I am a professor in the Information School of the University of Washington, where I have taught since Fall 2000. I completed a Ph.D. in computer science/artificial intelligence at Stanford University in 1979 and a Diploma in Calligraphy and Bookbinding from the Roehampton Institute (London) in 1983.

Prior to joining the iSchool faculty, from 1983 to 1999, I was a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where my work centered on exploring the transition from paper and print to digital media. This work is described in my book Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age (Arcade, 2001).

In my recent scholarship--on what I call Information and the Quality of Life--I have been exploring a cluster of interrelated problems: information overload, fragmented attention, busyness and acceleration. See my two most recent articles on the subject: "No Time to Think: Reflections on Information Technology and Contemplative Scholarship" and "More, Faster, Better: Governance in an Age of Overload, Busyness and Speed." My presentation, "No Time to Think," at Google on March 5, 2008 can be found here.

I have also organized several conferences and workshops on the same theme, including the Conference on Information, Silence, and Sanctuary (May, 2004). The next such event, the Conference on No Time to Think, will take place this coming June (2008).