Yolanda A. Rankin, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist at IBM Research – Almaden in California. Her primary research interests involve conceptual design and evaluation of digital media as collaborative technology that promotes knowledge acquisition and situational awareness. Yolanda has more than 8 years industry experience in software engineering and project management of mobile features and optical sub systems. Yolanda completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Northwestern University, a M.A. in Computer Science at Kent State University, and a B.S. in Mathematics at Tougaloo College.