Hello, I'm DJ.

I am an Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, with affliations in School of Information and Michigan Medicine. I am also the current ACM SIGCHI VP for Accessibility, overseeing the accessibility of over 25 SIGCHI sponsored conferences. I received my PhD from University of Washington, masters from MIT Media Lab, and have worked at Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

My research lies in human-computer interaction and accessibility. Specifically, I focus on sound accessibility, a term I coined, with an aim to design, build, and deploy interactive systems that deliver sound information seamlessly and accessibily to end-users. We have four focus areas, listed on my lab's website. This work has been supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH), Google, and Michigan Medicine. My research has resulted in real-world impact through public app releases (e.g., one of our deployed apps has over 100,000 users) and by directly influencing products at Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

I also actively serve on department and conference committees on DEI and accessibility. I was instrumental in pioneering new efforts at leading computer science conferences to improve the accessibility for blind and deaf and hard-of-hearing delegates. I am also a member of HCI4SoundAsia, which aims to broaden participation of South East Asian researchers in HCI conferences, and I am currently serving as the ACM SIGCHI VP for accessibility.

I teach Accessible Computing for undergraduate students (in Winter) and Advanced Accessibility for graduate students (in Fall). I also participate in educational outreach, in the form of two-week DIY workshops which I help co-organize with regional instructors. Thus far, I have organized seven workshops in four different countries. These workshops have very successful in inculcating an entrepreneurial mindset in underserved students. To disclose a specific outcome, three teams of undergraduate students have continued their projects after the workshops and started multinational companies! Others students have led community service projects.

For more details, see my lab's website. Reach me at profdj [at] umich [dot] edu.