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
Make4all Group
Make4all Group creates solutions that empower people with disabilities to accomplish their goals, applying technologies such as 3D printing, knitting and other fabrication technologies to improve inclusion in and accessibility of our digital future.
Human-Centered Robotics Lab
In the Human-Centered Robotics lab we aim to develop robotics that are useful and usable for future users of task-oriented robots.
Faculty Members
Centers & Initiatives
Globe.AI is a multidisciplinary community of researchers at the University of Washington who aim to create equitable, responsive AI technologies that can adapt to individuals from diverse cultures and communities, including to different norms, languages, behaviors, and communication styles.
Society + Technology is a cross-campus, cross-disciplinary initiative and community at the University of Washington that is dedicated to research, teaching and learning focused on the social, societal and justice dimensions of technology.
Highlights
UW News
The prototype from researchers in the Mobile Systems Lab led by Allen School professor Shyam Gollakota detects the cadence of a conversation and automatically tracks participants’ voices for the wearer while muting the rest.
Allen School News
In a Q&A, professor Kurtis Heimerl and postdoc Esther Han Beol Jang (Ph.D., ‘24) discuss their work with residents of two Seattle tiny house villages on how they can leverage smart technologies to improve living conditions, balanced against concerns such as cost and continuity of deployment.
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.