Jon E. Froehlich

Professor
Allen School of Computer Science
University of Washington

Director, Makeability Lab
Associate Director, CREATE
Associate Director, PacTrans
Member, DUB
Visiting Researcher, Google Research

Contact:
Paul G. Allen Center, Room 642
jonf@cs.uw.edu

ORCID:
0000-0001-8291-3353

I’m a Professor in the UW Allen School of Computer Science, a Sloan Fellow, and NSF CAREER Awardee. My research is in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with a focus on high-value social domains such as accessibility, environmental sustainability, and STE(A)M education.

Graduate studies

I received my PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington in December 2011 where I was co-advised by Professors James Landay and Shwetak Patel. During my PhD, I was honored to receive a Microsoft Research Graduate Fellowship and the 2010 College of Engineering “Graduate Innovator of the Year” award. My PhD dissertation entitled “Sensing and Feedback of Everyday Activities to Promote Environmental Behaviors” also earned distinctive recognition including the 2012 University of Washington Distinguished Dissertation Award, the William Chan Memorial Dissertation Award, and an Honorable Mention for the national 2012 Council of Graduate Schools Distinguished Dissertation Award in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering.

One dissertation project, called HydroSense, applied supervised learning algorithms to disaggregate and track water usage from a single sensing point using pressure wave signatures. With co-inventors James Fogarty, Shwetak Patel, and Eric Larson, this technology was patented, licensed, and commercialized by Belkin, Inc. It is marketed as the Phyn smart water sensor.

During my graduate studies, I had the opportunity to intern at premier research labs including Microsoft Research in Redmond, Intel Research in Seattle, and Telefonica Research in Barcelona. In 2004, I completed a MS in Information and Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine where I was advised by Paul Dourish.

University of Maryland

From 2012-2017, I was an Assistant Professor in CS and HCIL faculty at the University of Maryland in College Park where I collaborated closely with Professor David Jacobs on NSF #1302338 Combining Crowdsourcing and Computer Vision for Street-level Accessibility, Professor Tamara Clegg on NSF #1441184 BodyVis: Advancing New Science Learning and Inquiry Experiences via Custom Designed Wearable On-Body Sensing and Visualization, and Professors Rama Chellappa and Leah Findlater on US Army Medical Research Award W81XWH-14-1-0617 HandSight: Supporting Everyday Activities through Touch-Vision.

Publications and paper awards

Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to learn from and collaborate with top scholars and students, leading to 100+ scientific peer-reviewed publications in premiere venues such as ACM CHI, UbiComp, DIS, IJCAI, MobiSys, ASSETS, and ICSE. Twenty-one papers have earned awards, including: eight Best Papers (CHI’10, CHI’13, ASSETS’13, CHI’16 LBW, 2 x CHI’19, ASSETS’19, UIST’24) and nine Best Paper Honorable Mentions (UbiComp’09, CHI’12, CHI’13, 2 x CHI’15, ASSETS’19, CHI’19, CHI’21, DIS’21). In addition, our UIST’14 paper on Tohme was selected for the ACM Computing Reviews ‘Best of Computing 2014’ list.

Please see our lab’s publication page and/or my Google Scholar page for more details.

Bios

Feel free to directly use the biographies below or intermix/condense them to fit your needs.

Short’ish Bio 1

Jon E. Froehlich has dedicated his career to the application of computer science to high-impact societal domains, including environmental sustainability, human mobility, and accessibility. He has been recognized with the UW College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty Award, the PacTrans Outstanding Researcher Award, a Sloan Fellowship, the UW Distinguished Dissertation Award, and multiple Google Faculty Research Awards. At UW, Jon directs the Makeability Lab and is co-founder of Project Sidewalk, an open-source platform dedicated to mapping and assessing every sidewalk in the world using Human+AI techniques.

Short’ish Bio 2

Jon E. Froehlich is a Professor in the UW Allen School of Computer Science, a Sloan Fellow, NSF CAREER Awardee, and co-founder of Project Sidewalk. His research is in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with a focus on high-value social domains such as accessibility, environmental sustainability, and STE(A)M education. At UW, he directs the Makeability Lab, works with an extraordinary set of students and collaborators, and teaches CS courses that explore the materiality of computing and the ever-changing relationships between humans, bits, and atoms.

Longer Bio

Jon E. Froehlich is a Professor in Computer Science at the University of Washington (UW) and co-founder of Project Sidewalk. His research in Human-Computer Interaction explores urban informatics, accessibility, and other high-value social domains. At UW, Jon is Director of the Makeability Lab, Associate Director of the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experience, and Faculty Chair of the Masters in HCI+Design program. His research has been recognized with 21 Best Paper and Honorable Mention awards, a Sloan Fellowship, the UW Distinguished Dissertation Award, and multiple Google Faculty Research Awards. Jon was the General Chair of ASSETS’22, the premier academic conference in the design and evaluation of technology for people with disabilities. In 2021, he was selected for the UW College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty Award and, in 2022, the PacTrans Outstanding Researcher Award. Jon is also the author of an interactive textbook for Physical Computing, which has received over 500k views from 200+ countries. The book introduces microcontrollers, sensors and actuators, basic signal processing and machine learning, and more through project-based learning. From 2012-2017, Jon was an Assistant Professor in CS at the University of Maryland.