Our work in human-centered computing explores and enhances the ways in which people and communities engage with and experience technology.
Our research considers the personal, educational, cultural, and ethical implications of innovation. Drawing upon techniques from human-computer interaction, learning sciences, sensing and more, we aim to maximize the potential benefits of technology while minimizing potential harms to individuals, groups and society.
Groups & Labs
Mobile Intelligence Lab
The interdisciplinary Mobile Intelligence Lab builds intelligent systems and tools for tackling hard technical and societal problems, including battery-free computing, medical diagnostics, augmented human perception and more.
Social Futures Lab
Researchers in the Social Futures Lab are reimagining social and collaborative systems to empower people and improve society.
Faculty Members
Centers & Initiatives
The Transportation Data Equity Initiative (TDEI) aims to enhance the quality and accessibility of travel services by building open source data collection and vetting tools, transportation data digital infrastructure, and governance frameworks that enable public-private data sharing and interoperability. The TDEI is a project sponsored by The Complete Trip, an ITS4US Deployment Program.
Change is a cross-campus collaboration that explores the challenges of developing technology in the context of positive social change. It seeks to make connections between researchers, outside organizations, and the public to inspire the development of new capabilities aligned with the interests of those most in need.
Highlights
Allen School News
To help make datasets easier to explore, in 2015, a team of researchers led by Heer introduced Voyager, a system that automatically generates and recommends charts and visualizations based on statistical and perceptual measures — which earned the InfoVis 10-Year Test of Time Award at IEEE VIS 2025.
GeekWire
At the Allen School’s Research Showcase and Open House, school leaders celebrated the work of faculty and student researchers — and offered a blueprint for collaboratively tackling a set of human-centered problems for even greater impact.
UW News
The institute, which is housed in the Information School, leverages expertise from the Allen School, Foster School of Business and other collaborators to advance meaningful employment opportunities and career experiences for neurodivergent people.