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Fall (October to December 2025)

Guided by a humanity-centered approach to design,  Design Lab faculty work within creative, interdisciplinary research groups that apply rigorous design methods and expand design thinking tools to include design-doing—addressing challenges faced by people from all walks of life and across a range of environments.

In 2025, faculty research and public scholarship engaged this approach across the following areas:

✦  Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
✦  Artificial Intelligence and the New Information Age
✦  Health and Healthcare Innovation
✦  Climate Adaptation
✦  City and Regional Futures
✦  Design Education
✦  Social Justice and Equity
✦  Design for Creativity and Media

Faculty shared this work through peer-reviewed publications, books, exhibitions, films, and public lectures, and through presentations at leading venues spanning design, computing, social science, and the humanities—including conferences such as CHI, CSCW, DIS, UIST, HCOMP, SIGCSE, as well as forums in urban studies, public health, environmental research, media arts, and policy. Faculty also curated exhibitions, authored scholarly and public-facing books, and contributed expert perspectives to regional, national, and international policy conversations.

Across these domains, Design Lab researchers applied design-doing to explore responsible technologies, cultural and environmental systems, and new models of care, governance, education, and creative practice—advancing design as both a scholarly and civic endeavor.

Human-Centered AI, HCI & Intelligent Systems

  • Steven Dow

    • Steven Dow. Served as Conference Chair of the ACM Collective Intelligence Conference (CI 2025), providing leadership on collective intelligence and human-AI collaboration. [CI2025]

  • Philip Guo

    • Promoted to Full Professor in 2025, recognizing his research in computing education and human-centered AI.

  • Nadir Weibel

    • Founded InsightVue, a startup translating his lab's mixed-reality stroke imaging tools into clinical practice. [InsightVue]

  • Edward Wang

    • His team received a Best Demo Award at ACM UbiComp/ISWC 2025 (October 12-16) for ultra-low cost physiological sensing. He was also promoted to tenured Associate Professor and named the Jacobs Faculty Chair in Entrepreneurship, reflecting his leadership at the intersection of design and engineering. [UbiComp/ISWC awards | promotion]

  • Jim Hollan

    • Co-authored a peer-reviewed paper in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) examining how creative practitioners use tools to capture ideas across domains. [TOCHI]
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Health, Digital Health & Responsible Technology

  • Eric Hekler

    • Eric Hekler. Co-authored a peer-reviewed protocol in JMIR Research Protocols describing an individualized, adaptive physical activity intervention designed to optimize intervention timing and content. [JMIR Res Protoc]

  • Camille Nebeker

    • Hosted the Privacy Policy Design-a-thon at UC San Diego to explore how to make consent and data governance more understandable, and co-authored a 2025 article on ethical challenges and open data sharing in clinical research in the era of artificial intelligence. [design-a-thon | arXiv]

  • Elizabeth Eikey

    • Published a 2025 study in JMIR Formative Research examining characteristics associated with use of the Headspace mindfulness app in a large-scale public health deployment. [JMIR Form Res]

 

Housing, Urban Futures & Policy Engagement

  • Mai Nguyen

    • Published housing policy analysis through the Center for Housing Policy and Design translating insights from the inaugural National Housing Supply Summit into local action for San Diego on supply, zoning, and affordability. [CHPD]

  • John Arroyo

    • Recognized in a November 2025 SACRPH Member Spotlight highlighting his contributions to planning history and equity-focused urban scholarship. [SACRPH]

 

Arts, Media, History & Critical Design

  • Lisa Cartwright

    • Presented Embodied Pacific: Extraction, a public exhibition at Gallery QI (UC San Diego) bringing together artists, scientists, and scholars to explore ocean systems, environmental change, and cultural narratives as part of the PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative. [Embodied Pacific]

  • Pinar Yoldas

    • Presented work in Embodied Pacific: Extraction at Gallery QI, and was featured in the 2025 Night of Research and Creative Activities (November 21) at the School of Arts and Humanities. [Embodied Pacific | NORCA]

  • Michael Meyer

    • Served as faculty lead on the Rady School's 2025 Military Economic Impact Report (released November 12), examining the role of defense spending in San Diego's economy and innovation ecosystem. [Rady report]

 

Social Justice, Governance & Community Engagement

  • Don Norman

    • Through the Don Norman Design Award (DNDA), announced the 2025 laureates in early October and hosted the DNDA25 Summit in Singapore (November 18-21, 2025), advancing humanity-centered design for societal good. [DNDA25 laureates | DNDA]