Seung Wan Ha is a HCI/UX Researcher
Deconstructing complex problems, Reframing theoretical concepts, and Translating personal and social experiences into actionable design strategies.

📍 PhD Candidate @ University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)
🛠️ Mixed methods with a detail-oriented and data-driven approach
📚 with Dr. Christina Chung

Questions

How can systems leverage user interactions to provide personalized strategies for individuals
during life events?
How do different presentation modalities (e.g., symbols) impact users' comprehension and trust in meaning/sense-making in Human-AI collaboration?
How to narrow the gap between data (quantitative vs. qualitative) and within HCI/UX research methods?
How can we augment ways of thinking and interacting to address the human-centered issues inherent in analog and labor-intensive workflows through multimodal interactions?

Publication

Everyday Practices during life events

Preparing and Experiencing Food During Life Events: Implications for Technology Supporting Social and Value Changes

ACM CHI 25'

Understanding healthy eating and food-related activities during life events

HCI Research Method

Understanding fraudulence in online qualitative studies: From the researcher’s perspective

ACM CHI 24'

Forms of Fraudulence in Human-Centered Design: Collective Strategies and Future Agenda for Qualitative HCI Research

ACM CHI

Mental Health

Designing a scalable, accessible, and effective mobile app based solution for common mental health problems

Interactive Media

I-Portrait: An Interactive Photograph System for Enhancing Social Presence

A Comparative Study of Immersiveness in< Monet's Impressionism Exhibition> and< Van Gogh Inside: Festival of Light and Music> through an Empirical Approach

Updates

2025 Jul

Awarded Dissertation Fellowship at UC, Santa Cruz

2025 Mar

Paper, "Preparing and Experiencing Food During Life Events: Implications for Technology Supporting Social and Value Changes" has been accepted to CHI 2025

2024 Aug

Passed PhD qualifying exam!

2024 May

Workshop "Forms of Fraudulence in Human-Centered Design: Collected Strategies and Future Agenda for Qualitative HCI Research" held at CHI in Honolulu, HI

2024 Jan

Paper, "Understanding fraudulence in online qualitative studies: From the researcher’s perspective” has been accepted to CHI 2024

2023 Aug

Transferred to Department of Computational Media at University of California, Santa Cruz with Dr. Christina Chung

2023 Aug

Participated in the workshop "Surfacing Structural Barriers to Community-Collaborative Approaches in Human-Computer Interaction" at CSCW in Minneapolis, MN,

2023 May

Received Master's in Informatics at Indiana University - Bloomington

2022 Apr

Presented a poster "Understanding healthy eating and food-related activities during life events" at Annals of Behavioral Medicine in Baltimore, MD

2022 Mar

Participated in 2022 CRA-WP in San Diego, CA

2021 Mar

Participated in 2021 CRA-WP (Virtual)

Chat? Collaboration? Feedback?

Email @ sha81 (at) ucsc.edu