Designing Up 2025
Honors & Achievements
HCDE students, faculty, and alumni are consistently recognized for their groundbreaking research, innovative projects, and contributions to the community. Recent honors highlight excellence in teaching, leadership, and service across the department.
HCDE Impact: Advancing Renewable Marine Energy
Renewable marine energy—power from waves and tides—offers opportunities to strengthen coastal economies and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. HCDE Assistant Research Professor Shana Lee Hirsch and the Pacific Marine Energy Center work to ensure these benefits reach local communities, though recent federal funding cuts threaten continued progress.
HCDE Impact: Teaching Kids to Think Critically About AI
In Professor Julie Kientz's CHiLL Lab, researchers are creating tools to help children think critically about artificial intelligence. One project, AI Puzzlers—a web-based game by PhD student Aayushi Dangol—teaches kids to recognize the limits of generative AI through interactive puzzles.
HCDE Impact: Designing Better Access to Mental Healthcare
The ALACRITY Center, co-directed by HCDE Professor Sean Munson, works to expand access to mental health care by redesigning behavioral interventions and integrating them into primary care, schools, and community settings.
HCDE Impact: Safeguarding the Future of US Research
The HCDE-led, NSF-supported SECURE Center brings together researchers, regional centers, and industry to address security challenges while preserving the openness that drives scientific progress.
HCDE Impact: Designing for Safer Drinking Water in Schools
HCDE Assistant Professor Katya Cherukumilli and her students partner with state agencies to study drinking water quality in Washington schools, analyzing testing data and barriers to remediation funding to support healthier, more equitable learning environments.
HCDE Impact: Inspiring Washington's K-12 students in Engineering
For over a decade, HCDE students and faculty have brought human-centered design to K–12 classrooms across Washington, inspiring young learners as designers and problem-solvers. Since its 2023 relaunch, the program has reached 350+ students with culturally responsive workshops.
Real Clients, Real Impact: Usability Studies with Industry Partners
Each winter, HCDE master’s and certificate students take a deep dive into usability testing and user-centered research in HCDE 517: Usability Studies. These highlights from Professor Sean Munson’s Winter 2025 course showcase five projects where students delivered meaningful insights to industry partners across diverse products and domains.
Tracing HCDE's Roots
Graduating student Camryn Soo explores the undefinable roots of HCDE Camryn Soo (HCDE BS '25) spent two years researching the department’s history, uncovering how decades of curricular innovation and cross-disciplinary programs shaped HCDE’s identity and its ongoing effort to “rethink engineering.”
