This year’s ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2025) was held from April 26 to May 1 in Yokohama, Japan. A large contingent of iSchool faculty and students was in attendance to present research and connect with others in the field of human-computer interaction. The theme of this year’s event, the most prestigious in its area of study, was “ikigai,” a Japanese concept referring to that which gives a person a sense of purpose, agency and meaning in life.
iSchool researchers made a strong showing at CHI 2025, contributing 20 presentations across a range of categories, including papers, workshops, Late-Breaking Work, Alt.CHI, Interactivity, and Special Interest Groups. Angie Zhang, Nithila Sathiya, and Min Kyung Lee received Honorable Mention Award for their paper on Gig2Gether. Congratulations all!
We have compiled a list of all iSchool-affiliated research projects presented at CHI 2025. Only iSchool authors and presenters are noted in this list. To view credited co-authors and collaborators from other institutions and UT schools, as well as abstracts and presentation videos, explore via the links below.
Papers
- "Comforting and Small Like a House Cat, Big and Intimidating Like a Bodyguard": How Women Perceive and Envision AI Companions as a New Harassment Mitigation Approach in Social VR - Lingyuan Li, Bullard postdoctoral fellow
- Domain Experts, Design Novices: How Community Practitioners Enact Participatory Design Values - Eunhye Grace Ko, Bullard postdoctoral fellow; Ahmer Arif, assistant professor; Angela D. R. Smith, assistant professor
- Embracing Social Justice within a Computing Curriculum to Foster Social Change - Gabriella Thompson, MS; Angela D. R. Smith, assistant professor
- "Ethics is not neutral": Understanding Ethical and Responsible AI Design from the Lenses of Black Youth - Angela D. R. Smith, assistant professor, Earl W Huff, assistant professor; Saloni Sharma, BS
- Flexible Platforms? An Ethnographic Study of Flexible Scheduling in Platform-Mediated Delivery - Kalle Kusk, research affiliate (Aarhus University)
- Gig2Gether: Datasharing to Empower, Unify and Demistify Gig Work - Angie Zhang, PhD; Nithila Sathiya, undergraduate research assistant, Human-AI Interaction Lab; Min Kyung Lee, assistant professor (HONORABLE MENTION)
- "It's about Research. It's Not about Language": Understanding and Designing for Mitigating Non-Native English-Speaking Presenters' Challenges in Live Q&A Sessions at Academic Conferences - Lingyuan Li, Bullard postdoctoral fellow
- Knowledge Workers' Perspectives on AI Training for Responsible AI Use - Angie Zhang, PhD; Min Kyung Lee, assistant professor
- Proxona: Supporting Creators' Sensemaking and Ideation with LLM-Powered Audience Personas - Min Kyung Lee, assistant professor
- A Scoping Review of Gender Stereotypes in Artificial Intelligence - Lingyuan Li, Bullard postdoctoral fellow
Workshops
- Developing Sociotechnical Solutions to Mitigate New Harms in Immersive and Embodied Virtual Spaces: A Workshop at CHI 2025 - Lingyuan Li, Bullard postdoctoral fellow
- Emerging Practices in Participatory AI Design in Public Sector Innovation - Min Kyung Lee, assistant professor
- News Futures: (Re-)Designing Socio-technical Systems for News Production and Consumption - Brian James McInnis, assistant professor
Late-Breaking Work
- Can Large Language Models Grasp Abstract Visual Concepts in Videos? A Case Study on YouTube Shorts about Depression - Jiaying Lizzy Liu, PhD; Yiheng Su, PhD
- Exploring Culturally Informed AI Assistants: A Comparative Study of ChatBlackGPT and ChatGPT - Gabriella Thompson, MS; Angela D. R. Smith, assistant professor
- Inspo: Writing with Crowds Alongside AI - Sanjana Gautam, Bullard postdoctoral fellow
- "We need to avail ourselves of [GenAI] to enhance knowledge distribution": Empowering Older Adults through GenAI Literacy - Eunhye Grace Ko, Bullard postdoctoral fellow; Earl W Huff, assistant professor; Shaini Nanayakkara, PhD
Alt-CHI
- Dear Laura: Ethnographic Lettering as Critical Technical Practice in Design - Chelsea Barabas, Bullard postdoctoral fellow; Angela D. R. Smith, assistant professor
Interactivity
- Seeing with Sound: Demonstrating "EchoVision", a Mixed Reality Simulation of Bat Echolocation - Jiabao Li, affiliate faculty (Assistant Professor, School of Design & Creative Technologies)
Special Interest Groups
- Unanticipated Lessons from Communities: Navigating Society-CenteredResearch in the AI Era - Angela D. R. Smith, assistant professor