In the University of Washington's Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE), research is deeply interdisciplinary, impact-driven, and rooted in people’s lived experiences. HCDE faculty and students investigate the ways technology shapes – and is shaped by – human needs, behaviors, and communities.
Research Clusters
HCDE’s Research Clusters are collaborative focus areas that reflect major themes in the department’s work.
Research Collaboration
Research Topics
Specific areas where HCDE faculty are advancing knowledge and design practice.
Accessibility
Research that aims to lower barriers to technology use and information access.
Affiliated faculty:
Arts
Research to support the development of tools and technology for arts practice.
Affiliated faculty:
Data Science
Research to develop tools and methods that help people analyze, interpret, and work with data.
Affiliated faculty:
Democracy & Trust
With the goal of strengthening democracy and trust, our scope includes research on human interaction in digital spaces, platform design to foster safe and trustworthy spaces, promote community formation, and trustworthy ecosystems.
Affiliated faculty:
Education & Learning
Research in engineering education and learning, research in education design, and system and technology development to promote education outcomes.
Affiliated faculty:
Energy
Research to design systems and tools to address energy challenges.
Affiliated faculty:
Engineering Collaboration
Research to support collaborative engineering.
Affiliated faculty:
Entrepreneurship
Research that prioritizes individual and social wellbeing in entrepreneurship and business strategy.
Affiliated faculty:
Environment & Sustainability
Research to design systems and tools to address environmental challenges; research and design with communities that are historically excluded from technology and service design, resulting in ongoing harms.
Affiliated faculty:
Health
Evaluating and developing tools and technologies to promote individual and population health and wellbeing. Includes mental health.
Affiliated faculty:
Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Research that enables people to explore and gain insight from machine learning models and vast data sets, while also considering social impacts such as privacy, security, ethics, and mis/disinformation.
Affiliated faculty:
Infrastructure
Research that includes studying and developing informational, physical, and social infrastructures - systems that are shaped by collaborations and that in turn shape collaborations.
Affiliated faculty:
Manufacturing
Research scope includes unconventional digital fabrication tools, small scale automation, networked control systems, advanced manufacturing, and digital twins/simulation.
Affiliated faculty:
Public Understanding of Science
Research to support how people access, interpret, and engage with scientific information.
Affiliated faculty:
Robotics
Research to develop and enable robots to perform increasingly difficult tasks, and work collaboratively with humans rather than independently.
Affiliated faculty:
Safety, Privacy, Security, Ethics, Information Integrity
Research that enables humans to explore and gain insights from technology while also considering social impacts such as safety, privacy, security, ethics, and information integrity.
Affiliated faculty:
Scientific Collaboration
Research to support how scientists collaborate, share data, and work across teams and disciplines.
Affiliated faculty:
Service Design
Research to develop methods and approaches for designing effective, human-centered services.
Affiliated faculty:
- Tyler Fox
- Julie Kientz
- Charlotte Lee
- Sean Munson (health focus)
Social Movements
Research focused on understanding and designing technologies for social movements
Affiliated faculty:
Social Computing
Research focused on understanding and designing for online communities and social media.
Affiliated faculty:
Technology & Society
Research to understand and support the complex sociotechnical systems that support people and society.
Affiliated faculty:
Transportation
Research to design systems and technologies that improve transportation.
Affiliated faculty:
Water Quality
Research focused on technology design and implementation for drinking water treatment and water resources more generally.
Affiliated faculty:
