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KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Assistant Professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute |
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Considering Design’s Role in Health Equity and Access Among Marginalized Populations Historically, marginalized populations have experienced exacerbated inequities due to the design of technological health interventions that have not considered their needs. Smart and intelligent systems provide the opportunity to be more accessible ways of interacting with health information online, potentially addressing issues of health equity that impact many marginalized groups. Research on the use of intelligent systems among these populations is growing, however most findings suggest that racial disparities also exist within users' experiences with current intelligent technologies. Scholars have begun to call for a more intersectional framing of marginalized communities' experiences with technology, suggesting a need to understand the impacts of both race, age, and cultural background on how intelligent systems are conceptualized and understood. For example, when investigating the intersection between age and race, researchers have found that Black older adults perceive smart technologies such as voice assistants to be inequitable and not designed with them in mind. My research looks at how we can consider aspects of cultural identity in how people conceptualize intelligent technologies for health and wellness. Through a community-based participatory research approach and co-design methods, I explore questions like "How do individuals from marginalized communities conceptualize intelligent systems in regard to personal health and wellness?" and "How do we consider constructs of identity in the research we conduct on health technologies?". In this talk, I'll discuss these questions as well as equitable considerations for community-based research with historically marginalized groups in HCI and design. Biography Christina N. Harrington is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the HCI Institute in the School of Computer Science with a courtesy appointment in the School of Design. Her research addresses health and racial equity through human-computer interaction and design research approaches where she explores community-based design to support the needs of historically marginalized groups. Dr. Harrington has worked for over a decade to implement technological interventions for Black and Brown individuals and those with disabilities and impairments in areas of community health advocacy, health information seeking, and community design of technology futures. Her work has been published at CHI, CSCW, and Designing Interactive Systems conferences where she has won best paper and honorable mention awards for her work on equitable participatory design with Black communities. She has presented her work at various universities, government agencies, and industry seminars and was recently awarded the 2022 Skip Ellis Early Career Award from the Computing Research Association. Dr. Harrington holds a Ph.D. in Design from Georgia Tech, a Masters of Industrial Design from NC State University, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. As a researcher, Dr. Harrington combines her background in electrical engineering and industrial design to focus on areas of universal, accessible, and inclusive design. She looks at design as a catalyst to support historically excluded groups such as Black communities, older adults, and individuals with disabilities in maintaining their health, wellness, and autonomy in their everyday interactions with technology. Dr. Harrington is passionate about centering communities that have historically been at the margins of mainstream design. She looks to methods such as design justice and community-based participatory research to broaden and amplify participation in design by addressing the barriers that corporate approaches have placed on our ability to see design as a universal language of communication and knowledge. Throughout her career, Dr. Harrington has demonstrated her commitment to supporting underrepresented communities in STEM research including mentoring first generation college and graduate students, teaching and supporting outreach programs for young girls of color in computer science and design, and supporting community organizations focused on Black liberatory futures. She is currently the director of the Equity and Health Innovations Design Research Lab which stands to support community-based participatory research in Black and Brown communities and amplifies the work of those advocating for eliminating social inequities.
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