Caro Williams-Pierce
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therealcaro.bsky.social
Caro Williams-Pierce
@therealcaro.bsky.social
270 followers 530 following 530 posts
Half professor, half feral - and fully absentminded. Easily distracted by ideas about design, trust, and learning.

Fueled by curiosity, filled with rage.

She/her
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therealcaro.bsky.social
Come to my Rogue Workshop at #CHI2025 - if you're furious at funding cuts and public kidnappings and letting 19-year-old kids mess around in the Social Security database, this workshop is for you!

Wednesday, April 30
Room G313
2:10 - 3:40 pm
Rogue Workshop: transform your science into action! Caro Williams-Pierce (carowp@umd.edu) Filled with rage at the dumpster fire that is our world and our countries right now? Tired of screaming endlessly into the void, and want to do something - anything - to stop the burning down of science and human rights?  Learn how to channel that rage, use your CHI knowledge, and communicate with people, organizations, and political bodies. They need to hear our voices, our science, and our fury - time to make them listen. Wednesday, April 30 Room G313 2:10 - 3:40 pm
April 29, 2025 at 5:07 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Watching this talk feels like looking at the near future of the US #CHI2025
April 29, 2025 at 2:50 AM
therealcaro.bsky.social
INFO’s little walk-out protest contribution today - just a couple of us, but we are but one node in a broad web…

What do we want? SCIENCE!
How do we want it! PEER REVIEWED

What do we want? SCIENCE!
How do we want it! APPROPRIATELY ARCHIVED
5 people standing outside, holding handwritten signs: ‘Yay science!!’ and ‘Will factor 4 food’
March 7, 2025 at 11:08 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Pie #1 finished!
Pumpkin pie cooling on a stovetop
November 23, 2023 at 6:29 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Harriet Tubman was tiny! 5’ even 🤩 #TeamTubman
Bronze statute of Tubman
November 23, 2023 at 4:13 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Not a good sign 😬
Deals page of my local Verizon ‘authorized seller’ - says, “Sample Title - Description of the deal. Edit or delete this”
November 21, 2023 at 2:10 AM
therealcaro.bsky.social
This campus is always so beautiful at night 🤩
Green lawn, blue sky, a couple trees with colorful leaves, and a large brick building in the distance with lit pillars
November 9, 2023 at 10:29 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
I walk by this sign everyday, and it makes every day better ❤️

(Please don’t let this be some forced birth sponsored bullshit)
“You are fearfully and wonderfully made”
November 8, 2023 at 6:09 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Reading about bias in graduate admissions, and getting cranky: how the fuck do we accept standardized tests that a) just repeat the mantra that only white men are smart, b) don't predict shit, and c) get used in exactly the wrong way, repeatedly?

Why is this bullshit considered acceptable? WTF
Highlighted text on excerpt reads: "Data from the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the company that administers the GRE, show persistent gaps in the performance of women and Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students compared to men and white students, with the latter experiencing an advantage... high GRE scores are not positively associated with most traditional markers of graduate student performance or success... ETS guidance states that graduate programs should not use GRE scores as a candidate filtering tool..."
November 3, 2023 at 9:13 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
The brilliant Dr. Broussard talking about the deep, brutal biases in LLMs at CIRCLS (and how her book Artificial Un-Intelligence was used to train Google’s LLM 😂 😭)
A woman standing at a podium in a red shirt, with a slide up titled “Inside the secret list of of websites that make AI like ChatGPT sound smart”
November 2, 2023 at 5:30 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
At the 2023 CIRCLS event - it’s so lovely to be surrounded by brilliant thoughtful people!
A room full of round tables filled with people, with a speaker and slides
November 2, 2023 at 1:38 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
The pink tax in action - same overall price for the curvy feminine deodorant and the square masculine deodorant, so it looks even, but the square one has more deodorant in it, so it’s actually cheaper. This sorta thing always pisses me off
Two shelves of Tom’s of Maine deodorant, both on sale for $5.89. The curvy flower-named ones have 2.25 oz; the square rugged nature-named ones have 2.8 oz
October 30, 2023 at 2:13 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Excellent placement of headlines: “residents protest a migrant camp planned nearby” and “how to spot a sociopath”

THAT is how you spot a sociopath: ‘we don’t want to help people get housed - but damn straight we’ll complain nonstop about how many unhoused people we see on our daily commute’ 🙄
Screen capture of the headlines next to each other on Apple News
October 28, 2023 at 2:26 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
When students are warned out at 8 pm, give them modeling clay and remind them it’s almost Halloween!
A table covered in a bunch of spooky clay objects - a creepy doll, a murder hornet, spiders, bats, and (scariest of all) the word FAILURE
October 25, 2023 at 1:22 AM
therealcaro.bsky.social
A student showed me her little doodle of me from class last night 😂
A sketch of a shrugging person with speech bubbles of things I said in class: “What? What?” “Thesis project?!” “Grading??”
October 11, 2023 at 9:42 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
At an awesome panel by colleagues about AI, following Dr. Golbeck’s Beyond the Field keynote. Drs. Frias-Martinez, Erete, Ciampaglia, and Golbeck (L to R)

homecoming.umd.edu/beyond-the-f...
A photo of the four panelists, taking from the audience
October 9, 2023 at 9:32 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
One of my class activities involved students getting a random platform, a random user interaction method, and a random user goal - and designing the product/experience. This was one of my favorite combos so far 😂
Three index cards: “Platform: a physical roller coaster (that your user is on)”; “Interaction: voice (but not language) only”; and “Purpose: to figure out how to get to a local Japanese restaurant”
October 8, 2023 at 2:24 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
“Nope 😢 “
Pumpkin, splooting in the middle of a wide field of dismembered toy parts and white floofy innards
October 5, 2023 at 12:48 AM
therealcaro.bsky.social
“Hmmm, I wonder if there’s anything interesting inside?”
Pumpkin frozen in the middle of ripping part of the toy off
October 5, 2023 at 12:47 AM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Pumpkin’s New Toy, a story in three pictures:

“I got a new toy! I love her!”
A black & white Newfie lying on grass, her jaws gently wrapped around a large pink poufy toy
October 5, 2023 at 12:45 AM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Bow tie added!
A modeling clay bobble head of a mustached person with orange VR glasses
October 4, 2023 at 12:57 AM
therealcaro.bsky.social
Figured it out! If I'm 'suggesting,' it turns the text green as if I'd edited the text, even though I just highlighted it; if I'm editing, it stays black.
Two partial lines of text: "Player 2: yep" where Player 2 is in green text and highlighted yellow. "For example," where 'example' is in black text and highlighted.
October 2, 2023 at 6:54 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
In google doc, editing a student's paper, and I highlighted the black text yellow - now the text looks green? (I checked, & doc's is saying it's still black)

Is google just gaslighting me overtly now?
A screenshot of a small piece of black text: "Action: still watching p2." The 'p2' is highlighted yellow, and the text looks green. (I think?)
October 2, 2023 at 6:46 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
My neighbor has an amazing mushroom circle developing in her yard 🌱
A green lawn with a semi-circle of darker grass, traced by a bunch of white low mushrooms
September 30, 2023 at 2:20 PM
therealcaro.bsky.social
I’m going to miss the beautiful evenings here in Maine - and the adorable perky-eared dog you can just barely see in the top window
A house at night with bright lights, and a moon glowing through clouds.
September 26, 2023 at 11:51 AM