2025 Research Speaker Series
Aayushi Dangol
PhD Candidate, Human Centered Design & Engineering
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16
4:30 – 5:20 p.m.
Sieg Building, room 134
From Black Boxes to Playful Inquiry: Designing for Children’s AI Literacy
Generative AI is increasingly shaping how we learn, work, communicate, and create. These technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for people of all ages to explore ideas, express creativity, and personalize learning. Yet many AI systems operate as “black boxes,” making it difficult to understand its decision-making. Challenges such as hallucinations, biased outputs, and deepfakes underscore the need for new forms of literacy that help users question, verify, and make sense of AI-generated content. This is especially pressing for children, who often anthropomorphize AI and overtrust its responses, forming a relational frame in which AI feels both authoritative and emotionally safe. In this talk, I will share how I design interactive tools and learning experiences that help children, families, and educators make sense of and critically engage with AI systems.
About the presenter
Aayushi Dangol is a doctoral candidate in Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. Her research investigates how to design and deploy AI systems that support children’s learning while safeguarding their agency and developmental needs. She earned her BA in Computer Science and Studio Art from Swarthmore College and worked as an elementary/middle school teacher before beginning her PhD.
The HCDE Research Speaker Series is hosted Thursdays in Autumn Quarter by the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. Presentations are open to the public.