Emani Hicks

I am a 5th-year PhD Candidate, NSF GRFP Fellow, UC-HBCU Fellow, and Ceres Scholar in the Department of Informatics at UC Irvine. My vision is to advance equitable, human-centered systems that support health and education by designing and assessing technologies that not only address user needs but also allow people to thrive within broader social ecosystems. I design and evaluate systems that foster awareness, learning, and collaboration, empowering people through data in diverse contexts. My research lies at the intersection of HCI, assistive and education technology, personal and health informatics, and artificial intelligence to investigate how technology mediates awareness, collaboration, and learning, combining design, data, and social practice to enhance health and education. In my PhD work, I design and evaluate technology to support awareness and collaboration for health experiences. My current research focuses on supporting noise sensitivity by co-creating technology to facilitate awareness and collaborative management and regulation of experiences.

What’s Happening

• Attending the NSBE 2026 Annual Convention in Baltimore, MD, March 19-21, 2026
• My latest work, “Collaboration and Assistive Technology: Facilitating Joint Awareness for Noise Sensitivity,” has been accepted to CHI!
  • Attending CHI Conference in Barcelona, Spain, April 13-17, 2026
• Writing my dissertation
  • Defense scheduled for April 27, 2026
• Mentoring and undergraduate research supervision

• Rob & Barbara Kleist Endowed Graduate Fellowship, 2024
• UCI Grad Slam Second Place Winner, 2023
• UC-HBCU Fellowship, 2021
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, 2021