Alberto "Berto" Gonzalez (born September 2, 1984 in Chicago Heights, IL) is an American researcher in the field of Human Computer Interaction. He is currently enrolled as a Graduate Student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the Department of Software & Information Systems. His research interests are in the areas of Human-Computer and Child-Machine Interactions.
Gonzalez graduated in December 2007 from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Computer Science. At Northwestern, he studied software development with a focus on Human Computer Interaction (HCI).
In 2008, he joined the staff of the Center for Technology and Social Behavior at Northwestern University as an Information Systems Architecture Engineer. At CTSB, he worked with Dr. Justine Cassell, who runs the ArticuLab, and Dr. Darren Gergle, who runs the CollaboLab.
In the CollaboLab, he developed data analysis and information visualization software. He worked closely with Dr. Yoram Kalman to create a tool called Corpus Cruizer that allows users to analyze the use of subtle paralinguistic cues in an email dataset.
In the ArticuLab, he served as the technology lead for the project Bridging the Achievement Gap Through Authorable Virtual Peers. The project focuses on the creation of a gender and race ambiguous virtual peer who engages children by telling stories and building a bridge using Lego Duplo blocks. Gonzalez's work focused on the developlment of the interface software that controls the virtual agent, the features that make the agent semi-autonomous, and the cognitive models that direct the agent's decisions. See projects and publications for more information.
Gonzalez is currently attending UNC Charlotte where he is a part of the HCILAB. His advisor is Celine Latilupe. His current work is in the area of multi-input systems.