Sean A. Munson

Dr. Sean Munson is a Professor at the University of Washington's Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. His research focuses on personal health informatics, digital wellbeing, and algorithmic fairness — designing and studying how people make sense of data about themselves and act on it, individually and in collaboration with others including clinicians, caregivers, and communities.

Sean also co-directs the UW ALACRITY Center. The ALACRITY Center uses human-centered design and implementation science to redesign evidence-based psychosocial interventions for mental health to be more usable and contextually appropriate, with a goal of supporting greater uptake and sustained, high quality use. The Center has supported redesign of evidence-based interventions across more than 20 projects spanning depression, trauma, anxiety, autism, suicidality, and youth behavioral health — in settings including primary care, schools, community health centers, and the VA, and with populations including rural, underserved, and culturally diverse communities across the US and internationally.

Sean's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, the National Institutes of Health, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and Google. He is a Distinguished Member of the ACM and recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. His work has received eight Best Paper Awards at leading HCI venues including CHI and CSCW. His research has been covered by national and international media including the New York Times, The Atlantic, BBC, and the Washington Post.

In addition to his research and teaching, Sean is HCDE's Associate Chair for Faculty & Research Development, a member of the DUB group, and a co-founder and steering committee member for SIGCHI Interactive Health.

Sean completed a BS in Engineering at Olin College in 2006 and his PhD at the University of Michigan School of Information in 2012. Previously, he was a political blogger and, while at Boeing, designed concepts for future passenger airplane interiors.

Keywords: Personal informatics, computer-supported cooperative work, health, mental health, human-computer interaction, human-centered design, social computing, implementation science, algorithmic fairness