The Personal Data and Empowerment Lab is a Human-Centered Computing research lab in the Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah. When designing technologies, many developers fail to fully represent their users, creating technology that is not equally accessible for all members of society. Our research focuses on addressing this issue by analyzing ways to ensure that technology is more inclusive and equally accessible for all. The majority of our research explores the topics of healthcare, accessibility, and personal informatics with the end goal of empowering users.
Jason, Josh, Sinthia, John, Jens, Ashlyn, and Tamanna posing for a group picture on the University of Utah campus
End of semester lab froyo!
Isha, Tamanna, Jason, Josh, and Sinthia posing in front of the projector screen in the convention center at CHI 2022 in New Orleans
Lab photo at CHI 2022 in New Orleans!

Recent Publications


Envisioning the Future of Interactive Health


Ignacio Avellino, Pei-Yi (Patricia) Kuo, Pin Sym Foong, Jason Wiese, Helena M. Mentis, Sean A. Munson, James R. Wallace, Aneesha Singh, Andrew D. Miller, Daniel A. Epstein, Francisco Nunes

CHI EA '25, Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2025


Characterizing Smart Home Technology Usage Among Users with Disabilities through Reddit


Rebecca Moore, Jason Wiese

ASSETS '25, Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2025


Understanding the Training Experiences of Competitive Skiers with Tetraplegia


Tamanna Motahar, YeonJae Kim, Eden Fisher, Jason Wiese

CHI '25, Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2025


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News


Jun 18, 2024

Our DIS '24 paper received an Honorable Mention Award!


May 22, 2024

Tamanna's paper titled "Toward Building Design Empathy for People with Disabilities Using Social Media Data: A New Approach for Novice Designers" got accepted in ACM DIS 2024 conference. This work was a remarkable collaboration with Noelle Brown and Pr...


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Mar 28, 2024

Hannah presented at the culminating Year of Open Science conference, discussing a policy proposal for grant supplements for open science infrastructure: https://fas.org/publication/open-sci-infrastructure-secure/


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Projects




Making Smart Hospitals Useful


Smart hospitals are arriving, driven by the vision to enhance the patient experience, reduce operational burden, and improve hospital workflow. We explore how the technology employed in patient rooms better supports patients' and employees' needs.




Designing Technology for Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury to Facilitate Self-care Adherence


Individuals with spinal cord injuries often have to perform numerous self-care activities. Performing pressure reliefs is one such behavior to prevent pressure ulcers. We investigate technological solutions to increase pressure relief adherence.




Usage Patterns of Cloudlab Users


By conducting user research on Cloudlab, we can design this scholarly infrastructure to be easier to learn and more useful for researchers.


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Contact


Personal Data and Empowerment Lab


pedel@cs.utah.edu


Kahlert School of Computing

University of Utah

50 Central Campus Drive Rm. 3190
Salt Lake City, UT 84112



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