Björn Hartmann

I am an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. I am broadly interested in tools to support human ingenuity, across a number of domains including design, programming and engineering. I am also interested in embodied cognition, especially in AR/VR. Methodologically, my group predominantly focuses on systems research: we contribute complex, working interactive systems that embody our research ideas and enable us to test specific hypotheses. However, I also appreciate (and we conduct) careful, controlled experiments. I hold the Paul and Judy Gray Alumni Presidential Chair in Engineering Excellence, was previously a Qualcomm Faculty Fellow and have received an NSF CAREER award, Sloan fellowship, and Okawa research award. My group predominantly publishes at the top HCI conferences UIST, CHI and CSCW. We also publish in more topic-specific venues like DIS, ICSE, VL/HCC, and Learning@Scale. Our work has received multiple best paper prizes at these conferences.

I am affiliated faculty in the Berkeley Institute of Design. Previously, from 2016-2023, I was the Faculty Director of the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation. Prior to leading the Jacobs Institute, I co-founded the CITRIS Invention Lab, a lab equipped with many digital fabrication and rapid prototyping tools. The lab served as inspiration and testbed for many our research projects. I was also involved in the Swarm Lab. I spend time with great colleagues at the Berkeley Center for New Media, and the Visual Computing Lab. I received my PhD from the Stanford Computer Science department in 2009 where I worked with Scott Klemmer (dissertation). I received an MSE in Computer and Information Science as well as Undergraduate Degrees in Digital Media Design and Communication from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002.

Thinking about applying for a PhD/Masters/Internship/PostDoc in HCI at Berkeley?
Do not email me directly about your application or request - I cannot respond to every message. Read this advice instead.

Undergraduate Cal Student interested in (Interface) Design?
Take a look at the Berkeley Certificate in Design Innovation which has many relevant courses across the university. The Jacobs Institute's courses page is a another helpful resource. In Computer Science, you should take CS160. If you did well and want to deepen your understanding of HCI research and practice, sign up for CS260B or CS294-84 (Interactive Device Design). If you have completed either of these courses with outstanding results, come to my office hours to talk about undergraduate research opportunities.