Our faculty conceived the discipline of interactive computing to examine the impacts computation and computing-mediated interactions have on life’s “big issues,” such as health care and national security, but also on the everyday activities in which all of us engage, such as children playing video games, adults keeping in touch with elderly parents, and professionals using computers as tools in the workplace. These interactions take place not in laboratories, but in homes, offices, schools, and hospitals — and computation plays a central role.

Our research focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning; geometry, graphics, and animation; human-centered computing and cognitive science; information visualization and visual analytics; learning science and technology, and computing education; robotics and computational perception; social computing and computational journalism; ubiquitous and wearable computing; and virtual and augmented environments. Together, these areas form a rich, panoramic view of the myriad ways computing and computational devices interact with their human creators and users.