Blog & archive

Postdoc in HCI at Santa Clara University (CA, USA) for 2023-24

Join us as a post-doctoral researcher in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab, Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Santa Clara University. Our location in the Silicon Valley offers unique opportunities to engage with — and also critically examine — the work of leading tech companies. Potential research areas Our lab has active projects in […]

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PhD in HCI at Santa Clara University (CA, USA)

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Join us as a PhD student in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab at Santa Clara University under the direction of Prof. Kai Lukoff, in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Our location in the Silicon Valley offers unique opportunities to engage with — and also critically examine — the work of leading tech companies.

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The Ohlone Augmented Reality Tour: Exploring the Story of Native Americans on Santa Clara University’s Campus

Uncategorized / klukoff

March 9, 2023, Santa Clara, California Professors Kai Lukoff (Computer Science and Engineering), Amy Lueck (English), and Lee Panich (Anthropology) from Santa Clara University have received the 2023 Whitham Family Collaborative Scholarship Award for their interdisciplinary research project. With the $30,000 award, the team plans to develop an augmented reality (AR) tour of the Santa

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Earlier updates · 2023–2025

Nov 2025: Our CHI 2026 meetup proposal was accepted! Join us for a designathon on the topic of: “Generative Design and Vibe Coding: Rethinking The Design-Development Divide for UI Prototyping“
May 2025: We received a 2025 ACLS Digital Justice Development Grant for continued work on the Ohlone Augmented Reality Tour
August 2025: Our paper, “The Digital Attention Heuristics: Supporting the User’s Attention by Design” was published in the ACM TOCHI Journal
September 2024: Our paper, “Designing for sustained motivation: a review of Self-Determination Theory in behaviour change technologies” was published in the Interacting with Computers Journal
August 26, 2024: I received an NSF CRII Award ($174k) to develop the Systematic Mobile App Review (SMAR) Research Method – A Tool and Guidelines for Understanding the Mobile App Ecosystem
July 10, 2024: Our work on the Ohlone AR Tour won the 8th Wall Grand Prize from Niantic. The prize is intended to recognize “creations that have set new standards in location-based AR storytelling.”
May 29, 2024: Our work on the Ohlone AR Tour was selected as a finalist for an Auggie Award for “Best Societal Impact” at AWE 2024, the leading industry AR/VR conference.
May 4, 2024: We publicly launched the Thámien Ohlone Augmented Reality Tour! The launch ceremony was attended by members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and students, faculty, and the President of Santa Clara University.
Apr 30, 2024: Our short video “We Are Still Here” about the creation of the Thámien Ohlone Augmented Reality Tour received a Best Video Award at CHI 2024
Apr 30, 2024: Our paper “‘I finally felt I had the tools to control these urges’: Empowering Students to Achieve Their Device Use Goals With the Reduce Digital Distraction Workshop” received an Honorable Mention Award (top 5% of submissions) at CHI 2024
March 9, 2024: Two posters were accepted to the Meaningful XR Conference at Stanford University: (1) Virtual Campus Tours: Designing for Underrepresented Students to Feel a Sense of Belonging at College; and (2) Location-Based Augmented Reality for Social Justice: The Thámien Ohlone AR Tour.
CHI 2024: Our workshop “With or Without Permission: Site-Specific Augmented Reality for Social Justice” was accepted at CHI2024
Oct 9, 2023: We launched the beta version of the Thámien Ohlone Augmented Reality Tour, which tells the story of the Ohlone people on our historical campus. The closed beta launch of the AR tour was covered by ABC News, NBC News, and KTSF (Cantonese). Read more.
Aug 30, 2023: Senior Design Theses have been published for the 22/23 academic year:
- A Digital Twin of the SCU Campus: Telling Immersive Stories About Student Life
- Capturing the Social Experience of SCU Campus Housing Options in Virtual Tours
- Developing an Open-Source Tool for Systematic App Reviews for Non-Technical Researchers
- I’m excited to report that all three of these projects will be continued in our lab as ongoing research projects.
June 6, 2023: I was inducted into the Order of the Engineer as an Eminent Engineer in a ceremony at Santa Clara University by Elaine Scott, the Dean of our Engineering School.
Apr 11, 2023: Our SwitchTube paper was awarded a Best Paper Honorable Mention at the CHI 2023 Conference (top 5% of papers)!
Mar 30, 2023: I was interviewed about my research on attention capture designs on The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Mar 9, 2023: I teamed up with SCU Professors Amy Lueck (English) and Lee Panich (Anthropology) to submit a proposal that was awarded a 2023 Whitham Family Collaborative Scholarship Award for interdisciplinary research. The award ($30,000) will fund our creation of an augmented reality (AR) tour of the Santa Clara University campus that tells the story of the Ohlone, the Native Americans who have stewarded the land of our campus for hundreds of years. [Read more]
Feb 14, 2023: I received the 2023 Outstanding Dissertation Award from ACM SIGCHI, the leading professional organization for human-computer interaction researchers and practitioners. The award citation states, “Kai’s dissertation has provoked, and will continue to provoke, conversations that have helped the HCI, social computing, and ubicomp fields gain a better understanding of what, exactly, we mean by digital wellbeing and how to achieve it.” [link to dissertation]
Jan 13, 2023: Our paper has been conditionally accepted to the 2023 CHI Conference: “SwitchTube: A Proof-of-Concept System Introducing ‘Adaptable Commitment Interfaces’ as a Tool for Digital Wellbeing.” The pre-print manuscript is available here.
Jan 13, 2023: Our paper has been conditionally accepted to the 2023 CHI Conference: “Defining and Identifying Attention Capture Deceptive Designs in Digital Interfaces.” The pre-print manuscript is available here.