Sean A. Munson

About

Sean A. Munson is a Professor and the Associate Chair for Faculty & Research Development at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington. His specialization includes social computing, human-computer interaction, computer supported cooperative work, health and wellbeing technologies, and personal informatics. As a faculty member, he contributes to research that explores how social and technological systems can be designed to improve health, wellbeing, and social engagement. His work involves understanding the interactions between people and technology, with a focus on social computing and human-centered design. Munson's research aims to develop innovative solutions that enhance health and wellbeing through technology, emphasizing the importance of user-centered approaches in designing digital tools and systems. His contributions support the department's broader mission to advance human-centered design and engineering through interdisciplinary research and collaboration.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Public relations
• Engineering
• Social psychology
• Medicine
• Internet privacy
• Engineering ethics
• Pedagogy

Selected publications

• Embracing Four Tensions in Human-Computer Interaction Research with Marginalized People

  ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction · 2021 · 210 citations

  Human-computer interaction has a long history of working with marginalized people. We sought to understand how HCI researchers navigate work that engages with marginalized people and considerations researchers might work through to expand benefits and mitigate potential harms. In total, 24 HCI researchers, located primarily in the United States, participated in an interview, survey, or both. Through a reflexive thematic analysis, we identified four tensions—exploitation, membership, disclosure,…

  DOI

• Aligning implementation and user-centered design strategies to enhance the impact of health services: results from a concept mapping study

  Implementation Science Communications · 2020 · 191 citations

  BACKGROUND: Innovative approaches are needed to maximize fit between the characteristics of evidence-based practices (EBPs), implementation strategies that support EBP use, and contexts in which EBPs are implemented. Standard approaches to implementation offer few ways to address such issues of fit. We characterized the potential for collaboration with experts from a relevant complementary approach, user-centered design (UCD), to increase successful implementation. METHOD: = 10.31), worked acros…

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• Encouraging Reading of Diverse Political Viewpoints with a Browser Widget

  Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media · 2021 · 134 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  The Internet gives individuals more choice in political news and information sources and more tools to filter out disagreeable information. Citing the preference described by selective exposure theory — people prefer information that supports their beliefs and avoid counter-attitudinal information — observers warn that people may use these tools to access only agreeable information and thus live in ideological echo chambers. We report on a field deployment of a browser extension that showed user…

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• Designing the Future of Children’s Mental Health Services

  Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research · 2020 · 120 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Advancements in evidence-based psychosocial interventions, digital technologies, and implementation strategies (i.e., health services research products) for youth mental health services have yet to yield significant improvement in public health outcomes. Achieving such impact will require that these research products are easy to use, useful, and contextually appropriate. This paper describes how human-centered design (HCD), an approach that aligns product development with the needs of the people…

  DOI

• DreamCatcher: Exploring How Parents and School-Age Children can Track and Review Sleep Information Together

  Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2020 · 80 citations

  Parents and their school-age children can impact one another's sleep. Most sleep-tracking tools, however, are designed for adults and make it difficult for parents and children to track together. To examine how to design a family-centered sleep tracking tool, we designed DreamCatcher. DreamCatcher is an in-home, interactive, shared display that aggregates data from wrist-worn sleep sensors and self-reported mood. We deployed DreamCatcher as a probe to examine the design space of tracking sleep a…

  DOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R21HS023654

  NIH · $297k · 2017

• UW ALACRITY Center for Psychosocial Interventions Research

  NIH · $32.0M · 2018–2028

• CAREER: Inspecting Personal Informatics: Reflection Practices to Unlock Value in Self-Tracked Data

  NSF · $592k · 2016–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Beverly B. Green

  Kaiser Permanente

  56 shared

• Yoshio N. Hall

  University of Washington

  40 shared

• Karen L. Margolis

  HealthPartners

  39 shared

• Jennifer B. McClure

  38 shared

• Clarissa Hsu

  Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute

  38 shared

• Julie A. Kientz

  University of Washington

  37 shared

• Kelly Ehrlich

  Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute

  36 shared

• James Fogarty

  University of Washington

  35 shared

Labs

• Human Centered Design & EngineeringPI

Education

• PhD, School of Information

  University of Michigan

  2012

• BS Engineering (Systems Design)

  Franklin W Olin College of Engineering

  2006

Awards & honors

• National Science Foundation Early Career Award
• UW College of Engineering Teaching Award (2015)
• College of Engineering Junior Faculty Award (2017)
• Intel PhD fellow

Similar researchers at University of Washington

• David W. McDonaldh-54
• Leah Findlaterh-44