Ph.D. Program Emphasis Areas
Students in the HCII Ph.D. program choose an area of emphasis to focus their studies.
We've included a short list of example focus areas below, but this is by no means an exhaustive list of potential subject areas within the field of human-computer interaction. In fact, students often propose new emphasis areas that blend subject areas and target their own interests.
Within any emphasis area, students may choose to carry out research by developing innovative systems (a technical approach), by studying human behavior with technology (a behavioral approach), by imagining a future preferred state (a design approach), or through a combination of any of these approaches.
For more information about each topic, see the links below:
- AI: Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
- Accessibility and Assistive Technology
- Augmented Reality (AR) / Virtual Reality (VR) / Extended Reality (XR)
- Cognitive Science and Behavioral Science
- Data Visualization
- Games and Play
- Healthcare + HCI
- Human-Agent and Human-Robot Interaction
- Interaction and Experience Design
- Learning Sciences and Educational Technologies
- Physical Interfaces – Sensing, Haptics, Fabrication
- Research through Design
- Responsible Computing, Ethics and Policy
- Service Design and AI Innovation
- Social Computing
- Tools and Programming
- Ubiquitous Computing
- Usable Privacy and Security