Connie Chau
Meet Connie Chau
Learn more about PhD student Connie Chau's insights on HCI, community-based research, and her hopes for the future. Prefer video? You can listen to Connie here.
Can you give a background on your education career and why you selected Northwestern?
I am currently a 4th year PhD Candidate in the Technology & Social Behavior program, advised by Dr. Maia Jacobs in the NU-PATH Lab. I graduated from the Accelerated Master of Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) program in December 2020 shortly after receiving a Bachelor in Humanities & Arts (BHA) in Economics and Music Harp Performance, with an additional major in HCI in May 2020—both from Carnegie Mellon University.
I selected Northwestern because I knew I wanted to do some kind of community-based work and had heard a lot about people at NU who were also passionate about that kind of work and supporting more people to be engaged with local communities (whether it was through coursework, research, or even just volunteering). Chicago also has a lot of progressive and collaborative nonprofits and community-based organizations here that really make it feel like people care so much about building safe, thriving communities together. If I’m being perfectly honest, I never really thought getting a PhD was for me, but I had a handful of mentors who really supported me and believed that I would find what I was looking for in the PhD experience. So, by the time I decided a PhD would be right for me, the vast majority of program applications had closed! I think I still would have chosen Northwestern, though (:
Are there spaces or communities at Northwestern that have been especially beneficial to you and your work?
Absolutely; I’ve been thankful to have the support from a number of great spaces and communities here at Northwestern. Both the Center for HCI+D and the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies (CBITs) have supported my growth as an HCI researcher working at the intersection of people, health, and technology. I was a Segal Design Cluster Fellow in 2022-23 which provided valuable mentorship opportunities from other faculty and space to practice refining my early research ideas. Plus, it brings me a lot of joy to see how the HCI community at NU has come together (through the physical HCI+D Center space, hosted lectures, practice talk events, socials, and more)! From CBITs, I work very closely with Dr. Kaylee Kruzan, and I love all the lectures, social events, and support that CBITs provides for digital mental health research and this growing community of highly collaborative, interdisciplinary researchers. These spaces are especially valuable for students like myself who are growing our research interests and identities—it makes a huge difference to feel we have the support and opportunities to learn from each other, experienced researchers, and leaders in the fields we want to be a part of. Also a special shoutout to my peers in Computer Science and Communication who I’ve worked with to improve our student community and PhD experience! They are shining examples of service, leadership, and support.
What I’ve accomplished as a researcher would have also been a lot harder to achieve without the support of the Center for Civic Engagement. In my first year, I was selected for the Graduate Engagement Opportunities (GEO) Community Practicum which provides course credit for students to intern with a community-based or local nonprofit organization. This was a foundational experience in my PhD journey as this program really let me build a more organic relationship with community organizations that did not focus explicitly on any particular research agenda. I interned at KAN-WIN, a local agency that provides support to survivors of domestic violence, particularly those of Asian descent and though I ended up not partnering with them for research, I still volunteer for their causes and love seeing them at local events (and as participants in my studies)! But it was through my time at KAN-WIN that I became connected with The Network: Advocating Domestic Violence who has become my community partner in the last few years. And of course, the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (ARCC) is a fantastic organization within the Feinberg School of Medicine’s Center for Community Health that focuses on building bridges and impactful collaborations between academic researchers and community organizations.
Could you describe the work you're doing with The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence?
I work closely with Colleen Norton, Director of Special Projects at The Network to co-design a novel just-in-time adaptive intervention to address secondary traumatic stress (STS) & burnout among frontline domestic violence (DV) workers. We’ve run a number of studies together including co-design workshops, digital health app feature exploration, and a longitudinal data collection on measures related to STS-burnout—all here in Chicagoland.
I’m very proud and thankful to say that we’ve published two papers to top HCI venues (including our recent Best Paper, Honorable Mention at CHI2025), shared this work through posters with various communities including the International Society for Research on Internet Interventions (ISRII) and NU’s The Institute for Public Health and Medicine, and presented to DV practitioners nationwide at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) Economic Justice Summit back in March (and at the Futures Without Violence Conference on Health later this year).
And there’s still more to come! We were recently awarded the Partnership Development Grant from ARCC to assemble a community advisory board to continue development of the intervention that is intentionally informed by local expertise, power, and values. I’m very excited to continue making this technology a reality. Such an intervention will help not only DV frontline workers (which already consists of diverse roles like social workers, therapists, legal attorneys, shelter resident managers), but also many other workers in healthcare, crisis response, humanitarian aid, and education.
Alongside this line of research, I also lead efforts to improve our community’s response to the rise of technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) in the Midwest. As a Technology Consultant for The Network, I created and currently facilitate educational training material, covering foundational digital safety topics, how to safety plan with survivors, and how emerging technologies like generative AI impact the DV space.
With the work you’ve been doing with frontline workers and healthcare providers, have you seen the increase in AI usage have any effects on your research?
Like many other very people-oriented spaces, AI and its increased usage does not have the best reputation among the communities I work with. I cannot talk about AI without explicitly acknowledging the immense harm it has caused for survivors of DV, especially those who are already excluded from how these technologies are developed, deployed, and discussed in society. People are (justifiably) scared because there is no “if” these technologies are capable of causing harm—they’re already being mis- and abused to make deepfaked non-consensual sexual imagery, “undress” minors, and increasingly sophisticated disinformation and fraud attack attempts.
Of course though, increased interest in AI in the public consciousness seeps into my own work. This local community of DV workers can absolutely envision how AI could benefit them and their work. And they’re skeptical of AI, but also curious, yet we as researchers and practitioners have not tried to engage with their skepticism or curiosity and include their voices in AI. So that has also become part of my overarching research— working with local AI-skeptical communities to understand their concerns, develop their AI literacy skills, and build their confidence in influencing AI design, deployment, and evaluation. And I do this through my community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach and this lived experience collaborating on an AI-powered intervention for STS-burnout.
How does HCI impact how you view or approach challenges in life, society, etc.
Honestly, I think the impact goes both ways but I don’t have a very good answer right now. Maybe that HCI gives me a way to think about how people respond to technology? Like when people will cut through a grass lawn because it’s shorter to get to where they’re going even though there’s a sidewalk that makes a turn—these are called “desire paths”. I think about how users will make choices or do things that are most convenient or useful to them, deviating from designers’ intentions. I think about how people do everyday acts of resistance against technologies they did not (or could not) consent to. There’s something about the psychological, physiological, and sociological that collide with the technological that makes HCI a great framing to think about personal problems or societal challenges. From “why can’t I stop doom-scrolling?” to “how did we reach a point where we allowed XYZ to happen?”, things like that. I like that in HCI there is freedom to explore in different framings, from the more concrete limitations of perceptual cognition all the way to the more philosophical, theoretical abstractions of human society.
What are your hopes for the future of HCI?
I have so many! What comes immediately to my mind is that I hope to see more interdisciplinary work with local communities of expertise. My bias of course is that there’s more work at the intersection of HCI, DV, and health and partnerships that bridge gaps between research and real-world impact. Broadly, I want the HCI community to not only think, but act critically about what our priorities are or should be. I hope for a more connected global HCI community, one where we can discover new, exciting innovations and effectively address safety, risk, and justice alongside these advancements. I hope that we continue to consider sustainability of the field and how we’ll continue to nurture the next generation of HCI researchers and practitioners who will go on to shape the future of HCI!
What is one most important (or surprising / unexpected) piece of career advice you would have for early-career scholars and PhD students?
This is a hard question because I really feel like it depends on who you ask (and a variety of answers is good because there exist a wide variety of people!). But I have two pieces of advice. First, make choices and do things that align with what you value. I want to be clear that we will get stressed out and feel burnt out in our careers. But I think it makes an enormous difference if you feel that what you’re working towards is actually worth the tiredness and stress. Does it align with what you care about? With what you want to do in your time and life? Do you feel a sense of pride or joy about what you’re doing? And if your circumstances mean that your work is not exactly aligning with your values, is there alignment in other areas of your life?
The second is being okay with being uncomfortable. I want to be clear that this advice is NOT about accepting conditions or people that are physically or psychologically unsafe, hostile, or invalidate you as a human being. Rather, it is about personal growth, resilience, and empathy. One side of it is that vulnerability is not weakness. When hardship inevitably comes, turn to those who can support you. See that you DO have the capacity to overcome barriers, grow, and flourish. I’ve been greatly challenged intellectually and emotionally throughout the PhD and in those moments it’s unpleasant and I question myself. But I'm thankful now for what I’ve been able to achieve and it gives me that excitement of how else I will continue to grow. For an actionable to-do, I highly recommend compiling a list of things you like/love about yourself and what you’re proud of, especially things not tied to your work or research (because that’s what your CV is for). Look back on this list when you’re feeling down because these are the notes from past to present you. The other side of this is how we respond at times when we may have caused harm. We can become defensive and uncomfortable, but I would instead invite ourselves to take a step back, engage in our own self-reflection, and listen to others. Empathy takes time and practice. And when we wrestle with the discomfort, we become more thoughtful, more curious researchers and human beings!