Scott is an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science & Engineering at UCSD. He previously served as Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford, where he co-directed the HCI Group and held the Bredt Faculty Scholar chair. He has a dual BA in Art-Semiotics and Computer Science from Brown (with studio work at RISD), and a PhD in CS from Berkeley. His former graduate students are leading professors (at Berkeley, CMU, and UIUC), researchers (at Adobe), founders (including Instagram and Pulse), social entrepreneurs, and engineers. He helped introduce peer assessment to open online education, and taught the first peer-assessed online course. Organizations worldwide use his group’s open-source design tools and curricula. He has been awarded the Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize, Sloan Fellowship, NSF CAREER award, and Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship. Nine of his papers were awarded best paper or honorable mention at top HCI venues.

In his wallet, Steve Vassallo carries around the business card from his childhood snow-blowing business, a constant reminder that entrepreneurship is about grasping opportunity where you find it, even if your hands get cold and numb in the process. Of more recent vintage is the business card that identifies Steve as a venture capitalist at Foundation Capital, where he works with companies in the areas of cleantech, consumer, and software & services.

Steve serves on the board of directors of Aquion Energy, AutoGrid, Control4, Pocket, PrivateCore, Refactored Materials, Sentient Energy, and Sunrun. Steve also serves on the board of the Nueva School.