Julie Hui

I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan's School of Information. I study and design socio-technical systems that support career development in self-directed forms of employment, such as micro-entrepreneurship, freelance work, and gig work. At the moment, I am working with small business owners and community organizations in Detroit to develop more accessible structures for skill development and social support in the workplace.

I develop theory and practice human-centered design informed by research in human-computer interaction, crowdsourcing, social computing, and learning sciences. I have been supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, NSF Cyberlearning Grant, and Northwestern’s Segal Design Cluster Fellowship. I previously interned at Microsoft Research and Facebook as a HCI/UX Researcher.

Prior to UMSI, I completed my PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University's Segal Design Institute where I worked with Dr. Liz Gerber in the Delta Lab. I received my B.S. in Physics with a Minor in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2011. Most recently, I was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Social Innovations Group working with Dr. Tawanna Dillahunt.