The Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering held its 2025 Graduation & Awards Ceremony on the evening of Wednesday, June 11, in the Husky Union Building Ballroom.
This year's ceremony honored the achievements of 220 graduates—90 bachelor’s, 127 master’s, and 3 doctoral students.
2025 Graduation Address
Dr. Leila Takayama
Dr. Leila Takayama, a leading expert in Human-Robot Interaction, served as HCDE’s 2025 graduation speaker. She is VP of Design at Robust.AI and previously held roles as a tenured professor at UC Santa Cruz and researcher at GoogleX and Willow Garage. Her work bridges academic research and product development, with contributions to over a dozen robots across air, land, and sea.
Awards of Excellence
HCDE faculty annually recognize outstanding students with Awards of Excellence. These awards honor students who have distinguished themselves by demonstrating greatness in Academic Excellence; Leadership and Engagement; Innovation; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Research.
Undergraduate Awards
ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
Derek Lee
Grace Carina Bunarto
Camryn Soo
Yishu (Eva) Fang
INNOVATION
Yanxi Feng
Christian Kjaer
LEADERSHIP & ENGAGEMENT
Mai Li Jorgensen
Tinh Lou
Bethania Flores Torres
Lance Garcia
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION
Bianca Stiles
Graduate Awards
INNOVATION
Natasha Pietruschka
Raghav Sharma
Rich Camposano
LEADERSHIP & ENGAGEMENT
Melinda McClure Haughey
Jialin (Jessamine) Li
Sua Oh
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION
Chelsea Solomita
Motolani Shenbajo
RESEARCH
Hannah Twigg-Smith
2025 Mikey Award
James Landay
Each year, the HCDE faculty select a recipient of the Myron L. White (aka "The Mikey") Award. The Mikey Award, named after a founder of the department, is given to a leader in the field and a dedicated friend of HCDE. The HCDE faculty voted to award Dr. James Landay the 2025 Mikey Award, thanking him for his years of support of the Department.
Now a professor at Stanford and co-director of the Institute for Human-Centered AI, Dr. Landay was a foundational advocate for HCDE during his time at UW. He helped launch the DUB group, supported early faculty recruitment, and ensured HCDE had a strong voice as the HCI community grew. Read more »
2025 Senior Class Gift Campaign
Celebrate the Class of 2025 by making a lasting impact on future HCDE students!
The HCDE Fund for Excellence supports extracurricular opportunities including networking events, guest speakers, student travel, and initiatives organized by HCDE's Student Associations. The HCDE graduating seniors chose this fund to enrich the student experience for years to come. Honor the Class of 2025 with a gift of $20.25 or any amount!
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