Prize boost for researchers at the 2025 ACM SIGCHI Awards
Five interaction design researchers from KTH celebrated for their contributions to human-computer interaction research, practice, and impact.
The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) is the world's largest association of professionals who contribute towards the research and practice of human-computer interaction (HCI).
Selection for these awards is considered highly competitive, drawing from a community of over 5,000 SIGCHI members.
Significant achievements
The five researchers belong to the Division of Media Technology and Interaction Design (MID) at KTH, an interdisciplinary research group consisting of media technology and human computer interaction.
Professor Kristina Höök received the Lifetime Service award for her contribution to developing HCI and particularly her work as editor in chief for the journal ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. During her time the number of submissions went from 250 to more than 550 articles per year. Meanwhile, the impact factor increased from 1.7 to 4.8 in 2023, and the Scopus 4-year impact factor increased from 4.4 to 7.5.
Postdocs Katerina Stepanova won the Outstanding Dissertation Award for her research on how interactive technologies can create positive and transformative experiences. She focuses on the important role of the body in thinking and how technology connects with our physical experiences.
Postdoc colleague Anupriya Tuli alsp won the Outstanding Dissertation Award for her research into the design of digital menstrual technologies seeking to understand how technology design can effectively address cultural taboos and systemic barriers to nurture positive menstrual experiences.
PhD student Nadia Campo Woytuk received the Special Recognition awards for "early-career research in intimate body-sensing technologies, developing open-source methods for studying intimate care, and creating inclusive maker spaces that support feminist HCI."
Similarly, PhD student Jooyoung Park received the same award for her "contributions to feminist HCI and haptic technology design, advancing methodologies for embodied care technologies, and fostering inclusive research."
Unique research culture
Christian Bogdan, head of MID, says:"We are honoured and lucky to have this team at MID. We admire their courage in tackling very sensitive and intimate issues that many are both reserved and ignorant about."
Madeline Balaam, the interaction design team leader, adds: “Each of these researchers has done outstanding work in the field of interaction design and I am delighted to see members of our team being awarded across all phases of the academic journey.
"I do believe that we have developed a unique research culture, which consists of a safe and supportive work environment that encourages researching on topics that may be taboo. I believe this environment allows us to be bold and take well judged risks, which in turn lays the foundation for the inspirational research that we see being awarded this year by ACM SIGCHI."
The awards will be given at the ACM CHI 2025 conference in Yokohama, Japan in late April.