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Thu, 05/06/2021

Announcing The Otherwise School summer program

HCDE announces The Otherwise School, a new summer program aimed at developing tools and techniques of counter-fascism. The Otherwise School is led by HCDE Assistant Professor Sucheta Ghoshal’s research collective, Inquilab, and We Be Imagining, an initiative led by J. Khadijah Abdurahaman. The Summer 2021 program will be held from June 14 – July 23, 2021.

Tue, 05/04/2021

HCDE students explore mental health access in a Design–a–Thon for Social Good

In April 2021, HCDE hosted a Design-a-Thon for Social Good in which students explored barriers to mental health resources experienced by people in underrepresented communities. Learn more about the event and find video pitches from winning student teams here.

Wed, 04/28/2021

POST(–)HUMAN HAZMAT

Through visual storytelling, UW students explore more-than-human concepts, human relationships with other species and the natural world, and future scenarios of collaborative survival.

Fri, 04/09/2021

Building trustworthy systems

In HCDE's course on designing trustworthy systems, a team of master's students explored a multicultural education strategy for combating misinformation.

Thu, 04/01/2021

HCDE students awarded Graduate Research Fellowships

HCDE PhD students Jay Cunningham, Neilly Herrera Tan, and Emma McDonnell have received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, and PhD student Akeiylah DeWitt is recognized with an Honorable Mention from the National Science Foundation. These fellowships will support HCDE students in their research related to accessibility, privacy and personal data, and human-centered AI.

Tue, 03/30/2021

HCDE student Annie Liu receives Mary Gates Research Scholarship

With support from the Mary Gates Research Scholarship, HCDE junior Annie Liu will pursue work on interactive installations and spatial experiences as a member of HCDE's Internet of Light research group.

Thu, 03/25/2021

HCDE at CHI 2021

UW HCDE will have a strong presence at the 2021 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), the premier international conference on Human-Computer Interaction. HCDE researchers contributed to 10 papers, including two selected for the Best Paper Award recognition and two selected for Best Paper Honorable Mention recognition. In addition, HCDE students and faculty will present research through other avenues, including a panel discussion, a case study presentation, a special interest group discussion, a workshop for conference attendees, and poster presentations.

Thu, 03/11/2021

Q&A with new Assistant Professor Sucheta Ghoshal

Sucheta Ghoshal joined the HCDE faculty in February 2021. In this Q&A, Professor Ghoshal talks about her background and why she is looking forward to joining HCDE.

Wed, 03/10/2021

HCDE student Annie Liu receives Adobe Research Scholarship

HCDE junior Annie Liu is one of just 15 students across North America awarded the Adobe Research Women-in-Technology Scholarship this year. For Liu, the scholarship will enable her to further engage in her research interests, including exploring applications of interactive projection mapping in the home and collaborative spaces.

Wed, 03/10/2021

HCDE 2021 Distinguished Speaker presentation by Helen Nissenbaum on contextual integrity

In March 2021, the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering welcomed Professor Helen Nissenbaum as the Department's 2021 Distinguished Speaker. Watch Professor Nissenbaum's presentation, "Contextual Integrity: Breaking the Grip of Public-Private Distinction for Meaningful Privacy."

Tue, 03/09/2021

HCDE Around the World Instagram Takeover

For a new community-building initiative, HCDE launched "HCDE Around the World," a new Instagram account for members of the community to share bits of their life from wherever they are today.

Wed, 03/03/2021 | UW News

Kate Starbird and UW Center for an Informed Public co-authors report on misinformation and disinformation surrounding the 2020 US election

The Election Integrity Partnership, a nonpartisan coalition of researchers including HCDE Associate Professor Kate Starbird and the UW Center for an Informed Public, released its final report, “The Long Fuse: Misinformation and the 2020 Elections.” The report is the culmination of months of collaboration among approximately 120 people working across four organizations.

Mon, 02/22/2021 | College of Engineering

College of Engineering interview with PhD candidate Os Keyes on gender and power in AI

HCDE PhD candidate Os Keyes unpacks how and where bias occurs in artificial intelligence. Spoiler: it’s everywhere.

Fri, 02/19/2021

HCDE students can now conduct research using the UserTesting Human Insight Platform

The new collaboration with UserTesting will provide students in HCDE with a new tool to conduct user research in courses including usability studies and capstone. The UserTesting platform will enable students to gain real-time feedback from real humans around the world.

Tue, 01/26/2021 | UW Graduate School

How two design graduate students launched Uplift Locally to support Black-owned restaurants

HCDE master's student Devin Ajimine and @MHCI+D grad Marisa Chentakul teamed up to create Uplift Locally, a website to find local, Black-owned businesses through an interactive map. What began as a Washington-based directory now shares more than 3,000 Black-owned restaurants in 39 states. Read how their education in human-centered design helped them go about this project.

Tue, 01/12/2021

HCDE alumni and faculty present work at the IEEE 10th Global Humanitarian Technology Conference

Presented by HCDE alumni Ashley Boone and Monica Posluszny, with Assistant Teaching Professor Irini Spyridakis, one HCDE project explored STEM outreach with underrepresented communities through play, creativity, and movement, and the other explored VR to promote sustainability, behavior, and climate change understanding among college students.

Mon, 01/11/2021

PhD student Keri Mallari receives Twitch Fellowship

As a Twitch Research Fellow, HCDE PhD student Keri Mallari will receive a $10,000 award and a mentorship connection with a scientist at Twitch to help support her independent academic research. 

Wed, 12/16/2020

HCDE Chair Julie Kientz named ACM Distinguished Member

Julie Kientz, HCDE professor and chair, has been named a Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest and most prestigious society of computing professionals. The Distinguished Member honor recognizes individuals who have achieved significant accomplishments or have made a significant impact on the computing field.

Fri, 12/04/2020

Master’s student Della Sigrest is a finalist in the IxDA Student Design Charette

Over the next two months, HCDE Master's student Della Sigrest and fellow finalists in the IxDA's Student Design Charette will work to address the challenge: "How might we achieve greater collective wellbeing through the power of our individual data?"

Wed, 12/02/2020

Introducing Chair's Student Advisory Board members

The Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering welcomes the members of our Chair's Student Advisory Board: Jessica Douma, Sourojit Ghosh, Vijayalaxmi MP, Nisha Rastogi, Dena Sabha, Tiffany Truong, Melinda Haughey, and Josephine Hoy. The Board provides feedback to department leadership on issues affecting students and provides input on strategic decisions.

Sun, 11/22/2020

Video: HCDE Today webinar for alumni

On November 19, 2020, HCDE hosted a webinar about the state of HCDE today—what our operations look like during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how HCDE researchers have pivoted to pandemic-responsive research. In a conversation moderated by HCDE Teaching Professor Brock Craft, hear from HCDE Professor and Chair Julie Kientz about how families are using technology at home during the pandemic; Associate Professor Charlotte P. Lee about how employees and employers are adapting to remote work; and Associate Professor Kate Starbird about how misinformation and disinformation related to the pandemic is spreading online.

Fri, 11/13/2020

Nadya Peek, collaborator Joshua Smith receive NSF award to develop customizable robotics for scientists

A new grant will support HCDE Assistant Professor Nadya Peek and Joshua Smith, Professor in Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the development of open-source, customizable co-bots to enable experts to develop their own automated processes and experiments.

Fri, 11/06/2020

HCDE, UW CREATE researchers honored with top awards at ASSETS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

HCDE Associate Professor Leah Findlater, PhD students Lotus Zhang and Steven Goodman, PhD alumna Cynthia L. Bennett received awards at ASSETS 2020, the International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility.

Wed, 10/28/2020 | UW News

SoundWatch – New smartwatch app alerts Deaf and hard–of–hearing users to nearby sounds

A team of researchers including HCDE Associate Professor Leah Findlater and PhD student Steven Goodman have developed SoundWatch, a smartwatch app that alerts people who are d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing to nearby sounds. The team is presenting this work this week at the ACM conference on computing and accessibility.