I am an accidental computer scientist. I never saw much use for computers beyond being able to throw out those annoying erasable pens that used to smear under my lefthandedness in primary school. During my first year at University I had to take a computer science course. Begrudingly I took it and it was my favourite class. Who knew there was so much fun to be had.
My interests in computers primarily lay on either side of the box. On one side the more theorectical part of computer science, the problem solving and development of algorithms required to get computers to do our bidding. On the other the human element, understanding real world people, their tasks and context and working out how to create interfaces and interaction paradigms that are good fit for those who use them. Recently, I've been working more on the HCI (human computer interaction) side of things.
I find that I get interested in a wide variety of topics both within and outside of computer science. From computational geometry to anthropology. One theme that runs through alot of my interests is that of interpersonal communication and collaboriation. My MSc thesis involved the development and exploration of several haptic (touch) implimentations for two people interacting over a distance. At CSIRO, I was involved with the development and usability aspects of technologies for supporting remote guidance of a physical task. I believe that incrediably rich interaction between humans and computers is possible and that incrediably rich computer-mediated human-to-human interaction will eventually become as common place as the mobile phone.