanation Text on the Composition of Human Explanations. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2023. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3544549.3585727