Art Building, Room 236C
jjpierce@uw.edu

Accepting new PhD students
I'm recruiting 2-3 PhD students across areas of trust and control of smart product design, human-AI interaction, privacy and data ethics, and co-design for service and policy. Apply by Dec 2 for Fall 2025 Human Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington

Students will work on NSF-funded Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Design projects in one more of the following areas:

1. IoT/smart product design with a focus on trust, control, surveillance, and/or other ethical considerations with multi-user interactions of sensing and AI-driven devices. Methods include prototyping, speculative design, design probes, and user studies.

2. Human-AI Interaction including the development of new interaction design patterns, experimental/speculative prototypes, and theoretical investigations of AI/ML as a design material.

3. Co-design, service design, and policy design applied to complex large-scale challenges, such as privacy, research security, and international collaboration.

I’m particularly looking for students with strong writing/analytic skills and design/making skills. An interest in interdisciplinary research is a plus—including philosophy, art, computer science, science and technology studies (STS), and all sub-disciplines of design (UX/UI, industrial, visual, architectural, etc.).

Apply to the Human Centered Design and Engineering program at University of Washington.

I'm an Associate Professor and Chair of Interaction Design in the Division of Design at the University of Washington. I'm also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Human Centered Design and Engineering Department at University of Washington, a member of the MHCI+D Faculty Group, and a research affiliate of the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity.

Long Bio

Google Scholar

ORCID
0000-0002-2192-1728

Richmond Y. Wong, Jason Caleb Valdez, Ashten Alexander, Ariel Chiang, Olivia Quesada, and James Pierce. 2023. Broadening Privacy and Surveillance: Eliciting Interconnected Values with a Scenarios Workbook on Smart Home Cameras. Proc. of DIS '23.
[ACM Open Access]

James Pierce, Isha Agarwal, Parag Nandi, Claire Weizenneger, Gwenna Gram, Jade Hurle, Betty Lo, Aaron Park, Aivy Phan, Mark Schumskiy, and Grace Sturlaugson. “Addressing Adjacent User Privacy.” Proc. of DIS '22.
[ACM Open Access]

Neilly Tan, Richmond Wong, Audrey Desjardins, Sean Munson, and James Pierce. “More Than a Camera, More Than a Security Device: Studying How Primary Users Use Smart Home Cameras to Extend Perception, Mediate Action, and Surveil Others.” Proc. of CHI '22.
[ACM Open Access]

James Pierce (2021). “In Tension With Progression: The Frictional Tendencies of Speculative, Critical, and Other Alternative Designs.” Proc. of 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems. ACM Press. Best Paper Award Honorable Mention (Top 5% of total submissions)
[PDF] [ACM]
[Short conference presentation]

James Pierce (2021). “Eccentric Sensing Devices: Using Conceptual Design Notes to Understand Design Opportunities, Limitations, and Concerns Connected to Digital Sensing.” Proc. of C&C '21.
[ACM Open Access]

Jesse Benjamin, Nick Merrill, Arne Berger, and James Pierce (2021). “Machine Learning Uncertainty as a Design Material: A Post-Phenomenological Inquiry.” Proc. of CHI '21.
[ACM Open Access]