People
Our interdisciplinary group brings together faculty from across the University of Virginia who are advancing the field of human-centered design and engineering. Our members conduct cutting-edge research in areas ranging from human-computer interaction and machine learning to healthcare informatics and assistive technologies.
Homa Alemzadeh
Associate Professor
Electrical & Computer Engineering; Computer Science
Research Areas: Medical Cyber-Physical Systems; AI-enabled systems; surgical robots and semi-autonomous vehicles
Panagiotis Apostolellis
Associate Professor
Computer Science
Research Areas: Human‑Computer Interaction (HCI); audience interaction; informal learning with technology; serious games; 3D user interfaces
Reid Bailey
Professor
Systems & Information Engineering
Research Areas: Human-centered design; design thinking; engineering education; systems thinking and modeling; interdisciplinary innovation
Laura Barnes
Professor
Systems & Information Engineering
Research Areas: Data science; machine learning; HCI; computational social science; digital health
Matthew Bolton
Associate Professor
Systems & Information Engineering
Research Areas: Formal methods; verification and validation; human factors engineering; human–automation interaction; medical devices
T. Donna Chen
Associate Professor
Civil & Environmental Engineering
Research Areas: Sustainable transportation systems; travel demand modeling; transportation economics; crash safety
Afsaneh Doryab
Assistant Professor
Systems & Information Engineering; Computer Science
Research Areas: Computational modeling of human behavior from mobile/wearable sensors; HCI; machine learning; health informatics
Lu Feng
Associate Professor
Computer Science; Systems & Information Engineering
Research Areas: AI safety; autonomous systems; Cyber-Physical Systems; formal methods; human–machine teaming
Jason Forman
Associate Professor
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Research Areas: Safety, injury prevention, injury risk modeling
Greg Gerling
Professor
Systems & Information Engineering; Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Research Areas: Haptics; computational neuroscience; biomechanics; human–machine interaction; human factors
Seongkook Heo
Assistant Professor
Computer Science
Research Areas: Human‑Computer Interaction; interaction techniques; haptics; accessibility
Tariq Iqbal
Assistant Professor
Systems & Information Engineering; Computer Science
Research Areas: Human-robot collaboration; multi-agent coordination; assistive robotics; collaborative learning
Yen‑Ling Kuo
Assistant Professor
Computer Science
Research Areas: Human-AI interaction; interactive machine learning; natural language processing; computational social science
Sarah (Ye) Sun
Associate Professor
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Research Areas: Wearable robotics; assistive devices; human motion biomechanics; design optimization
Esther Tian
Associate Professor
Engineering
Research Areas: Engineering education; bio-inspired robots
Rupa Valdez
Professor
Systems & Information Engineering; Public Health Sciences
Research Areas: Health informatics; human factors engineering; community-engaged health equity; underserved populations
Amanda Watson
Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering; Computer Science
Research Areas: Human‑AI interaction; emotion AI; mental health technologies; child development
Nur Yildirim
Assistant Professor
School of Data Science
Research Areas: Human‑AI interaction; participatory and human‑centered approaches in AI lifecycle design; AI innovation in health and public services