Connected Seminar Series: Panel on the Design of Technology for People with Disabilities

In December 2025, I created and hosted a panel with a diverse range of experts who had professional knowledge regarding the design of technology for people with disabilities.  The panel had over 30 attendees, and featured panelists from both industry and academia.  Our discussions emphasized the diversity required in such a space, both in terms of personal experience and professional knowledge.  

Many thanks to the amazing panelists, Daisy Wong, Dr. Matthew Harrison, and Nathan Batham, for their fantastic energy and informative insights, and to Laura from the School of Computing and Information Systems for her assistance with logistics.  

The event webpage is here.

HRI 2025 Conference - Student Design Challenge (SDC) Co-Chair 

I served as the co-chair of the 2025 Student Design Challenge of the Human-Robot Interaction conference in Melbourne, Australia.  I am especially proud of some of the changes we implemented to focus on student experience, especially: 

• Gave all students feedback on their submissions, including submissions that were desk rejected.  For submissions put through the full review process, every submission received three reviews: a review from me, my co-chair, and an external reviewer; this helped students become more familiar with the conference review process and feel more connected to the broader HRI community.  We had 30 students engaged in the process, with 18 ultimately accepted to attend.

• Introduced the People's Choice Award to facilitate engagement between students and the broader conference - we ended up with 125 votes (from the 500+ attendees)!  

• Added an SDC-specific Sustainability Recognition, coordinating with our Sustainability co-chairs.  This was a way to recognize student teams which paid special attention to the conference theme.

A huge shout-out to my co-chair, Dr. Samantha Reig, for her enthusiasm and many hours spent helping make the SDC a huge success.