About Christina N. Harrington, Ph.D.

Alternative Bios:

1. Dr. Christina N. Harrington (she/her) is a designer and qualitative researcher who works at the intersection of interaction design and health and racial equity. She combines her background in electrical engineering and industrial design to focus on the areas of universal, accessible, and inclusive design. Specifically, she looks at how to use design in the development of products to support historically excluded groups such as Black communities, older adults, and individuals with differing abilities in maintaining their health, wellness, and autonomy in defining their future. Christina is passionate about centering communities that have historically been at the margins of mainstream design. She looks to methods such as design justice and community collectivism to broaden and amplify participation in design by addressing the barriers that corporate approaches have placed on our ability to see design as a universal language of communication and knowledge. Dr. Harrington is currently an assistant professor in the HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where she is also the Director of the Equity and Health Innovations Design Research Lab.

2. Christina N. Harrington is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the HCI Institute in the School of Computer Science with a courtesy appointment in the School of Design. Her research addresses health and racial equity through human-computer interaction and design research approaches where she explores community-based design to support the needs of historically marginalized groups. Dr. Harrington has worked for over a decade to implement technological interventions for Black and Brown individuals and those with disabilities and impairments in areas of community health advocacy, health information seeking, and community design of technology futures. Her work has been published at CHI, CSCW, and Designing Interactive Systems conferences where she has won best paper and honorable mention awards for her work on equitable participatory design with Black communities. She has presented her work at various universities, government agencies, and industry seminars and was recently awarded the 2022 Skip Ellis Early Career Award from the Computing Research Association. Dr. Harrington holds a Ph.D. in Design from Georgia Tech, a Masters of Industrial Design from NC State University, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. 

As a researcher, Dr. Harrington combines her background in electrical engineering and industrial design to focus on areas of universal, accessible, and inclusive design. She looks at design as a catalyst to support historically excluded groups such as Black communities, older adults, and individuals with disabilities in maintaining their health, wellness, and autonomy in their everyday interactions with technology. Dr. Harrington is passionate about centering communities that have historically been at the margins of mainstream design. She looks to methods such as design justice and community-based participatory research to broaden and amplify participation in design by addressing the barriers that corporate approaches have placed on our ability to see design as a universal language of communication and knowledge. Throughout her career, Dr. Harrington has demonstrated her commitment to supporting underrepresented communities in STEM research including mentoring first generation college and graduate students, teaching and supporting outreach programs for young girls of color in computer science and design, and supporting community organizations focused on Black liberatory futures. She is currently the director of the Equity and Health Innovations Design Research Lab which stands to support community-based participatory research in Black and Brown communities and amplifies the work of those advocating for eliminating social inequities.