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Human-Centered Computing

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

Looking up at tall skinny tree trunks with foliage against a blue sky

Wildlab

The Wildlab explores how technology can be biased against people who are unlike those who created it — and to build systems that help designers, developers, and researchers better support the needs and perspectives of different people.

Street scene overlaid with color-coded object recognition labels for depicted car, bicycle, vegetation, utility pole, and manhole cover

Makeability Lab

The Makeability Lab specializes in Human-Computer Interaction and applied machine learning for high-impact problems in accessibility, computational urban science, and augmented reality.


Allen School Faculty

Assistant Professor

Assistant Teaching Professor

Professor

Associate Professor


Centers & Initiatives

Global Innovation Exchange is the University of Washington’s
engineering and business institute for emerging and established
technology leaders. GIX partners with corporate, government and non-profit organizations to deliver transformational learning through graduate education, global experiences and professional development programs.

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.

Highlights


UW News

To help shed light over safety and security concerns with current AI systems, UW News spoke with researchers including professors Franziska Roesner and Noah A. Smith.

Allen School News

In the first installment of a new Q&A series exploring grand challenges in computing, Reinecke and Smith discuss how they and their colleagues aim to answer the question, “How do we design AI in a way that is transparent and equally beneficial to all?”

Allen School News

Allen School faculty recognized 2025 alumni Wei and Zhu for their outstanding doctoral dissertation research identifying new methods for tackling online harassment introducing more secure techniques for generating digital signatures, respectively.