Friday, October 27, 2000

Confined to Bed, USC Professor Uses a Video Link to Watch Student's Doctoral Defense By SCOTT STREET Flat on her back is not exactly where an adviser wants to be during her student's doctoral defense, but that's precisely where Mary Hall, a University of Southern California assistant professor of computer science, found herself in early October, when, eight months pregnant, she was confined to her bed by her doctor. That could have posed a major obstacle for the Ph.D. candidate, Sungdo Moon, who was scheduled to defend his dissertation just days later. But thanks to the university's video-teleconferencing system, Ms. Hall was able to watch Mr. Moon's entire presentation from her bed and even ask him a few questions. It was U.S.C.'s first videoconferenced dissertation defense. Ellis Horowitz, director of distance education and information technology, says Mr. Moon would otherwise have had to wait weeks for Ms. Hall to be able to attend an on-campus defense. Instead, he passed his examination that day and is now working for Hewlett-Packard in San Jose, Calif. The equipment, used primarily for distance-education courses, worked to perfection. "The fact that we could all see each other was very valuable," Mr. Horowitz says. "It was as smooth as any defense I had ever seen." On Tuesday, Ms. Hall gave birth to a girl, Jacqueline. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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