Scott McQuiggan is currently a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science Department at North Carolina State University. A native of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania Scott obtained a B.S. in Computer Science from Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA in 2003. He became a graduate student at NCSU in the Fall of 2003 and later joined the IntelliMedia research group at NCSU, working with Dr. James C. Lester. Scott completed his M.S. work in Computer Science at NCSU in 2005.

Concurrent with his academic career Scott has spent significant time gaining valuable experience in industry. He has worked as a research assistant at the Pennsylvania State Data Center from May 2001 - May 2002, held a co-op position with the Defense Information Systems Agency from May 2002 - July 2003, and is currently working as a technical student at SAS Institute Inc in the JMP Division. (since May 2004).

My curriculum vitae and other application materials can be found here.

Education

M.S., Computer Science (2005)
North Carolina State University

B.S., Computer Science (2003)
Susquehanna University

Research

Active Interests
Artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, intelligent user interfaces, affective computing and reasoning, intelligent tutoring systems, game-based learning environments, narrative learning environments, user and student modeling, knowledge discovery, machine learning

Investigations
I am currently interested in investigating uses of affective reasoning, both recognition of user affective state and the synthesis of affect in synthetic agents in a variety of applications, with a specific interest in learning environments. I have begun to investigate such affective constructs as emotion, empathy, motivation, engagement, and self-efficacy for intelligent interactive systems. Devising computational mechanisms to reason about such constructs is a difficult task, as many of the fore mentioned constructs are yet to be fully understood, especially in a computational context. This calls for methods grounded in observation of human-human and human-computer interactions that elicit affective responses.

Publications

Journals

Scott McQuiggan, Bradford Mott, and James Lester. Modeling Self-Efficacy in Intelligent Tutoring Systems: An Inductive Approach. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 18(1-2), 81-123, 2008. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan, and James Lester. Modeling and Evaluating Empathy in Embodied Companion Agents. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65(4), 348-360, 2007. [pdf]

Conference Proceedings

Scott McQuiggan, Jonathan Rowe, Sunyoung Lee, and James Lester. Story-Based Learning: The Impact of Narrative on Learning Experiences and Outcomes. To appear in Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS-2008), Montreal, Canada, 2008. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan, Julius Goth, Eunyoung Ha, Jonathan, Rowe, and James Lester. Student Note-Taking in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments: Individual Differences and Learning Outcomes. To appear in Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS-2008), Montreal, Canada, 2008. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan, Jennifer Robison, and James Lester. Affective Transitions in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments. To appear in Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS-2008), Montreal, Canada, 2008. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan, Jennifer Robison, Robert Phillips, and James Lester. Modeling Parallel and Reactive Empathy in Virtual Agents: An Inductive Approach. To appear in Proceedings of the 7th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS-2008), Estoril, Portugal, 2008. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan, Jonathan Rowe, and James Lester. The Effects of Empathetic Virtual Characters on Presence in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments. To appear in Proceedings of the 2008 SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI-2008), Florence, Italy, 2008. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan, Sunyoung Lee, and James Lester. Early Prediction of Student Frustration. In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interactions, Lisbon, Portugal, 2007. [pdf]

Sunyoung Lee, Scott McQuiggan, and James Lester. Inducing User Affect Recognition Models for Task-Oriented Environments. In Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on User Modeling, Corfu, Greece, 2007. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan, Sunyoung Lee, and James Lester. Predicting User Physiological Response for Interactive Environments: An Inductive Approach. In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2006), Marina del Rey, California, June 20-23, 2006. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan and James Lester. Diagnosing Self-Efficacy in Intelligent Tutoring Systems: An Empirical Study. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2006), Jhongli, Taiwan, June 26-30, 2006. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan and James Lester. Learning Empathy: A Data-Driven Framework for Modeling Empathetic Companion Agents. In Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS-2006), Hakodate, Japan, May 8-12, 2006. [pdf]

Symposium and Workshop Proceedings

Scott McQuiggan, Kristin Hoffmann, John Nietfeld, Jennifer Robison, and James Lester. Examining Self-Regulated Learning in a Narrative-Centered Learning Environment: An Inductive Approach to Modeling Metacognitive Monitoring. To appear in Proceedings of the ITS'08 Workshop on Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning in Educational Technologies, Montreal, Canada, 2008.

Jennifer Robison, Scott McQuiggan, and James Lester. Differential Affective Experiences in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments. To appear in Proceedings of the ITS'08 Workshop on Emotional and Cognitive Issues in ITS, Montreal, Canada, 2008.

Jon Rowe, Scott McQuiggan, and James Lester. Narrative Presence in Intelligent Learning Environments. In Working Notes of the 2007 AAAI Fall Symposium on Intelligent Narrative Technologies, Washington DC, 2007. [pdf]

Jon Rowe, Scott McQuiggan, Bradford Mott, and James Lester. Motivation in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments. In Proceedings of the AIED'07 Workshop on Narrative Learning Environments. Marina del Rey, California, 2007. [pdf]

Scott McQuiggan and James Lester. Leveraging Affect for Narrative-Centered Guided Discovery Learning Environments. In Proceedings of the AIED'07 Workshop on Modeling and Scaffolding Affective Experiences to Impact Learning.Marina del Rey, California, 2007.

Bradford Mott, Scott McQuiggan, Sunyoung Lee, Seung Lee, and James Lester. Narrative-Centered Environments for Guided Exploratory Learning. In Proceedings of the Agent Based Systems for Human Learning Workshop at the 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (ABSHL-2006), Hakodate, Japan, May 9, 2006. [pdf]

Student Track Papers

Scott McQuiggan. Responding to Student Affect through Empathetic Companion Agents in Interactive Learning Environments. In Proccedings of the AAAI'07 Doctorial Consortium, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2007. (under the direction of James Lester)

Scott McQuiggan. Coping with Anxiety and Frustration: Self-Efficacy Modeling and Empathetic Companion Agents. In Proceedings of the AIED'07 Young Research Track, Marina del Rey, California, 2007. (under the direction of James Lester)

Scott McQuiggan. Coping with Frustration: Self-Efficacy Modeling and Empathetic Companion Agents. In Proceedings of the AIED'07 Doctorial Consortium, Marina del Rey, California, 2007. (under the direction of James Lester)

Presentations

Scott McQuiggan and James Lester (to appear). Affect and Motivation in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments. The 2008 Annual American Education Research Association (AERA) Meeting (New York, NY).

Hiller Spires, Kim Turner, James Lester, and Scott McQuiggan (to appear). Engagement, Academic Dispositions, and Success in Game-Based Learning Environments. The 2008 Annual American Education Research Association (AERA) Meeting (New York, NY).

Scott McQuiggan and James Lester (to appear). Motivating Students in the 'Frustration Window'. The 2008 Annual American Education Research Association (AERA) Meeting (New York, NY).

Theses

An Inductive Approach to Modeling Affective Reasoning in Interactive Synthetic Agents.  Scott McQuiggan.  M.S. Thesis, North Carolina State University, 2005.

Projects

Crystal Island. Crystal Island is a test bed narrative-centered learning environment implemented in Valve Software's Source game engine used to make the popular PC game Half-Life 2. The Crystal Island , narrative-centered learning environment combines story contexts and educational support strategies to provide effective, engaging learning experiences. Crystal Island places students in the middle of a remote, island research outpost, when suddenly, research team members begin falling victim to a mysterious illness. It is up to the student to solve the unfolding science mystery while learning about microbiology. Crystal Island development is supported NSF (REC-0623450).

Raleigh STARS. I am currently a STARS mentor with the Raleigh STARS Student Leadership Corps. STARS (Students & Technology in Academia, Research & Service) project supports students in mentoring, service, outreach, and research projects. STARS is supported by NSF (CNS-0540523).