Dr. Emily Tseng is an assistant professor in the University of Washington's Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE). Dr. Tseng’s research explores how computing mediates harm, how to intervene, and what it means to do so. Trained as a scientist-advocate for survivors of intimate partner violence, she works across interpersonal, organizational, and societal levels of harm to build the sociotechnical infrastructures we need to make digital technology safer for everyone. Her current research interests include participatory approaches to AI evaluation and safety, building open LLM toolkits with and for journalists, and how AI mediation sets norms for care and harm in interpersonal relationships.
Prior to joining HCDE, Dr. Tseng completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Microsoft Research with the Social Media Collective. Her work has earned best-paper accolades at top-tier venues in human-computer interaction (ACM CHI, CSCW) and computer security and privacy (USENIX Security, IEEE Oakland). She has been recognized with a Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship, Rising Stars in EECS, and third place in the Internet Defense Prize. For 6 years, Dr. Tseng served as a researcher-practitioner with the Clinic to End Tech Abuse, where she pioneered specialized security services for over 500 survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). In prior lives, she ran early-stage product development for a consumer health tech startup, worked as a software engineer and a healthcare consultant, and made audio, video, print, and web features at her hometown public radio station and college newspaper. Dr. Tseng earned her B.A. from Princeton University and her Ph.D. from Cornell Information Science.