I am a HCI researcher, Technology consultant, and 4th year Phd candidate at Northwestern University.

Curriculum Vitae (CV) | Resume.

As a human-computer interaction (HCI) researcher, I use participatory and community-based research methods to co-design technologies that support frontline workers / healthcare providers & promote positive health outcomes for all. I have experience conducting user-centered research in AI for health, digital safety, workplace technologies, and more. I am advised by Maia Jacobs in the Personalized & Adaptive Technology for Health (NU-PATH) Lab.

As a technology consultant, I provide & facilitate foundational trainings to understand and address technology-facilitated abuse, particularly for survivors of domestic violence. I work closely with The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence on initiatives to build Chicago’s capacity to increase digital safety practices and support survivors of tech abuse.

Email at: [ conniewchau@u.northwestern.edu ] / conniewchau [@] u [dot] northwestern [dot] edu.

Publications

  • [P1 -🏅Honorable Mention Award] “‘All Day, Every Day, Listening to Trauma’: Investigating Features of Digital Interventions for Empathy-based Stress and Burnout”. [To Appear at CHI 2025]
    Connie W. Chau, Colleen Norton, Kaylee Kruzan, Maia Jacobs.

  • [P2] “Envisioning the Future of Burnout Support: Understanding Frontline Workers' Experiences in Nonprofit Gender-Based Violence Organizations”. CSCW 2024. [PDF]
    Connie W. Chau, Hannah Studd, Denise Huang, Colleen Norton, Kaylee Kruzan, Maia Jacobs.

  • [P3] “On Hackathons: A Multi
disciplinary Literature Review”. CHI 2023. [PDF]
    Connie W. Chau and Elizabeth M. Gerber.

  • [P4] “Equityware: Co-designing with and for low-SES communities.” CHI 2023. [PDF]
    Stefany Cruz, Alexander Redding, Connie W. Chau, Claire Lu, Josiah Hester, Maia Jacobs.

  • [P5] “Part of the Conversation: Workforce Professionals’ Perspectives on the Roles and Impacts of Workforce Technologies”. CSCW 2022. [PDF]
    Connie W. Chau, Kenneth Holstein, and Michael Madaio.

  • “Preliminary Feasibility of Using Crowdworkers to Identify Visual Triggers for Photosensitive Epilepsy in Digital Media”. [To appear in CHI Extended Abstracts 2025]
    Angela Davis, Connie W. Chau, Maia Jacobs

  • “Towards trauma-informed interventions with & for secondary traumatic stress (STS) for advocates in gender-based violence”. Workshop on Trauma-Informed Design: A Collaborative Approach to Building Safer Online Spaces at CSCW ‘23. [Workshop Paper]
    Connie W. Chau, Hannah Studd, Kaylee Kruzan, Maia Jacobs.

  • “From self to community care: The need for multilevel interventions to address advocate burnout in gender-based violence”. Workgroup on Interactive Systems in Healthcare (WISH) at CHI ‘23. [Workshop Paper]
    Connie W. Chau, Hannah Studd, Kaylee P. Kruzan, Maia Jacobs.

 
A portrait from the mid-torso up, of an East Asian woman with long, dark brown hair smiling and wearing a dark dress shirt.

Updates & News

March 2025 - 📊 Posters accepted to the NU IPHAM Public Health Summit 2025 and the 13th Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Research on Internet Interventions, respectively; and 3 qualifying exams later, I am a PhD Candidate 🎉

Feb 2025 - 🏅 Recently awarded the ARCC 2025 Partnership Development Grant to create a community advisory board for my work creating an intervention to support the work of frontline workers in domestic violence! 📝 My undergrad (now graduated) mentee’s paper on using crowdsourcing to identify triggers for photosensitive epilepsy was accepted to CHI LBW

Jan 2025 - 📊 I will be presenting my work at CHI 2025 in April! In this paper, I lead a qualitative participatory study to understand user needs & desires for app-based features for burnout interventions — the paper also won an Honorable Mention Award (top 5% of submissions)

Dec 2024 - 📊 I will be presenting my doctoral work with my community partner at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) Economic Justice Summit and facilitating a panel on Tech Abuse & Safety at the Reclaiming Our Love: 4th Social Justice & Domestic Violence Conference, both in March 2025

Oct/Nov 2024 - 📝 Wrote a Medium article for ACM CSCW 2024 & presented my first publication related to my multiyear community-based partnership research with addressing burnout among local frontline anti-violence workers! 📝 I was also a guest editor on the Grad Student Bulletin for NU’s Center for Civic Engagement