Diversity and Inclusion
The Center for Human-Computer Interaction and Design recognizes its implicit role in the social, economic, racial, religious, gender identity, ethnic, and national injustices in the world and is actively working to stop the harm.
As researchers and educators, we strive to create inclusive environments and broaden participation within our community to combat systemic biases that can reduce diversity, inclusion, and equity within human-computer interaction and design field.
We are also working to help increase awareness of diversity and inclusion issues in the HCI and Design community. To learn more, start by reading a piece co-authored by Northwestern HCI+D Center alumni and faculty at U.T. Austin, Angela D.R. Smith, together with Ihudiya Finda Obonnaya-Ogburu (University of Michigan) and Alexandra To (Carnegie Mellon University):
- Ihudiya Finda Ogbonnaya-Ogburu, Angela D.R. Smith, Alexandra To, and Kentaro Toyama. 2020. Critical Race Theory for HCI. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–16. DOI :https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376392
Some concrete steps we are taking to address diversity and inclusion include:
- Faculty member Prof. Ágnes Horvát co-edits Special Issue on Gender Gaps in Digital Spaces for the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
- Faculty member Prof. Jessica Hullman co-authored a piece on inclusion in academic hiring
- HCI+D members and alumni Christina Harrington, Sheena Erete and Anne Marie Piper wrote about tensions and design considerations for more equitable participatory design
- Our faculty partner in developing diversity initiatives in computer science
- Development of bridge programs to help broaden participation in computing