About

SeoYoon Sung, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Technology, Innovation, and Learning at the University of Southern California's Iovine and Young Academy (IYA), where she leads the Human Technology Interaction (HTI) Lab. Her work focuses on designing future-ready learning and work models that integrate technology, design, and human values. She researches and develops creative approaches to nurture emerging skills and competencies across disciplines and work boundaries, including areas such as AI, extended reality (XR), materials science, and entrepreneurship. Sung's research examines how evolving sociotechnical landscapes influence the ways people learn, create, and collaborate, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of skills, expertise, and advancing technologies. She aims to sustain human practices in learning, innovation, and work amid the growing influence of intelligent machines. At USC IYA, she has developed and applies the Challenge Based Reflective Learning (CBRL) model in diverse contexts such as higher education, labs, studios, and community codesign settings. Her research has been published and recognized in leading venues including CHI, Computers & Education, the Academy of Management, and the Journal of Workplace Learning. Currently, as Principal Investigator for the IYA-Verizon Innovative Learning Research Initiative, funded by Verizon, Sung designs and assesses innovative learning practices that support young learners in developing future-ready competencies at the intersection of technology, design, and entrepreneurship. Her research explores how new forms of collaboration and expertise emerge as learners engage with real-world challenges through the CBRL framework across higher education, professional, and informal contexts. She also investigates how cross-sector partnerships and codesign approaches involving students, educators, industry, and community partners can foster sustainable learning ecosystems responsive to evolving workforce and societal needs. Before joining USC, Sung was a postdoctoral research scientist and Active Learning Initiative Fellow at Cornell University’s College of Computing and Information Science, where she studied active learning methods to improve interdisciplinary computing education. She earned her PhD in Information Science from Rutgers University, focusing on organizational infrastructures shaping collective work and cross-functional innovation mediated by technologies such as enterprise social media tools. Her research addressed cultural and organizational changes in Big Tech and the gig economy. Sung also holds a Master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she researched workplace learning, training, and workforce development. She has professional experience consulting for organizations including NBCUniversal, the United Nations, and the NYC Department of Education, working on digital innovation, learning program development, and workplace engagement. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Human Computer Interaction, UI/UX, Social Informatics, and Learning Sciences.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Knowledge management
• Mathematics education
• Political Science
• Mathematics
• Multimedia
• Medical education
• Economics
• Aesthetics
• Data science
• Management
• Geography
• Medicine

Selected publications

• From content to context: dispositions, discernment, and productive inquiry as reflective practice

  2025-11-25

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Considering rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the growing demand for the convergence of disciplinary knowledge, ideas, and expertise, a paradigm shift toward context-based learning is necessary. This paper introduces the key principles and the relevant pedagogical practices for transitioning from content-driven to context-driven learning: dispositions, discernment, and productive inquiry. By engaging in an iterative cycle of discernment, prompt, prototype, and iteration within real-world challenge spaces presented in various degrees and forms, students cultivate their unique dispositions while practicing discernment and productive inquiry as tools for learning. Drawing on a case study from a cross-disciplinary school that helps students explore challenges at the intersections of technology, arts and design, and business, we illustrate how the challenge-based reflective learning (CBRL) framework equips learners to navigate complex sociotechnical entanglements and develop reflective practice essential in the age of AI. This learning framework emphasizes associative learning over progressive learning, focusing on cultivating a mindset equipped to address the real-world complexities. This paper discusses the role of humanities education across disciplines as a vital domain for interrogating ethical, social, and cultural dimensions of complex problems of the future.

  PublisherDOI

• From HCI Classroom to Complex Challenges: Enhancing HCI Education through Cross-Disciplinary Teamwork and Stakeholder Engagement

  2025-04-23 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Designers as Co‐Creators: Reconfiguring Workflows and Creative Agency in <scp>AI</scp> ‐Augmented Design

  Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology · 2025-10-01

  articleSenior author

  ABSTRACT This study investigates professional designers' integration of AI tools within workflows across five key stages: Discovery, Ideation, Development, Refinement, and Finalization . Semi‐structured interviews with 14 designers reveal varied AI engagement, shaped by creative intent, identity, and AI trust. A heatmap illustrates AI supporting efficiency and creative tasks (such as ideation, content generation, refinement), while interpretive tasks requiring contextual judgment remain under human control. Designers viewed AI as an assistive co‐creator accelerating iteration and automating labor, rather than replacing core creativity. Offloading procedural tasks and early ideation to AI enabled deeper focus on conceptual and critical decisions. Designers used creative agency to reconfigure workflows, fostering reflective, conceptual work. Findings suggest further exploration of human‐AI interaction, on how designers balance human‐centered values and creative performance, maintaining agency and ethics.

  PublisherDOI

• Whiteboards as a Tool for Active Learning: Insights from an Undergraduate Information Science Course

  Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology · 2025-10-01

  article

  ABSTRACT This study explores the use of handheld whiteboards as a low‐tech, active learning strategy in a large undergraduate Information Science course. Grounded in Cognitive Apprenticeship and Situated Learning theories, the study investigates how whiteboard‐based activities support student engagement, peer collaboration, and visualization of abstract concepts. Using a mixed‐methods approach, survey responses from 184 students revealed that most participants perceived the whiteboard exercises as helpful for enhancing participation and conceptual understanding. Thematic analysis of qualitative feedback highlighted benefits such as increased attentiveness, real‐time feedback, and peer learning, alongside challenges related to note‐taking and anxiety. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how simple, physical tools can complement technology‐driven instructional strategies and inform inclusive, scalable approaches in information science education.

  PublisherDOI

• Enacting Transdisciplinary Values for a Postdigital World: The Challenge-Based Reflective Learning (CBRL) Framework

  Postdigital Science and Education · 2024-06-22 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Traditional disciplinary and interdisciplinary educational models often fall short in enabling students to transform problems and solutions for real-world needs. They restrict learners’ ability to deconstruct problems and innovate beyond their subject-based expertise, hindering the development of reflective practice in new and unknown situations across domains. This paper introduces the Challenge-Based Reflective Learning (CBRL) framework that emphasizes context-driven, challenge-based experiential learning process. It presents a novel approach to understanding cross-boundary interactions and learning, overcoming the limitations of traditional, discipline-bounded models involving inter- and trans-disciplinarity. CBRL cultivates reflective practice by nurturing domain-general competencies and domain-specific skills inherent in concrete human experiences. This paper translates reflective practice theories into actionable methods for higher education, demonstrating their application at the Iovine and Young Academy at the University of Southern California—a school that integrates technology, arts and design, and business and entrepreneurship through its reflective, challenge-driven learning approach. The case study outlines a four-year college curriculum that flexibly incorporates student interests and societal challenges across domains. This paper enhances the scholarship of reflective practice and transdisciplinary education and research, discussing the implications for cultivating new kinds of expertise needed in a postdigital era.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “It’s Nice to Mix Up the Rhythm”: Undergraduates’ Experiences in a Large Blended Learning Course in Information Science in the Context of COVID-19

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2023-01-01 · 2 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Sparks and Dynamic Co-Emergence—How Facilitators Make Sense of and Learn from Critical Incidents in Experiential Learning and Teaching

  Academy of Management Learning and Education · 2023-06-22 · 5 citations

  articleSenior author

  While existing notions of experiential learning help reveal the key process and components of learning from a student’s perspective, how facilitators make sense of and learn from the dynamics of experiential learning are often overlooked. Given their crucial role in shaping experiential learning, it is important to create a deepened empirical understanding of instructor experiences, challenges, and practices for experiential teaching. In this paper, we examine instructors’ reflection, sensemaking, and lessons learned as they encounter critical incidents in their own practice. We present our data through a process model that describes instructors’ dynamic interactions with learners, starting with what we call “the spark.” By revealing how instructors engage in and respond to unscripted moments in experiential teaching, we offer a fuller picture of the relational dynamics that shape their practice. Our findings problematize the existing notions of experiential learning by showing how co-emergence plays out in intra- and interpersonal interactions with the surrounding ecosystem. By introducing an enactive lens, we provide a novel perspective that we present as a “dance,” linking vulnerability and the creation of brave—not merely safe—spaces for learning. We highlight the need for adaptive approaches for instructors to help build experiential expertise.

  PublisherDOI

• From emergency to sustainable online learning: Changes and disparities in undergraduate course grades and experiences in the context of COVID-19

  Computers & Education · 2023 · 28 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  PublisherDOI

• Learning to Surf: Catching the Waves of Dynamic Emotions in Experiential Teaching

  2023-03-27

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract While literature offers substantial evidence regarding both strengths and shortcomings of experiential learning for learners, far less is known about how educators reflect on, make sense of, and learn from experiential teaching, let alone address emotions that invariably affect the process (Pekrun &amp; Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012; Wright, Lund Dean, &amp; Forray, 2021). The purpose of this chapter is to explore the dynamic nature of emotions in the context of experiential teaching, that is, the facilitation of experiential learning activities, by examining critical incidents from the educators’ perspective. The chapter begins by introducing literature on experiential teaching and emotion. The authors then present the empirical findings from a critical incidents study, noting how participants succeeded or failed to catch the waves of emotion that emerged while facilitating experiential learning activities. The authors connect the findings with the existing literature, taking into consideration both sensemaking and reflective practices during and after experiential teaching. The authors close by identifying ways educators can learn to surf the inevitable waves of emotion that can emerge within themselves and in learners, offering specific tools to maintain balance and develop further competence in the midst of experiential learning.

  PublisherDOI

• How to Assess Student Learning in Information Science: Exploratory Evidence from Large College Courses

  Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology · 2022 · 4 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Mathematics education

  ABSTRACT Assessments in higher education can help instructors understand their students' incoming knowledge and learning gains. Constructing and validating assessments is especially challenging in emergent, fast‐growing interdisciplinary STEM fields such as information science. Unlike more traditional STEM fields like physics and mathematics, information science builds on cross‐disciplinary connections with multiple pools of domain knowledge. This research investigates how to construct and use assessments to effectively capture knowledge and skills in information science. Our study was conducted in five large information science courses at a U.S. research university on data analytics, web development, visualization, technology design, and natural language processing. We worked with domain experts to develop assessment items at three levels of knowledge: declarative, applied, and transferred (Anderson et al., 2002). The assessments were administered in a pre‐post design over two semesters with 1,202 students, with an evidence‐based revision of the assessments between the semesters. Our initial findings suggest that some knowledge levels (applied and transferred) may be more suitable for assessing student learning in information science courses. The findings have implications for assessment in emergent interdisciplinary education and inform our plans to develop constructive assessment methods for information science education.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Henriette Lundgren

  5 shared

• Lilach Alon

  Tel Hai Academic College

  3 shared

• Sean Justice

  Texas State University

  3 shared

• René F. Kizilcec

  3 shared

• Lyle Yorks

  3 shared

• R.F. Poell

  Tilburg University

  3 shared

• Emily Morrison

  George Washington University

  2 shared

• Victoria J. Marsick

  Columbia University

  2 shared