AI and data technologies are reshaping society—from how we work and learn to how we make decisions and understand the world. In this cluster, researchers design tools, systems, and visualizations that help people explore, interpret, and act on data, while also examining the broader social, political, and ethical implications of data-driven systems.
Our work advances methods for data visualization, human-AI interaction, and machine learning—grounded in human-centered design. We also investigate questions of privacy, tracking, algorithmic accountability, and the social consequences of data use.
This research often involves working closely with communities to ensure that data systems are transparent, equitable, and usable, and that people can meaningfully engage with and critique the technologies that shape their lives.
HCDE researchers
Recent publications
- Daniela Rosner and Sucheta Ghoshal - Data as Landed Property in Leonardo (July 2026)
- Julie Kientz - Exploring AI Companions Together: A Structured Family Co-Investigation of Character.AI presented at the Interaction Design and Children 25th Conference (IDC 2026) (June 2026)
- Julie Kientz - Toys that listen, talk, and play: Understanding Children's Sensemaking and Interactions with AI Toys presented at the Interaction Design and Children 25th Conference (IDC 2026) (June 2026)
- Julie Kientz - Where Does AI Leave a Footprint? Children’s Reasoning About AI’s Environmental Costs presented at the Interaction Design and Children 25th Conference (IDC 2026) (June 2026)
- Gary Hsieh - Group Conversational Agents: A Review of Designs that Support and Shape Group Interaction in Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '26) (June 2026). Received Best Paper Honorable Mention at DIS '26.
- Mark Zachry - How Designers Envision Value-Oriented AI Concepts with Generative AI in Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '26) (June 2026)
- Mark Zachry - Developing an AI Concept Envisioning Toolkit to Support Reflective Juxtaposition of Values and Harms in Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '26) (June 2026)
- Gary Hsieh - PaperTok: Exploring the Use of Generative AI for Creating Short-form Videos for Research Communication in Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26) (April 2026)
- Beth Kolko - Framing Responsible Design of AI for Mental Well-Being: AI as Primary Care, Nutritional Supplement, or Yoga Instructor? in Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26) (April 2026)
- Emily Tseng - "Chat, Should I Leave Him?" Risks, Rewards, and Roles for AI in Relationship Advice in Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26) (April 2026)
- David Ribes - More Instrument than Data in Science, Technology, & Human Values (April 2026)
- David Ribes - 13. Parables of circulating reference in Research Handbook on Digital Data: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (March 2026)
- Gary Hsieh - Understanding the Effects of Conversational Agent Personality on the Credibility of LLM-Based Conversational Search in Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR '26) (March 2026)
- Mark Zachry - Collaborative Autoethnography as a Method to Explore Short-Lived Social AI Chatbots in Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI '25) (January 2026)
- Gary Hsieh - Rethinking Teaching Evaluation Reports: Designing AI-transformed Student Feedback for Instructor Engagement in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (November 2025)
- Daniela Rosner - Should AI Mimic People? Understanding AI-Supported Writing Technology Among Black Users in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (November 2025). Received a DEI Special Recognition at CSCW '25
- Sucheta Ghoshal and Sayamindu Dasgupta - From Data Activism to Activism in a Time of Data-Centrism: Affirming Epistemological Heterogeneity in Social Movements in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (May 2025). Received an Honorable Mention Award at CSCW '25
- Sean Munson - Engagements with Generative AI and Personal Health Informatics: Opportunities for Planning, Tracking, Reflecting, and Acting around Personal Health Data in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT) (September 2025)
- Julie Kientz and Sayamindu Dasgupta - Reading AI and Reading the World: Using an Interactive AI System to Promote Children's Understanding of AI Bias in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (September 2025)
- David Ribes - Sensing the winds: ML as concatenated instrumentation at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) (August 2025)
- David Ribes - Security through Openness: Tracing the Development of “Fundamental Research” at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) (August 2025)