Faculty and research scientists in the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering run directed research groups, which offer students a wide range of opportunities to do hands-on work, from conducting usability tests for local companies all the way to collecting data on communication issues internationally.

Students interested in participating in directed research must get permission directly from the faculty member leading the group. Students enroll in course HCDE 496/596. For details on how to register, please visit the Variable Credit Registration Policy.

Students are encouraged to check this list frequently as Directed Research Groups are added leading up to the beginning of the quarter.

Summer 2021 Research Groups

• Participatory Design with Children and Researchers (Yip, Kientz, Lee, Hiniker)

Spring 2021 Research Groups

• Give Your Pi Eyes: Machine Learning with Image Models (Azulay, Davidson)
• SCAN Research Group: Improving usability of a home-based respiratory virus sample collection process for community surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 (Björling, Sazanami)
• Research through Design for Educators and Clinicians (Brown, Turns)
• The Cost of Culture: Diverse and Multicultural Community Interaction with Financial Technology Applications (Cunningham, Kientz, Rosner)
• Developing mapping tools for community-driven recognition & remediation (Dew)
• Designing for an Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) tool to support adolescent depression treatment (Kientz, Jenness, Munson, Björling)
• Human Centered Design for Space Missions (Kolko)
• Speculating Beyond Data Capitalism (Lustig, Ghoshal, Rosner)
• Exploring Power Dynamics in Co-Design for Engineering Education Research Part II (Mejia, Turns)
• Creative Automation (Peek)
• Memes of Production (Peek)
• Noticing Enactments of Equity (Roldan, Turns)

Spring 2021: no longer accepting applicants

• The UX of Climate Change: Western Red Cedar Dieback (Beach, Fox)
• Project RESeT: Relaxation Environment for Stress in Teens (Björling, Sonney, Rodriguez)
• Project EMAR (Björling, Cakmak)
• Emotions and Relationship-Building in Online Fanfiction Communities (Ghosh, Aragon)
• Human Centered Natural Language Processing and Text Visualization (Aragon)
• Community, Capacity, and Collective Care in Practice (Hoy, Rosner)
• Cooperatives and Sociotechnical Design (Mainwaring, Lee)
• User Testing and Prototyping a Tool for Community Disaster Resilience (Miles)