Shaowen Bardzell
Shaowen Bardzell, an associate professor of informatics at the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, has been honored with the CHI 2018 Diversity Champion Recognition in the Trailblazer category by CHI 2018 Diversity and Inclusion Lunch organizers.
Bardzell was recognized for her innovative and groundbreaking efforts to counter unjust social practices, foster equitable communities, and effectively promote values of diversity and inclusion through her work. Her award-winning 2010 paper, “Feminist HCI: Take Stock and Outlining an Agenda for Design,” coined the phrase “feminist HCI” and proposed it as a research agenda. Since that time, Bardzell and others have built on this work to pursue the integration of feminist strategies as a resource for human computer interaction and interaction design.
“This recognition is personally significant because I am a woman, a racial minority, an immigrant, and a non-native speaker of English,” Bardzell said. “I was originally trained in comparative literature, and I don't have a degree in HCI or a related field. It was a struggle to end up in a tenure track position, and many doubted whether someone like me had a place in Informatics. So it is an understatement to say that recognition like this helps validate not just me, but anyone like me who, for whatever reason, approaches the field from its margins.”
During the past eight years, Bardzell has published several papers at the intersection of feminism, IT, and emancipatory politics. Bardzell’s research studies the contributions of design, feminism, and social science to support technology’s role in social change, and her work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Intel Science and Technology Center on Social Computing program.
“Shaowen’s work continues to push boundaries and break new ground, and it’s great that the the Diversity and Inclusion Lunch organizers have selected her to be honored at CHI 2018,” said Raj Acharya, dean of SICE. “Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of so much of what we pursue here at SICE, and her research furthers that mission in a real and impactful way.”
Bardzell said the recognition provides motivation to pursue her current path.
“The recognition communicates that the HCI community values this type of work, which gives me strength to keep pressing forward,” Bardzell said. “And I want to. I sincerely believe that gender difference is not just a problem to be solved, but it also generates new intellectual openings. I think I can help enrich the theoretical and methodological frames that researchers use, ultimately strengthening the research and, more importantly, hopefully improving the lives of actual women and, by extension, the lives of anyone who is socially marginalized.”
Bardzell will be honored at the Diversity and Inclusion Lunch at CHI 2018 in Montreal Apr. 24.