Research Labs & Centers

The Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) has a robust agenda with notable breadth supported by 16 faculty working with their students in 14 labs.

• The Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching (CELT), directed by Dr. Cindy Atman, focuses on two synergistic activities: research on engineering education and improving engineering teaching through instructional development.
• The Communicative Practices in Virtual Workspaces Laboratory, directed by Dr. Mark Zachry, investigates emergent uses of digital technologies to coordinate work activities. Research topics include uses of shared web services for the conduct of distributed work, visualizations of work activity mediated by online contributor systems, and automated detection of social behaviors based on language use in online systems.
• The Computer Supported Collaboration (CSC) Laboratory, directed by Dr. Charlotte Lee, conducts research to inform the design of information systems for collaboration. Researchers investigate the development and use of information infrastructures in science and engineering, and the relationship between changes in practice and changes in technology.
• The Computing for Healthy Living and Learning (CHiLL) Laboratory, directed by Dr. Julie Kientz, designs and develops mobile, persuasive, and collaborative technologies that help individuals, families, and teachers record and review their educational and health goals.
• The Design for Digital Inclusion (DDI) Laboratory, directed by Dr. Beth Kolko, researches how to design and implement technologies to address the needs of underserved communities and resource-constrained environments in the US and around the world.
• The Emerging Capacities of Mass Participation (emCOMP) Laboratory, directed by Dr. Kate Starbird, examines the dynamics of and applications for massive interaction facilitated by social media and other online platforms.
• The Internet-Based User Experience Laboratory (IBUXL), directed by Dr. Jan Spyridakis, studies how online information affects users' behavior, comprehension, and perceptions. The researchers have developed WebLabUX—a toolkit to support remote testing of users through the internet.
• The Laboratory for Human-Centered Engineering Education (LHCEE), directed by Dr. Jennifer Turns, focuses on applying the practices of user-centered and human-centered design to the challenges of helping engineering students learn more effectively and helping engineering educators teach more effectively.
• The Laboratory for Influence in SocioTechnical Systems (LISTS), directed by Dr. Sean Munson, designs, builds, and evaluates systems designed to nudge people toward socially desirable outcomes while respecting individual autonomy.

• The Pacific Rim Visualization and Analytics Center (PARVAC), directed by Dr. Mark Haselkorn, has the mission of advancing visual analytics for the enhancement of distributed, collaborative cognition and decision-making for public safety and security.
• The Scientific Collaboration and Creativity Laboratory (SCCL), directed by Dr. Cecilia Aragon, conducts research on human-computer interaction in scientific collaborations, collaborative creativity, cyberinfrastructure, eScience, information visualization, and how social media and computer-mediated communication are changing scientific practice.
• The Technical Japanese Laboratory is part of the Technical Japanese Inter-engineering program.