In the space of a few years, went from being a self-doubting, decidedly Earthbound dreamer to become a pilot, then a teacher of flying, and then the first Latina pilot on the United States Aerobatic Team — an honor akin to competing in the Olympics.

Aragon writes of this evolution in her engaging new memoir, “,” published this month by Blackstone Publishing. An version of the book is also available.

A professor of human-centered design and engineering and a member of the eScience Institute at the 91̽��, Aragon directs the . She came to the 91̽��in 2010.

The daughter of a Chilean father and a Filipina mother, Aragon — then Cecilia Rodriguez — writes in “Flying Free” that she grew up misunderstood by teachers and stalked by a schoolyard bully. Fascinated by flying, she loved and excelled at math, which felt like a sort of personal superpower: “I could see geometric patterns laid out before me,” Aragon writes. “Mathematical induction seemed like a magic way of proving theorems like the domino effect.”

That flight-obsessed child did learn to fly airplanes with the help of a series of teachers. And when she took to the air, Aragon writes, it felt “like a three-dimensional dance in the sky.” In time, Aragon became a professional aerobatic pilot and certified flight instructor.

91̽��Notebook caught up with Aragon to ask a few questions about the memoir and her experiences as a competitive pilot.

You have a very clear voice as a writer. How did you develop it, and your style of memoir writing?����

Cecilia Aragon: Thank you! They say the best way to develop a writer’s voice is simply through practice. I’ve been writing prose narrative since I was 4 years old. Of course, as an academic, writing clearly and concisely and knowing how to tell a story are critical. It’s also said, “The first million words are the hardest.” I estimate I’ve written over two million words of prose, including fiction, narrative nonfiction, and academic articles.

But I also have to give credit to 91̽��Continuum College’s Certificate in Memoir Writing. I took a year-long course with the incredibly skilled instructor Theo Nestor. Not only did the class shape the form of my memoir, but it also enabled me to complete an entire first draft during my coursework. Sadly, 91̽��no longer offers this certificate, but fortunately Theo Nestor is now teaching a yearlong that I highly recommend.

[Editor’s note: 91̽��Continuum College continues to offer memoir writing as part of its writing curriculum. In fact, the next class of “Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story” begins online on Sept. 30. .]

This story is about you facing fears. But you also faced bias and misogyny at times. How much harder did that make your journey?��

C.A.: Bias and misogyny will make anyone’s journey much harder. That’s why I’m so glad this book is coming out now, during a time of growing awareness of systemic racism and its corrosive effects, particularly on young people.

I became a professor in large part because I wanted to give students today the kind of encouragement that my father, also a professor, gave his students in physics. Having a single voice of support can make all the difference, no matter how much discouragement you face. My father’s support gave me strength to fight my fears. I think any of us can be a mentor today and do the same thing for a young person in our life. Just help one person to reach their true potential — that’s all it takes.

You quote an instructor saying, “The cockpit is a lousy classroom.” What did that mean?��

C.A.: For a new flight student, being at the controls of an aircraft is a noisy, confusing, and frightening environment. Being terrified and confused is not conducive to learning.

What that instructor meant is that you need to teach flight techniques on the ground and learn them there, in a calmer environment. Then you go up into the air to practice what you’ve already mastered on the ground.

Your parents went from being worried for you and disapproving of aerobatic flying to being proud, with your dad saying his “buttons were popping.” What changed their view?

C.A.: At first my parents didn’t really understand what I was doing. They both had negative images of aviation from their experiences during World War II, and they both personally witnessed small aircraft crashing at early airshows in the 1930s and ’40s. I was able to explain to them how seriously I took safety, and how the technology had improved since their childhoods. They also came to watch my aerobatic flying at shows and contests, and there they were able to see that I wasn’t thrill-seeking but was performing a dance in the air that required precision and grace.

When they realized I was competing in a serious sport and understood that it took dedication and skill to do what I did, they changed their minds. I also think they experienced some visceral feelings of pride when they witnessed me winning first-place trophies at contests and seeing all those people applauding.

Before taking off, you remove all keys and coins from your pocket and stow them. Even a dropped quarter or nickel, you write, can have severe consequences for a pilot. What can happen?

C.A.: Any small, hard object left loose inside an aerobatic cockpit can be dangerous. The reason is that during aerobatics, objects fly around, and they usually end up in the tail section, where the mechanisms for moving the control surfaces — the movable parts of the plane that steer it through the air — are located.

Once I was taxiing out to the runway before a flight when I realized I couldn’t move the elevator — the part of the plane that pitches the nose up or down. Obviously, that would be a problem in the air! I immediately taxied back to the hangar and inspected the tail section. There I found a nickel wedged in the elevator bellcrank. The nickel was actually bent from the force that had been applied to it. If I hadn’t discovered it on the ground, it’s possible I wouldn’t have been able to control the plane in the air.

I suspect that nickel ended up in my cockpit during a previous weekend’s fly-in exhibition, where pilots left their planes out on the tarmac for the public to view. Perhaps I missed someone leaning over my plane to show off the cockpit to their child, and accidentally dropping the nickel. I’m sure they thought it was no big deal.

You benefited from the kindnesses of friends and strangers both. How did the flying community change the way you view people, and your ability to trust others?����

C.A.: I admit that growing up as the daughter of immigrants in Indiana made me fearful of strangers. People who didn’t know me often judged me by my name, my ethnicity, or my parents’ accents. After you see people refusing to serve you in stores or pulling their house off the market when your parents make an offer, you tend to grow distrustful.

The flying community was wonderful. ��I experienced acceptance by most people for my accomplishments as a pilot rather than the color of my skin or hair. I was welcomed into this community in a way I had rarely experienced before. There were so many astonishing incidents of kindness, some of which I detail in the book, too many to list here, but suffice it to say that the combined effect of this outpouring of approval helped relieve this inner, unconscious defensiveness that I’d held for years.

You see, as a young person, my instinctive response to meeting anyone was to panic and go into high alert. After years of being welcomed by the aviation community, that changed. I learned to internalize an expectation that most people were going to give me the benefit of the doubt and were going to treat me well. An individual act of kindness, someone going out of their way for me, went a long way to healing those old wounds.

Do you still fly? And what’s next for you as a writer? ��

��C.A.: I still fly — I don’t think I could ever give it up — but not with the intensity and frequency described in “Flying Free.” I teach basic aerobatics when my work and the Pacific Northwest weather permit, and I occasionally take my family flying to some beautiful local��airports.

My next academic book, a co-authored introductory textbook on human-centered data science, will be released by MIT Press in 2021. And I’m also working on a second memoir, although this one may end up becoming an autobiographical novel.

• For more information, contact Aragon at aragon@uw.edu.

A teacher discusses respectful world travel, a historian explores Silicon Valley’s evolution, a professor and violist plays the music of Robert Schumann and a late English faculty member’s meditation on Seattle returns …

Here’s a quick look at some gift-worthy books and music created by 91̽��faculty in the last year — and a reminder of some recent favorites.

O’Mara’s ‘Code’: History professor Margaret O’Mara provides a sweeping history of California’s computer industry titans in her book “,” published by Penguin Press. Publishers Weekly wrote: “O’Mara’s extraordinarily comprehensive history is a must-read for anyone interested in how a one-horse town birthed a revolution that has shifted the course of modern civilization.” The New York Times called it an “accessible yet sophisticated chronicle.” �� for a 2020 Pacific Northwest Book Award.

Seattle stories: 91̽�� Press is republishing 91̽��English professor ‘s well-loved 1976 reflections on his city, its history and its possible futures, “.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly called the book “an exhilarating critique of Seattle’s birth, growth, sickness, health, promise and fulfillment. Any serious student of Seattle or of recent urban history will now read Roger Sale, and with good reason.” Sale, who taught at the 91̽��for decades, died in 2017. The new edition has an introduction by Seattle writer Knute Berger.

Mindful travel: How can travelers respectfully explore cultures with lower incomes, different cultural patterns and far fewer luxuries? Anu Taranath, lecturer in English and the Comparative History of Ideas program, explores such questions in “,” published by Between the Lines. Taranath has led student trip to India, Mexico and other locations. “Mindful travel in an unequal world,” she says, is about “paying attention, and noticing positionality in relation to each other. It’s about understanding that we are all living in a much longer history that has put us in different positions of advantage and disadvantage, and equipped us with very few tools to talk about it.”

Salish Sea fishes: , curator emeritus of fishes at the Burke Museum and a professor emeritus of aquatic and fishery sciences, teamed with James Orr of the Alaska Fisheries Center for “,” the first-ever documenting of all the known species of fishes that live in the Salish Sea. Published by 91̽��Press, this three-volume set represents the culmination of 40 years of work and features striking illustrations by and details about 260 species of fish, complete with the ecology and life history of each species.

Watras plays Schumann: , professor of viola, offers new music and a masterwork by composer in “Schumann Resonances,” a CD released on Seattle’s Planet M Records. Schumann’s is the centerpiece and artistic jumping-off point for the CD, which is inspired by fairy tales and folklore, and features 91̽��faculty colleagues and . The music and culture blog An Earful wrote: “Besides having a burnished tone and monster technique, violist Watras has a gift for contextualizing the music of the past … with ‘Schumann Resonances,’ Watras continues to prove herself a curator, performer and composer of unique abilities.”

Solo cello, Icelandic composers: Assistant professor of music and cellist has a new release on the Sono Luminus label titled “,” which features music for solo cello by several Icelandic composers and a return to an earlier composition, “Solitaire.” In liner notes, writes: “This project is a compilation of pieces by composers that not only share my mother-tongue and culture, in language and music, but also bring their unique perspective and expression in their compositions … I couldn’t have asked for more generous artists to come into my life and allow me to explore my voice through their music.”

Fanfiction examined: Fan fiction has exploded in popularity in recent years. In their book, “,” and examine fanfiction writers and repositories and the novel ways young people support and learn from each other through participation in online fanfiction communities. Davis is an associate professor in the 91̽��; Aragon is a professor in the . Published by MIT Press.

Here are a few other notable 2019 titles from 91̽��Press.

Seawomen, Icelandic waters: “ by Margaret Willson, affiliate professor of anthropology and a faculty member in the Canadian Studies Center has been released in a paperback edition. The book, first published in 2016, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award.

Asian American voices: A new, third edition of “,” published in 1974 and co-edited by , 91̽��professor of English. The New York Times Book Review : “The stories are … strewn with new insights buried in the flesh of the narrative; they illuminate areas of darkness in the hidden experiences of a people who had been little more than exotic figments of someone else’s imagination.”

Haag remembered: A paperback edition of “,” which explores the career of the founder of the 91̽��Department of Landscape Architecture, best known in Seattle for his . Written by 91̽��architecture professor , who said Haag’s legacy is found in the places he designed, which “inspire students to think beyond what they know … they ignite civic engagement and public service, for Rich’s most important work was in the public realm.”

Staff discounts: 91̽��Press is offering a 40% discount on all titles during the holidays. Staff and faculty get a 10% discount year-round when ordering through their website using the code WUWE.

• Joanne De Pue, School of Music communications director, assisted with this story.

91̽��Notebook is a section of the 91̽��News site dedicated to telling stories of the good work done by faculty and staff at the 91̽��. Read all posts here.

Recent notable books by 91̽�� faculty members explore the legal history of Indigenous nations and the mentoring benefits of fan fiction. Plus, a 91̽��anthropologist’s book is honored, a former English faculty member is remembered in a biography, and 91̽��Press brings out paperback editions of three popular titles.

Alexandra Harmon’s ‘Reclaiming the Reservation’ examines effects of 1978 Supreme Court decision on tribal sovereignty

A new book by , 91̽��professor of , explores the legal history of Indigenous nations claiming regulatory power over their reserved homelands — and the “promises and perils” of relying on the U.S. legal system in such matters.

Harmon’s “” was published in July by 91̽�� Press.

In the 1970s, Harmon writes, the Quinault and Suquamish tribes, among dozens of Indigenous nations across the United Stated, asserted their sovereignty by applying their laws to all people on their reservations, and this included arresting non-Indians for minor offenses.

“Tribal governments had long sought to manage affairs in their territories, and their bid for all-inclusive reservation jurisdiction was an important, bold move, driven by deeply rooted local histories as well as pan-Indian activism,” Harmon wrote. “They believed federal law supported their case.”

However, this effort ended with a 1978 that non-Indians were not subject to tribal prosecution for criminal offenses. “The court cited two centuries of U.S. legal history to justify their decision but relied solely on the interpretations of non-Indians,” Harmon writes.

In “Reclaiming the Reservation,” Harmon looks at the histories of Quinault, Suquamish and other tribes to explore the roots of their claims of regulatory power in their reserved homelands. She also shows how tribes have responded in the decades since 1978, “seeking and often finding new ways to protect their interests and assert their sovereignty.”

“Harmon brilliantly explains how tribal nations have sought to assert sovereignty through the extension of civil and criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians living within the boundaries of their nations,” wrote reviewer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “‘Reclaiming the Reservation’ is precisely the kind of history that the field desperately needs.”

For more information, contact Harmon at aharmon@uw.edu.

* * *

Katie Davis, Cecilia Aragon find mentoring lessons in the world of fan fiction

Fan fiction has exploded in popularity in recent years, with more than 1.5 million amateur writers — most in their teens or twenties — publishing 7 million stories and 176 million reviews on a single online site, Fanfiction.net, alone.

In their new book, “,” and examine fanfiction writers and repositories and the novel ways young people support and learn from each through participation in online fanfiction communities. Davis is an associate professor in the 91̽��; Aragon is a professor in the .

They find that “these sites are not shallow agglomerations and regurgitations of pop culture but rather online spaces for sophisticated and informal learning.”

Aragon and Davis call this novel system of interactive advice and instruction “distributed mentoring,” and describe its attributes — each supported, they write, by an aspect of networked technologies.

The two authors combine qualitative and quantitative analyses in a nine-month study of three fanfiction sites, and also analyze the “lexical diversity in the 61.5 billion words on the Fanfiction.net site.”

They consider how distributed mentoring could improve not only other online learning platforms but also formal writing instruction in schools.

“” was published this month by MIT Press.

For more information, contact Aragon at aragon@uw.edu or Davis at kdavis78@uw.edu.

* * *

Seawomen and Seattle architects: Paperback editions coming from 91̽��Press

91̽�� Press will release paperback editions of three popular UW-related books in September.

• “,” by . This is the paperback version of a second edition published in 2014. The book was first published in 1994. This edition includes four additional profiles. Ochsner, a 91̽��professor of architecture, said the book seeks to show “the wide variety of kinds of architectural achievement and the extraordinary diversity of those who contributed to making Seattle’s built environment.”
• “” explores the career of the founder of the 91̽��Department of Landscape Architecture, best known in Seattle for his . Author and 91̽��architecture professor said Haag’s legacy is found in the places he designed, which “inspire students to think beyond what they know … they ignite civic engagement and public service, for Rich’s most important work was in the public realm.”
• “” uses extensive historical and field research to document the women who have withstood the trials of fishing in Iceland from the historic times of small open rowboats to today’s high-tech fisheries. A finalist for the 2017 Washington State Book Award in general nonfiction/history, the book is by , affiliate associate professor of anthropology, also with the Canadian Studies Arctic Program.

Other book notes:

Honor for Sareeta Amrute’s ‘Encoding Class’: The has given its top book honor in social sciences for 2019 to “,” by 91̽��associate professor of anthropology. The group presented the award to Amrute at its annual conference, in Leiden, the Netherlands. “Encoding Class” was published in 2016 by Duke University Press.

Joanna Russ, who taught at UW, remembered in biography: “Experimental, strange, and unabashedly feminist, ‘s groundbreaking science fiction grew out of a belief that the genre was ideal for expressing radical thought,” states from fellow sci-fi writer . Russ was a Hugo and Nebula award-winning writer who from 1977 to 1991; her work is widely taught and studied. In 2006, editors of the 91̽��alumni magazine Columns named Russ’s 1975 novel “” among the top .

They are data scientists — students, faculty members and staff — who are building the tools and crafting the methods to help researchers analyze vast amounts of data now abundant in every field, from the physical and social sciences to the humanities, natural sciences and engineering. The very nature of their skill set is interdisciplinary, but the university system doesn’t always reward them for the time they spend developing techniques and software to advance science.

These data scientists are sought after by industry — to mine customers’ preferences for more targeted advertising or to analyze traffic patterns to build more sensible roadways — and also are needed in academia to process gene sequences or astronomical amounts of star data. But traditional university career paths can be a poor fit for these experts.

This dilemma, and what universities can do to change it, is the topic of a symposium Feb. 15 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, California. The session, “,” is led by 91̽�� faculty members and brings together experts from the University of California, Berkeley, and New York University.

At the UW, an interdisciplinary organization called the , which recently was awarded several prestigious grants, is advancing the research and practice of data-intensive discovery across campus, in part by attracting data scientists to explore new career paths that blend independent research, interdisciplinary consulting and teaching, and development of new software and methods.

, associate director of the eScience Institute and co-organizer of the conference symposium, will talk about how the UW’s programs are designed to help researchers interact with industry partners, particularly to make big-data analysis techniques and methods easier for everyone to use.

“We are trying to centralize these data-scientist roles at universities and give them the prestige and autonomy they would receive in similar industry jobs,” Howe said. “This could ultimately attract more early career researchers and practitioners to the field.”

The eScience Institute also has established a new postdoctoral fellow program to explicitly identify and reward young researchers who operate at the intersection of their own domain and data science. By building a community of these rising stars and helping to position them for prestigious faculty positions, 91̽��eScience aims to promote a model of interdisciplinary data-intensive science as the norm rather than the exception, Howe added.

The UW’s presenters will talk about their early successes in bringing data science to campus, including:

• A new : A physical space on campus open to anyone who needs help with big data or wants to exchange ideas and techniques for working with large datasets. The UW’s studio opened in January and has been busy, Howe said, citing the in-person, “water-cooler effect” aspects as important for the collaborations that are happening.
• The : Research labs from across campus send one person to work side by side with data scientists two days a week for the academic quarter. The goal is to train researchers to tackle their big-data projects, then bring those skills back to their respective labs. The studio also hosts more informal office hours for researchers to ask for guidance on smaller projects.
• A data science : Brings together thought leaders from universities and industry to talk about topics related to data analysis, visualization and applications to other fields.
• A new doctoral track in big data: Graduate students in a number of participating departments take courses and focus a portion of their research on methods in data-intensive science.

The symposium’s presentations and speakers are:

Ed Lazowska, 91̽��

Cecilia Aragon, 91̽��

Joshua Bloom, University of California, Berkeley

Juliana Freire, New York University

Fernando Perez, University of California, Berkeley

Bill Howe, 91̽��

###

For more information, contact Howe at billhowe@uw.edu.

For some bilingual speakers, it turns out emoticons often are useful and may be used as vehicles to communicate when words and phrasing are difficult.

, associate professor of human centered design and engineering at the 91̽��, joins an interdisciplinary group of computer scientists, psychologists and linguists from around the world as she presents her research about trends of emoticon use among bilingual speakers in a session, “,” Feb. 14 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, California.

Specifically, Aragon and her collaborators have found that one group of bilingual speakers used emoticons more often when typing in their second language in casual, online communication than they did when typing in their native tongue.

“As with any language, we’re seeing a proliferation of new vocabulary across languages. Some of the face-to-face patterns we see in bilinguals are being echoed online,” Aragon said.

Aragon’s presentation is part of the larger symposium, “.”

Many past studies have shown that people rely more on nonverbal communication — facial expressions, hand gestures and body language — when speaking in their second language. As emoticons have emerged as a nonverbal, visual language of their own, Aragon’s research team was curious whether bilinguals were using symbols in online communication as they might employ gestures and body language in face-to-face communication.

“Under certain conditions, bilinguals increase their use of nonverbal communication in their second language, and we discovered the same thing online with emoticons,” she said.

The researchers analyzed a dataset of AOL Instant Messenger chat logs among 30 astrophysicists in the U.S. and France. They found that native French speakers in the collaboration used more emoticons when they communicated in English. Aragon’s team is now looking with a sociolinguistic lens at how emoticons are used in casual conversations on other microblogging platforms such as Twitter, story comments and online forums.

Other symposium presenters include of Georgia Institute of Technology; of the University of California, Santa Barbara; of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada; of Aix-Marseille University in France; and of Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Also participating as co-organizers are of the University at Albany-State University of New York and of Pennsylvania State University. Both collaborated with Aragon on the bilingual study.

###

For more information, contact Aragon at aragon@uw.edu.

We forget our highly secretive combinations, so we frequently have them reset and sent to our cellphones and alternative email addresses. We come up with clever jumbles of letters and words, only to mess up the order. We sit there on the login screen, desperately punching in a code we should know by heart.

Despite their inefficiencies, passwords are still the most common electronic authentication systems, protecting everything from our bank accounts, laptops and email to health information, utility bills and, of course, our Facebook profiles. While fingerprint- and eye- and face-recognition authentication technology is progressing, these biometric security systems haven’t yet gone mainstream.

91̽�� engineers are trying to figure out why. They found in a recent that the user’s experience could be key to creating a system that doesn’t rely on passwords.

“How humans interact with biometric devices is critically important for their future success,” said lead researcher , a 91̽��associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. “This is the beginning of looking at biometric authentication as a socio-technical system, where not only does it require that it be efficient and accurate, but also something that people trust, accept and don’t get frustrated with.”

Aragon believes one of the reasons face- and eye-recognition systems haven’t taken off is because the user’s experience often isn’t factored into the design. Her team presented its , one of the first in the field to look at user preferences, at the International Association for Pattern Recognition’s in June. The researchers found that speed, accuracy and choice of error messages were all important for the success of an eye-tracking system.

“If you develop the technology and user interface in parallel, you can make sure the technology fits the users rather than the other way around,” Aragon said. “It’s very important to have feedback from all stakeholders in the process while you’re designing a biometric identification system.”

The 91̽��team in collaboration with at Texas State University developed a new biometric authentication technique that identifies people based on their eye movements. They ran subjects through several types of authentication, then asked for feedback on the usability and perceived security.

In the study, users simulated withdrawing money from an ATM. The prototype – an ATM-lookalike computer screen with eye-tracking technology – presented three separate types of authentication: a standard four-number PIN, a target-based game that tracks a person’s gaze, and a reading exercise that follows how a user’s eyes move past each word. With each, researchers measured how long it took and how often the system had to recalibrate.

Eye-tracking technology uses infrared light and cameras. The light reflects off the surface of the eyeball back to the camera when a user’s eye is following a dot or words on the computer screen. The tracking device picks up the unique way each person’s eye moves.

The 91̽��research team chose the ATM scenario because it’s familiar to most people and many machines already have a basic security camera installed.

“The goal of eye-tracking signatures is to enable inexpensive cameras instead of specialized eye-tracking hardware,” Aragon said. “This system can be used by basically any technology that has a camera, even a low-quality webcam.”

When interviewed afterward, most of the study subjects said they don’t trust the standard push-button PIN used in most ATMs, and most assumed that the more advanced technologies would offer the best security.

But when authentication failed – the research team deliberately caused it to not recognize users during one trial – they lost faith in the eye-tracking systems. This study showed that future eye-tracking technology should give clear error messages or directions on how users should proceed if they get off track.

“The error messages we provided and the feedback we gave were really important for making it usable,” said , a 91̽��doctoral student. “It would have been difficult to design these prototypes without getting feedback from users early on.”

The standard PIN authentication won for its speed and user-friendliness, but the dot targeting exercise also scored high among users and didn’t take nearly as long as the reading exercise. This game-like option could be a model for future versions, Brooks said.

The researchers plan to look next at developing similar eye-tracking authentication for other systems that use basic cameras such as desktop computers. A similar design could be used to log in or gain access to a secure website.

The research was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

###

For more information, contact Aragon at aragon@uw.edu.