DUB Retreat 2020: Recognizing what we’ve done, what still needs to be done
Summary and reflection on the 2020 DUB Retreat, a physically distant but socially connected meeting of HCI & design researchers.
The 2020 DUB retreat was the first remote version of this retreat we’ve ever had. This retreat is an annual reunion of sorts for DUB, necessary because DUB is spread out across many schools/departments at UW including the Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering (CSE), the Information School (iSchool), Human-Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE), Art + Art History + Design, Communication, Bioinformatics & Medical Education (BIME) and including industry professionals from organizations such as Microsoft Research (MSR). I had fond memories of past DUB retreats where I could connect faculty members, students, and industry professionals in-person and chat research ideas with them. What I remember from previous DUB retreats was how astonished I was at the innovation and impact of the diverse research people conducted and how welcoming people were to new people and ideas. And that same feeling of astonishment and inclusion rang true in our remote retreat this year.
PhD Retreat: Connecting by Solving Challenges, Near and Far
The DUB retreat typically begins with separate retreats for faculty, PhD students, and Master’s students. This gives people an opportunity to (re)connect with colleagues and welcome new ones. Rumor has it the faculty retreat Given the growing number of post-docs in DUB, I look forward to seeing a future retreat for DUB post-docs.
I attended the PhD retreat, which brought together ~100 PhD students from many different departments. Using Discord, we alternated between randomly assigned breakout rooms and large group town hall style chats to meet each other, muse research ideas, and discuss how to make DUB even better in future years. I learned about needs of different stakeholders regarding the closure of the West Seattle bridge and the challenge of cybersecurity in a multi-national Mars mission. As a whole, I’m excited to see so many PhD students give so selflessly to make events like this PhD retreat, DUB weekly seminars, the annual DUB doctoral colloquium, and various draft paper swaps happen!
State of DUB: Recognition of Research, Teaching, and Service
After the separate retreats, hundreds of DUB community members gathered (remotely on Zoom) for the State of DUB. This is an annual recap of what happened at DUB this year. This made it apparent that DUB has been growing to meet the diverse needs of the present and future through education, research, and impact.
For undergraduate education, we have new minors in innovation and global engagement and data science. DUB faculty have also started three new research centers at UW: the Digital Fabrication Lab, Center for Informed Public, and the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE). Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of awards and recognition DUB members received from this past year:
Promotions, Recognition, and Awards DUB members received this past year:
- Seven new DUB faculty: We celebrated seven new faculty members (James Pierce, Interaction Design; Sucheta Ghoshal, HCDE; Tanu Mitra, iSchool; Amy Zhang, Allen School; Sarah Coppola, HCDE; Anis Rahman, Communication; Amanda Menking, MHCI+D). Amy Zhang was also named a 2020–21 Belfer Fellow by the Anti-Defamation League and the 2020 MIT EECS George Sprowls Award for best PhD thesis in CS.
- Two Early Career Awards: Prof Audrey Desjardins (Design) and Prof. Jason Yip (iSchool) got NSF early career awards. iSchool Prof. Jason Yip and Ph.D. student Jason Yip receiving the Jacobs Foundation Early Career Award.
- Many NSF Awards. Prof. Charlotte Lee (HCDE) and Prof David Ribes (HCDE) were awarded an NSF Award to study scientific collaboration. Prof. Andrea Hartzler (BIME) was awarded an NSF award from the Smart & Connected Communities Program. Richard Ladner (CSE) was awarded the NSF Public Service Award.
- More Awards and Honors! Meredith Ringel Morris (MSR) was named to the CHI Academy. Jen Mankoff won the 2020 AccessComputing Capacity Building Award. Adriana Schulz (CSE), Nadya Peek (HCDE), and Leilani Battle (CSE > UMD) were named by the Technology Review on their list of The World’s Top 35 Innovators Under 35!
- Two Test of Time Awards: Prof Jeff Heer (CSE) won the 10 Year Test-of-Time Award at InfoVis 2020 and Prof Jacob O Wobbroack (iSchool) won the 2019 SIGACCESS ASSETS Paper Impact Award
- Paper Awards: At CHI 2020, DUB members authored two honorable mention awards (Roldan et al., Hanson et al. ) and one best paper award (Hoffswell, Li, & Liu). PhD student Alex Kale (iSchool) earned a Best Paper Award at IEEE InfoVis 2020.
- Promotions: Tyler Fox and Dianne Hendricks (HCDE) are now Associate Teaching Professors. Prof Wanda Pratt (iSchool) is the Acting Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
- Two CI Innovation Fellows: Rafal Kocielnik (HCDE > CalTech) and Abigale Stangl (UT Austin > HCDE) were named Computing Innovation Fellows for their post-docs.
- Six graduated students are now faculty: Former DUB PhD students Kyle Thayer (CSE > iSchool), Dastyni Loksa (iSchool > Towson), Matt Mauriello (CSE > Delaware), Elena Agapie (HCDE > UC Irvine), Sungsoo (Ray) Hong (HCDE > George Mason), and Ravi Karkar (CSE > UMass) graduated recently and are now assistant professors.
- Five graduated students in industry: Dr. Jessie Schroeder (CSE > Evidation Health), Dr. Amanda Swearngin (CSE > Apple Research), Dr. Mia Suh (HCDE > Google), Dr. Abdullah Ali (iSchool > Amazon AWS) and Dr. Lucas Colusso (HCDE > BECU) are now DUB-ing in industry!
- Two books published: DUB faculty Huatong Sun (Global Social Media Design) Cecilia Aragon (Flying Free) got authored books that are not published!
- Two outstanding thesis awards: Dominik Moritz (CSE) and Charles Kiene (Communication) won outstanding thesis awards.
- Google PhD fellowship: Manaswi Saha earned a Google Fellowship.
- Lots of COVID-19 PPE: Annie Ross and Soumya Jindal led DUB’s COVID-19 PPE efforts.
Panel on racism, difference, and equity in DUB
A new and necessary addition to the DUB retreat this year was a panel on racism, difference, and equity in DUB. Dr. Leilani Battle (UMD), Dr. Denae Ford (MSR), and Dr. Sucheta Ghoshal (HCDE) took part in a panel moderated by PhD student Jay Cunningham (HCDE).
The main thing I took away was that it’s time we translated what we’ve learned to tangible actions to address systemic racism. As Leilani put it: “You don’t need any of us on this panel to tell you what to do! That info is out there!” To drive this point home, she referenced an over century year-old quote by Frederick Douglass that rings very true today: “Our government may at some time be in the hands of a bad man. When in the hands of a good man it is all well enough. . . . We ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man we shall be safe.”
But inclusion is not enough and we must also address the whiteness of societal structures. As Sucheta stated, we need to be clear as individuals and communities about why representation matters to use. Otherwise inclusive efforts can result in tokenization, where “color is added to an underlying whiteness.” So to be anti-racist, we must address the underlying societal structures that often have “white centrality.”
Denae Ford connected this discussion to research, noting how understanding and supporting marginalized groups has been part of long-standing research communities as well. She also recognized the systemic oppression that existed within academia: “people have been doing this work for a while. They haven’t been necessarily published in CHI/CSCW, and thinking about why that work wasn’t accepted is another topic!” Panelists called on the DUB community to look beyond the “mainstream” journals and proceedings and actively seek out where else this kind of research exists. An example panelists referred to was the Research on Equity & Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, & Technology (RESPECT) conference.
For more information on diversity in computing research, see BPCnet.org, BlackInComputing.org, Black ComputerHer’s CiteHer Bibliography, and Dr. Quincy K Brown’s list of African American Women CS PhDs.
In this time of a global pandemic and activism to address systemic racism, it is revitalizing to see DUB come together and find strength in the diversity of our community!
Thanks to Prof. Nadya Peek (HCDE), Prof. Mako Hill (Communication) for co-chairing the DUB retreat; PhD students Anastasia Schaadhardt (iSchool), Jason Hoffman (CSE), Jesse Martinez (CSE), and Raymond Fok (CSE) for co-chairing the PhD student retreat; and Dr. Amanda Menking (HCI+D) and Matt Bartels (HCI+D) for co-chairing the Masters students workshop!
