Emma J. McDonnell
ejm249@uw.edu
https://ej-mcdonnell.github.io/
Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, 98122
630-340-0253
Education
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SEATTLE, WA
Ph.D. Candidate in Human Centered Design and Engineering 2019 – 2024 (expected)
Advised by Dr. Leah Findlater GPA: 4.00
Committee Members: Dr. Daniela Rosner, Dr. Jon Froehlich, Dr. Mark Harniss
Graduate Certificate in Disability Studies 2020-2024 (expected)
Master of Science in Human Centered Design and Engineering 2019-2023
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY EVANSTON, IL
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science 2015 – 2019
Minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies GPA: 3.59
Research Interests
Human-Computer Interactions, Accessibility, Communication Technology, Design, Disability Studies
Research Experience
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 2019 – Present
Research Assistant
• PIs: Dr. Leah Findlater, Dr. Jon Froehlich
• Investigating how to design captioning systems to support hearing and d/Deaf and hard of hearing people in
creating more accessible group conversation practices
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 2017 – 2019
Research Assistant
• Advised by Dr. Anne Marie Piper and Dr. Bryan Pardo
• Developed a real-time conversation monitoring system for small-group conversations designed to indicate to
hearing individuals when their conversation behaviors become inaccessible to hard of hearing people
• Created a small dataset of audio segments from podcasts, and used it to train a classifier to recognize audio as
speech, non-speech noise, or silence to allow blind audio engineers to navigate an audio file faster
Publications
JOURNAL PAPERS
[1] Honorable Mention and Diversity and Inclusion Recognition: Emma J. McDonnell, Ping Liu, Steven M.
Goodman, Raja Kushalnagar, Jon E. Froehlich, and Leah Findlater. 2021. Social, Environmental, and Technical:
Factors at Play in the Current Use and Future Design of Small-Group Captioning. In PACM on Human Computer
Interaction, Vol. 5, CSCW2, Article 434, October 2021. ACM, New York, NY, USA. 25 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3479578
[2] Steven M. Goodman, Ping Liu, Dhruv Jain, Emma J. McDonnell, Jon E. Froehlich, and Leah Findlater. 2021. Toward
User-Driven Sound Recognizer Personalization With People Who Are d/Deaf or Hard of Hearing. Proc. ACM
Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol. 5, 2, Article 63 (June 2021), 23 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3463501
CONFERENCE PAPERS
[1] In Submission. Emma J. McDonnell and Leah Findlater. 2024. Envisioning Collective Communication Access: A
Theoretically-Grounded Review of Captioning Literature from 2013 to 2023. Proceedings of the 26
th
Interactional
ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’24). ACM, New York, New York, USA.
[2] In Submission. Steven M. Goodman, Emma J. McDonnell, Jon E. Froehlich, and Leah Findlater. 2024. SPECTRA:
Personalizable Sound Recognition for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users Through Interactive Data Exploration.
Proceedings of the 26
th
Interactional ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’24).
ACM, New York, New York, USA.
[3] Emma J. McDonnell, Tessa Eagle, Pitch Sinlapanuntakul, Soo Hyun Moon, Jon E. Froehlich, Kate Ringland, and
Leah Findlater. 2024. “Caption it in an Accessible Way That Is Also Enjoyable”: Characterizing User-Driven
Captioning Practices on TikTok. Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems. ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642177
[4] Emma J. McDonnell, Soo Hyun Moon, Lucy Jiang, Steven M. Goodman, Raja Kushalnagar, Jon E. Froehlich, and
Leah Findlater. 2023. “Easier or Harder, Depending on Who the Hearing Person Is”: Codesigning
Videoconferencing Tools for Small Groups with Mixed Hearing Status. Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, NY, USA. ACM https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580809
[5] Best Paper Nominee: Emma J. McDonnell*, Kelly Avery Mack*, Leah Findlater, and Heather D. Evans. 2022.
Chronically Under-Addressed: Considerations for HCI Accessibility Practice with Chronically Ill People. In
Proceedings of the 24
th
International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’22).
ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/ 3517428.3544803
[6] Honorable Mention: Kelly Avery Mack, Emma J. McDonnell, Venkatesh Potluri, Maggie Xu, Jailyn Zabala, Jeffrey
P. Bigham, Jennifer Mankoff, and Cynthia L. Bennett. 2022. Anticipate and Adjust: Cultivating Access in Human-
Centered Methods. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
(CHI ’22). ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501882
[7] Jazz Rui Xia Ang*, Ping Liu*, Emma J. McDonnell, and Sarah Coppola. 2022. “In this Online Environment, We’re
Limited”: Exploring Inclusive Video Conferencing Design for Signers. Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517488
[8] Honorable Mention: Kelly Avery Mack, Emma J. McDonnell, Dhruv Jain, Lucy Lu Wang, Jon E. Froehlich, and Leah
Findlater. 2021. What Do We Mean by "Accessibility Research”?: A Literature Survey of Accessibility Papers in CHI
and ASSETS from 1994 to 2019. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. DOI: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445412
EXTENDED ABSTRACTS, POSTERS, AND OTHER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
[1] Emma J. McDonnell*, Kelly Avery Mack*, Kathrin Gerling, Katta Spiel, Cynthia L. Bennett, Robin N. Brewer, Rua
Mae Williams, Garreth W. Tigwell. 2023. Tackling the Lack of a Practical Guide in Disability-Centered Research.
Accepted Workshop Proposal. In Proceedings of the 25
th
ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and
Accessibility (ASSETS '23). ACM, New York, NY, USA.
[2] Kelly Avery Mack, Natasha Sidik, Aashaka Desai, Emma J. McDonnell, Kunal Mehta, Christina Zhang, Jennifer
Mankoff. 2023. Maintaining the Accessibility Ecosystem: A Multi-Stakeholder Analysis of Accessibility in Higher
Education. Experience Report. In Proceedings of the 25
th
ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and
Accessibility (ASSETS '23). ACM, New York, NY, USA.
[3] In Submission. Momona Yamagami, Kelly Avery Mack, Emma J. McDonnell, Jerry Cao, Katherine M. Steele,
Heather D. Evans, Leah Findlater, Jennifer Mankoff, on behalf of CREATE. 2022. Centering Accessibility for Person-
Centered Care Planning for MCC. Response to Request for Information on Person-Centered Care Planning for
Multiple Chronic Conditions (MCC). Federal Register.
[4] Emma J. McDonnell. 2022. Understanding Social and Environmental Factors to Enable Collective Access
Approaches to the Design of Captioning Technology. Doctoral Consortium. In Proceedings of the 24
th
ACM
SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’22). ACM, New York, NY, USA.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3517428.3550417
[5] Lucy Lu Wang, Kelly Avery Mack, Emma J. McDonnell, Dhruv Jain, Leah Findlater, and Jon E. Froehlich. 2021. A
bibliometric analysis of citation diversity in accessibility and HCI research. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems Extended Abstracts (CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts), May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan. ACM,
New York, NY, USA, 11 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451618
ACCEPTED WORKSHOP PAPERS
[1] Emma J. McDonnell. 2022. Time to Think about Time. For the workshop “Dreaming Disability Justice in HCI,” CHI
2022, New Orleans, LA.
[2] Emma J. McDonnell, Leah Findlater, Audrey Desjardins. 2020. Bridging Accessibility and Disability Studies
Research to Speculate Beyond Ability Norms. For the workshop “Nothing About Us Without Us: Investigating the
Role of Critical Disability Studies in HCI,” CHI 2020, Honolulu, HI.
“*” signals that authors should be considered co-first authors of this publication.
Honors & Awards
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION GRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOW 2021-2026
• Five-year fellowship awarded to top graduate student applicants in NSF-supported STEM fields
• Three years of financial support in the form of a stipend and tuition waiver, totaling $138,000
DENNIS LANG AWARD May 2023
• Awarded annually by UW’s Disability Studies Program to undergraduate and graduate students who demonstrate
academic excellence in disability studies and a commitment to disability-related social justice issues
GEORGE C. CASEY PRIZE May 2019
• Awarded to the best essay written by an undergraduate Gender Studies student at Northwestern each year
MURPHY SCHOLAR 2015-2019
• One of 17 (of 377) first years in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences selected
to receive a stipend for independent research and research mentoring
Teaching Experience
DIRECTED RESEARCH GROUP: CURRENT TRENDS IN ACCESSIBILITY RESEARCH Fall 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
Facilitator
• Organize, plan, and facilitate weekly discussions of accessibility papers published in CHI and ASSETS that year with
HCDE community members ranging from first year undergraduates to post-doctoral scholars
• University of Washington Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering
INTRODUCTION TO DISABILITY STUDIES Spring 2021
Teaching Assistant
• Dr. Joanne Woiak – University of Washington Disability Studies Program
• Ran two discussion sections, teaching 50 students weekly, grading, and planning weekly section content
USABILITY STUDIES Winter 2021
Teaching Assistant
• Dr. Sarah Coppola – University of Washington Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering
FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING Winter 2018, Fall 2018, Winter 2019
Head Teaching Assistant
• Dr. Sara Sood and Dr. Ian Horswill - Northwestern University Department of Computer Science
• Worked with Dr. Sara Sood to design and teach discussion sessions for students with no prior coding experience
FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING 1.5 Spring 2018
Teaching Assistant
• Dr. Sara Sood - Northwestern University Department of Computer Science
INTRODUCTION TO DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMS Fall 2017
Teaching Assistant
• Dr. Jesse Tov - Northwestern University Department of Computer Science
Selected Invited Talks & Panels
ACCESSIBLE PRESENTATIONS WORKSHOP, CREATE CENTER May 2024
Co-Presenter
• Disability Studies For Technologists
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION BOARD April 2024
Representative of the UW CREATE Center
• Advancing Engineering Excellence for the Public Good: From Basic Science to Innovation, Disability Inclusion
Equalizes the Playing Field
HCDE 315 and 515 ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSIVE DESIGN April 2022, October 2022, January 2023, April 2024
Guest Lecturer for Dr. Sarah Coppola, Dr. Leah Findlater
• Disability Studies for HCI and Design Practice
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER February 2024
Guest Speaker
• Designing Collective Communication Access
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN February 2024
Guest Speaker
• Designing Collective Communication Access
DISABILITY STUDIES WORKING GROUP, NORTHWESTERN MEDICINE January 2024
Guest Speaker
• Translating Disability Studies and Activism into Accessibility Practice
INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH METHODS, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY September 2023
Guest Lecturer for Dr. Michael Arnold Mages
• Methods in HCI Accessibility Research
ADVANCED TOPICS IN ACCESSIBILITY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN September 2023
Guest Lecturer for Dr. Dhruv Jain
• Disability History for Computer Scientists
ACCESSHACK, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY July 2023
Panelist
• Disabled Perspectives on Accessibility
CSE-P 590 THE FUTURE OF ACCESSIBLE TECHNOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON February 2023
Guest Lecturer for Dr. Jennifer Mankoff
• Chronically Under-Addressed: Considerations for HCI Accessibility Practice with Chronically Ill People
CSCI 327 INCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGY DESIGN, OBERLIN COLLEGE February 2023
Guest Lecturer for Dr. Emily Wang
• Disability History for Computer Science
ACCESSCOMPUTING WEBINAR January 2023
Presenter and Panelist
• Considerations for Technology Design for People with Chronic Illnesses
ACCESS LUNCH, CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY December 2022
Guest Speaker
• Toward Collective Access in Captioning Design
UW ALLEN SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ACCESSIBILTY COLLOQUIUM November 2022
Guest Speaker
• Chronically Under-Addressed: Considerations for HCI Accessibility Practice with Chronically Ill People
ACCESSIBILITY, HCI, AND AGING GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN October 2022
Guest Speaker
• Toward Collective Access in Captioning Design
HCDE 515 ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSIVE DESIGN, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON July 2021
Guest Lecturer for Dr. Sarah Coppola
• Social, Environmental, and Technical: Factors at Play in the Current Use and Future Design of Small-Group
Captioning
SOCIETY FOR DISABILTY STUDIES April 2021
Panelist
• Devva Kasnitz, Jen Mankoff, Meryl Alper, Emma McDonnell, Kelly Avery Mack, and Venkatesh Potluri. April 18,
2021. Human Computer Interaction Folk Have Found Disability Studies: Playing Together Well! Society for
Disability Studies @ Ohio State University Conference 2021
Work Experience
IBM, Austin, Texas June 2018 – September 2018
Research Intern, Division of Accessibility Research
• Implemented an indoor navigation system called NavCog which provides blind users turn-by-turn directions to
make multiple spaces on the IBM Austin campus more accessible to blind visitors and employees
• Accessibility Subject Matter Expert and team lead for a group of designers exploring accessible airport navigation
• Created a tool to automatically generate accessible color palettes to enable web designers to meet web
accessibility standards for color contrast
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, Soudan, Minnesota June 2016 – September 2016
Decommissioning Intern, Soudan Underground Laboratory
• Deconstructed MINOS Neutrino detector, a joint venture between the University of Minnesota and Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory
Mentoring & Advising
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
• Gina Clepper, PhD Human Centered Design and Engineering, 2023-Present
• Adrian Rodriguez, PhD Human Centered Design and Engineering, 2022-Present
• Weerachet (Pitch) Sinlapanuntakul, PhD Human Centered Design and Engineering, 2023-2024
• Andy Moon, M.S. Human Centered Design and Engineering, 2020-2023
• Lucy Jiang, B.S. Computer Science and Engineering, 2021-2022
• Ana Liu, M.S. Human Centered Design and Engineering, 2019-2022
• Jazz Ang, M.S. Human Centered Design and Engineering 2021-2022
Volunteer/Service
CSCW 2023 STUDENT VOLUNTEER October 2023
• Part of the student team conducting tasks necessary to running the CSCW 2023 conference
• Awarded as an “Accessibility Ambassador”
ASSETS 2022 VIRTUAL CO-CHAIR November 2021-October 2022
• Member of the ASSETS 2022 Organizing Committee, responsible for planning and executing all virtual aspects of
the 2022 hybrid conference
UAW 4121 CONTRACT ENFORCEMENT January 2022 – Present
• Member of contract enforcement for UAW chapter #4121, the union that represents Academic Student
Employees, Postdocs, and Research Scientists and Engineers at the University of Washington
• Responsible for meeting with students who suspect they have been harmed by a contract violation, investigating
the facts of their case, representing them in meetings with administrators, and, when appropriate, supporting
students in a contractual grievance process
• Train new members and support other contract enforcement members in their cases
HCDE PhD STUDENT RESEARCH GRANT REVIEWER April 2022-Present
• Providing feedback on and making decisions about PhD student applications for department grants, making
decisions about $6000 of funding annually
PhD STUDENT AMBASSADOR October 2021-Present
• Serving as a contact for prospective HCDE PhD students, meeting 1:1 and facilitating information sessions
PhD APPLICATION REVIEW December 2020-Present
• Annually review applications for the HCDE PhD Program
PROSPECTIVE PhD VISIT COORDINATOR March 2020-Present
• Annually plan and run activities to introduce visiting prospective PhD students to HCDE and to Seattle
GIRLS WHO CODE FACILITATOR September 2021-June 2022
• Supporting high school girls in learning Python and gaining familiarity with computer science
TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR January 2018 – May 2019
• Ran Northwestern’s Tournament of Champions in Extemporaneous Speaking, a national speech tournament for
60-70 of the nation’s best high school extemporaneous speakers
• Coordinated an annual conference and two-day tournament, leading a team of 15 peers to manage catering,
registration, tournament administration, judging, scheduling, and awards
BEST BUDDIES NORTHWESTERN September 2015 – March 2019
• Three-year member of the executive board, serving as Vice President and Membership and Activities Coordinator
for Northwestern’s Best Buddies chapter which connects college students with local disabled high schoolers
Reviewing
• CHI 2022*, 2023, 2024
• TACCESS 2022, 2023
• ASSETS 2022
• DIS 2022
• CSCW 2022
• alt.chi 2022
• ISWC 2021
“*” Indicates Special Recognition for Outstanding Reviews
Skills
• Programming experience in Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, R, and Racket
• Working proficiency in Spanish, conversational proficiency in American Sign Language
• Accomplished public speaker, making national semifinals in extemporaneous, impromptu, and persuasive
speaking at the collegiate level
