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Founding Assistant Professor
Department of Information Science
College of Media, Communication, and Information
University of Colorado Boulder
UCB 315
Boulder, CO 80309-0315 USA
Contact me via email:
svoida@acm.org (research)
svoida@colorado.edu (CU)
stephen@voida.com (personal)
I conduct research in human–computer interaction, at the intersection of personal information management, user interface design, ubiquitous computing, and computer-supported cooperative work. My work focuses on helping people to overcome the day-to-day challenges of information overload.
As computing has become an increasingly pervasive part of our lives, people now have access to their electronic information across a larger variety of networked devices, in more places, among different groups of friends or co-workers, and while participating in a broader range of activities than ever before. And as access to information increases, so does the amount of information that people create, receive, share...and have to manage. Most of the computing interfaces that people use on a daily basis simply weren't designed to help us make sense of information at this scale. In my research, I aim to address this problem—I study how people manage their information in the real world, and I design new interfaces and computing systems to minimize the impact of information overload.
I'm particularly interested in re-examining the interfaces that we use every day—file browsers, the desktop, our smartphone home screens—and the ways that electronic information is represented within our computing systems in order to help make the next generation of computers more responsive to the ways that people naturally organize and manage their projects, collaborations, and everyday lives. In my previous jobs, I've taught various programming and ubiquitous computing courses, and I at least try to keep up with a few hobbies to stay balanced.
I'm always interested in working with motivated students! If you are currently enrolled at CU, please email me for more information about signing up for independent study course credits. If not, please take a look at the information for prospective students on the CU-Boulder admissions web pages, as well as the specific PhD applications requirements for information and computer science.
Current and Featured Research Projects
 Temporality in Information Work (2013–Present) |  Technology to Support Individuals with Bipolar (2012–Present) |  Multitasking & Email Study |  Giornata (Activity-Based Computing) |
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Recent Articles, Papers, and Presentations
- Lim, H., Huang, X., Miller, S., Edelmann, J., Euken, T., & Voida, S. (2019). Smart Cook: Making cooking easier with multimodal learning. Poster presented at the ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2019), London, UK, September 11–13.
- Van Kleunen, L., Holton, J., Strawn, D., & Voida, S. (2019). Designing navigation aides for wildland firefighters. Poster presented at the ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2019), London, UK, September 11–13.
- Van Kleunen, L., & Voida, S. (2019). Challenges in supporting social practices around personal data for long-term mental health management. Position paper for the Fourth International Workshop on Mental Health and Well-being: Sensing and Intervention, held in conjunction with the ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2019), London, UK, September 10.
- Bardram, J.E., Jeuris, S., Tell, P., Houben, S., & Voida, S. (2019, August). Activity-centric computing systems. Communications of the ACM 62(8), 72–81.
- Cho, J., & Voida, S. (2019). Toward critical reflection: Observing practices of noticing to develop interventions in personal informatics. Position paper for the DIS 2019 workshop on Exploring Noticing as Method in Design Research, held in conjunction with the ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2019), San Diego, California, June 24.
- Snyder, J., Murnane, E., Lustig, C., & Voida, S. (2019, May). Visually encoding the lived experience of bipolar disorder. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 133:1–133:14), Glasgow, Scotland, UK. ACM.
- Norris, W., & Voida, S. (2019). Unwinding pluritemporal time in digital humanitarian crowdwork. Position paper for the CHI 2019 workshop on The Future of Work, held in conjunction with the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019), Glasgow, Scotland, May 5.
- Murnane, E.L., Walker, T.G., Tench, B., Voida, S., & Snyder, J. (2018, November). Personal informatics in interpersonal contexts: Towards the design of technology that supports the social ecologies of long-term mental health management. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction—CSCW 2(CSCW), 127:1–127:27. CSCW 2018 Best Paper Honorable Mention (among the top 5% of all submissions).
- Van Kleunen, L., & Voida, S. (2018). From personal to collective informatics. Position paper for the CSCW 2018 workshop on Social Issues in Personal Informatics, held in conjunction with the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2018), Jersey City, New Jersey, November 4.