Leah Pistorius
June 23, 2025
As part of the Human Centered Design & Engineering’s 2025 Graduation Day celebrations, Professor Kate Starbird delivered a special lecture for graduating students and their guests titled Foundations & Futures of Human-Computer Interaction.
Drawing from her undergraduate course, Foundations in HCI (HCDE 419), Starbird offered an overview of how the technologies we use today are rooted in federally funded research in HCI.
Watch the talk: Foundations & Futures of HCI
In the lecture, Starbird traced the evolution of computing technologies from their origins in post–World War II science policy to today’s landscape of personal computing, ubiquitous connectivity, AI, and social media. She overviews how the field of human-computer interaction has always emphasized technology as a tool to augment human capabilities—not replace them. That vision, she argues, is more urgent than ever as we look to the future of technological development.
Some of the key takeaways from the presentation include:
- HCI is everywhere. From the computer mouse and graphical user interfaces to search engines and wearable devices, many everyday technologies have their roots in government-funded HCI research.
- The past shapes the present. Starbird highlighted early visionaries like Vannevar Bush, J.C.R. Licklider, and Douglas Engelbart—whose work not only imagined the internet, but laid the groundwork for interactive computing as we know it.
- The future depends on inclusive innovation. Starbird emphasized the need to broaden participation in computing, pointing out how early HCI pioneers were overwhelmingly white and male. She expressed concern about recent moves to defund initiatives aimed at increasing diversity in computing fields.
- There’s work still to do. Today’s HCI research tackles critical issues—from improving accessibility and supporting mental health to ensuring online safety for youth and reducing vulnerability to misinformation. These efforts, Starbird emphasized, must continue—and require sustained federal support.
Professor Starbird closed her talk with a call to action: to recognize the value of public investment in research, to protect it from erosion, and to ensure that the next generation of technology reflects the needs and values of everyone.