HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN & ENGINEERING
CAPSTONE SHOWCASE

HCDE undergraduate and graduate students complete a Capstone Project as a culminating experience that synthesizes materials learned across all courses within their degree program.

HCDE Capstone Projects provide the opportunity for students and industry partners to work together to address real-world issues using human-centered design and engineering. Capstone projects are student-run, large-scale projects that encompass two quarters of student work. Learn how to sponsor an HCDE Capstone Project.


2023 HCDE Capstone Projects

Technology at Work / Business to Business 

Personalizing Microsoft Support (SMC)

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Tyler Khor, Shi Ming Kuang, Lucas Lovering, Ish Singh
HCDE undergraduate team

Human Connection in a Hybrid World

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Timothy Chen, Woo Young Kim, Lily Shiuan, Sarah Yang
HCDE undergraduate team

Reimagining the online experience for Interaction Design Professionals

Sponsor: IxDA — Seattle
Students: Frannie Ello, Han Feng, Ryan Bautista, Alfie Aguilar Vidrio
HCDE undergraduate team

Reimagining Microsoft Learn for the Next Generation of Learners

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Maxwell Coppock, Joshua Lee, Mileena Ros, David Song
HCDE undergraduate team

Beyond the Basics: A Journey Towards Microsoft’s Personalized Business Support

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Nathan Ball, Yiwei Hu, Edith Chung, Cyril Mae Dela Cruz
HCDE master's team

Exploring Virtual Whiteboard Sessions in Mixed Hearing Environments

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Xing He, Mingjia Yu, Shaun Kalweit, Sherry Wang
HCDE master's team

Whiteboard AI

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Zoey Gray, Rabab Rabbani, Apoorva Kulkarni, Gauri Nayak
HCDE master's team

Getting Engaged: A Toolkit for Better Brainstorming Sessions

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Valerie Ho, Alexa Schlein, Jody Laflen, Mary Kate McCray
HCDE master's team

Health, Wellness, and Safety

What's Next MedX: Improving the Patient's Search Experience with Finding a UW Medicine Provider

Sponsor: UW Medicine
Students: Amanda Chen, Courtenay Hendricks, Ginalorena Cianflone, Christina Graves
HCDE master's team

Developing brief instructional videos to build psychological resilience in youth athletes

Sponsor: Sports Institute at UW Medicine
Students: Cheng Guo, Zuo Wang
HCDE undergraduate team

LifePattern.ai: Conversational Health and Wellness Management

Sponsor: Life Pattern AI
Students: Maggie Udd, Miles Lederman, Ethan Sylvia, Tejus Krishnan
HCDE undergraduate team

OpenELIS Global Lab Operating System Redesign

Sponsor: Digital Initatives Group at I-Tech (DIGI) UW
Students: Lisa Pomerlyan, Parniyan Rahbar, Megan Ly, Christina Kuo
HCDE undergraduate team

Rethinking How Patients Find Healthcare: A Holistic Approach

Sponsor: UW Medicine
Students: Catherine Most, Simon Sun, Natasha Paul Stephen
HCDE master's team

ORganize: Optimizing Robotic Surgeries Through Data Integration

Sponsor: Johnson & Johnson MedTech
Students: Petrina Chan, Soo Hwang, Don Lee, Jennifer Rodriguez
HCDE master's team

Sony Haven: Personal Mindfulness in the Face of Distraction

Sponsor: Sony
Students: Katlyn M.F. Greene, Jacquelin Higgins, Mia Hao, Zifan Zhang
HCDE master's team

Firewise: Addressing Lithium lon Battery Safety with the Bellevue Fire Department

Sponsor: Bellevue Fire Department
Students: Cherise Forshay, Michelle Talbot, Raf Laus, Jess Reid
HCDE master's team

ScrubSmart - Increasing robotic surgery case efficiency with data informed best practices

Sponsor: Johnson & Johnson MedTech
Students: Katrina Ma, Claudia Pang, Aishwarya Chandrakant Naik, Namrata Panchumarti
HCDE master's team

Entertainment, Leisure, and Media

Pokémon TCG New-Player Experience & Retention

Sponsor: The Pokémon Company International
Students: Gene Wang, Shenna Shim, Hwa Jung Choi, Joseph Kang
HCDE undergraduate team

Modernizing Radio News Listening

Sponsor: KUOW
Students: Andy Shaw, Yuming Tsang, Ashlyn Aske, Arissa Zheng
HCDE undergraduate team

Sony EchoScapes: Reimagining Social Wellness Through Home Entertainment

Sponsor: Sony
Students: Kara Bates, Priyana Patel, Vanessa Chien Lai, Annie Lin
HCDE master's team

Listening Together: Collaborative Strategies for Understanding Public Radio Audiences at KUOW

Sponsor: KUOW
Students: Bailey Dickey, Lena-Phuong Tran, Eva Schipper, Luka Sherman
HCDE master's team

🏆 2023 CAPSTONE AWARD: IMPACT 🏆
TASWIRA Art Gallery: Enhancing interactive engagement through storytelling

Sponsor: TASWIRA
Students: Jasmine Brown, Tabitha Safari, Jessica Douma, Sierra Jenkins
HCDE master's team

Service Design

Focused: Building Lightweight, Virtual Communities of Support

Sponsor: Focused AI
Students: Michael Wentworth, Christian Ramos, Rajbir Singh, Kevin Min
HCDE undergraduate team

🏆 2023 CAPSTONE AWARD: INNOVATION 🏆
Build Better Healthcare: Helping Patients Cultivate Primary-Care Relationships

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Jalia Evans, Kaitlyn Zhang, Michelle Le, Tomomi Matsuzaki
HCDE master's team

Microsoft Community: Super Duper Users 

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Jung Min An, Duy Anh Thu Nguyen, Camille Bourbonnais, Nuri Kim
HCDE master's team

NattyP: Bringing Parks to the People

Sponsor: National Park Services
Students: Danielle Jo, Sam Summer, Tony Wang Li, Andy Moon
HCDE master's team

Lil Beans: Reimagining Food Systems of the Future Through Service Design

Students: Noelle Antignano, Connie Yang, Akshay Rawat, Lori Wu
HCDE master's team

Out-of-school STEM Education for Low-socioeconomic-status (Low-SES) Students

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Tsai-Feng Chang, Helen Xu, Yuhan Xie, Charlsy Yang
HCDE master's team

Business to Consumer

Just Right Bite - Brand Redesign

Sponsor: Just Right Bite
Student: Amber Tribble
HCDE master's student

Lunar: Igniting Gen Z Asian Americans to Celebrate Culture, Spend with Purpose & Support Locally

Sponsor: East West Bank
Students: Isabel Jiang, Mark Tas, Rosanna Lui, Ji Su Park
HCDE master's team

Just Right Bite-Sustainable Pet Food

Sponsor: Just Right Bites
Students: Anahita Gharai, Michelle Pearman, Karina Shirokova, Mina Zavary
HCDE undergraduate team

NetPrism AI: Your Online Shopping Master

Sponsor: NetPrism
Students: Vincent Zhou, Alan Zhou, Boris Hu, Andrew Liu, Joseph Zhang
HCDE undergraduate team

Just Right Info Bites - Good for Your Dog, Good for the Planet

Sponsor: Just Right Bite
Students: Angel Wylie, Ben Sibelman, Hayley Pike
HCDE master's team

Inclusion, Accessibility, and Equity

🏆 2023 CAPSTONE AWARD: BRAVERY 🏆
Blended Boundaries: Embodied Experiences for a More-Than-Human-Centered Future

Students: Minah Kim, Sophie Nop, Kris Krolak, Taekyeung Lim
HCDE master's team

UW CERSE: STEM Equity Resource Hubs

Sponsor: UW Center for Evaluation & Research for STEM Equity
Students: Rachel Chang, Jocelyn Chen, Kayal Rajkumar, Shreya Senthil
HCDE undergraduate team

Community Gearbox: Exploring Co-ownership

Sponsor: Community Gearbox
Students: Angela Liu, Emma Sadjo, Jency Clement, Tammy Hu
HCDE undergraduate team

🏆 2023 CAPSTONE AWARD: BRAVERY 🏆
Happy to be Included - Improving DEI outcomes in the hiring process

Sponsor: Included
Students: Sophia Jawort, Shivank Mistry, Katie Hancock, Nikta Farahani
HCDE undergraduate team

A11Y/Lab: Inclusive Workshop Builder and A day of Air Travel

Sponsor: Teague
Students: Rishabh Patni, Jing Zhou, Kefeng Wang, Kyle Wang
HCDE master's team

Children, Families, and Education

The Spotters: Improving vision therapy for children through game-based solutions

Sponsor: Gabrielle Family Vision Clinic
Students: Rabiah Arshad, Hsinyi Hsieh, Meghna Balachandran, Mary Genevieve Gower
HCDE master's team

Bejeweling the training process for childcare workers, BJJL

Sponsor: UW TAT LAB & CHiLL LAB
Students: Jie Bai, Belinda Bleeker, Hongmeng Wang, Jillian Zhao
HCDE master's team

T-Mobile: Building Good Habits on Children's SyncUp Watch

Sponsor: T-Mobile
Students: Elliana Beberness, Mackenzie Clemens, Mahek Buddhdeo, Prerna Sheokand
HCDE undergraduate team

Visioneers: Empowering toddlers with amblyopia and their families through age-appropriate, anti-suppression tools for vision therapy

Sponsor: Gabrielle Family Vision Care
Students: Nisha Jain, David Pearl, Kasturi Khanke, Spencer K Matlock
HCDE master's team

Read With Me - AI for K-5 Students with Learning Disabilities

Students: Grace Bahn, Xenia Lin, Reese Ullas, Junchao Yang
HCDE master's team

Next-Gen Learning: Empowering Gen Z with Microsoft Products

Sponsor: Microsoft
Students: Lacey Jacoby, Aneesha Kommineni, Yixi Liu, Faye Teng
HCDE master's team

🏆 2023 CAPSTONE AWARD: INNOVATION 🏆
Wayfinding at the UW CHDD

Sponsor: UW Center on Human Development and Disability
Students: Emma Drapp, Lauren Nguyen, Audrey Qiu, Michelle Weng
HCDE undergraduate team

VR/AR/MR

Stress-Reducing Mental Health Exercises in Mixed Reality

Sponsor: UW HCDE
Students: Lily Tiange Liu, Ziyun Tie, Amy L. Tang, Mina Ryu
HCDE master's team

🏆 2023 CAPSTONE AWARD: IMPACT 🏆
Leveraging XR for Childcare Training

Sponsor: HCDE Faculty Julie Kientz & Daniela Rosner + Seattle Childcare Alliance
Students: Alejandro Striefel, Dawit Borrows, Sophia Favro, Jarel Mitchell, Henry Learner
HCDE undergraduate team

Innovating Physics Lab Learning In Virtual Reality

Sponsor: UW Department of Physics
Students: Pallavi Bagchi, Fumi Tsukiyama, Xiwen Jin, Xuefei Long
HCDE master's team

Supporting Teachers of d/Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students

Sponsor: HCDE / Seattle Children's Hospital
Students: Jesse Lopez, Yudian Yuan, Rama Malik, Danny Vu
HCDE master's team

Project Refuge: A playbook for teen belonging at public libraries

Sponsor: Seattle Public Library
Students: Caroline Chamberlain Gomez, Ty Michael Masao Williams, Tony Ji, Hailee Kenney
HCDE master's team

Neurodivergence and its impact on time perception

Students: Gresshaa Mehta, Parag Nandi, Haasini Sai, Yifan Lin
HCDE master's team

Sponsor a capstone project next year

A team of HCDE typically spends 100+ hours on their Capstone experience. If you have a design project that would benefit from a fresh human-centered perspective, email HCDE's Outreach Manager Melissa Ewing at mewing3@uw.edu to learn more.