Gillian Hayes Inducted into SIGCHI Academy

On May 12, at ACM CHI 2024 — the premier conference on human-computer interaction — Gillian Hayes was one of 10 people recognized as a newly inducted member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy Class of 2024. (SIGCHI is the Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction.)

The SIGCHI Academy is an honorary group of individuals who have made substantial contributions to the field of HCI. Hayes, vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate Division at UC Irvine, is also a professor of informatics in UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS). Her research involves designing, developing and evaluating technologies that empower people to leverage data in responding to human needs in sensitive and ethically responsible ways. “I am committed to community-driven research that not only produces excellent scholarly work but also honors what people in our communities actually want and need from HCI.”

She is honored to be joining a group she has held in high esteem for years. “Since I was in grad school, the CHI Academy has been a group of people who I admire,” she says. “To be able to join them in this recognition is an incredible gift.”

Yet Hayes also views it as a responsibility. “I can only hope I can be the kind of scholar, mentor and community member that my other CHI Academy friends have been to me,” she says, adding that she shares this honor with her many collaborators over the years. “It goes without saying that my entire career is predicated on my collaborations — with community members, with my peers and senior scholars, and with my students and postdocs. This honor should be shared by all of them.”

— Shani Murray