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Professor Kate Howland

Professor Kate Howland, Professor of Interaction Design in the Department of Informatics (School of Engineering and Informatics) will be joint director of ������Ƶ Digital Humanities Lab from September 2025. The lab recently celebrated 10 years of work at the intersection of computational technology, culture, society and the environment with the publication of a new report.

Kate told us why she is looking forward to co-leading the lab and where she would like to take it, and a bit about her passion for sea swimming. 

I am excited to be coming on board as a joint director of ������Ƶ Digital Humanities Lab (SHL Digital) from September 2025. As a member of SHL Digital since 2015, I have collaborated with other SHL researchers on the co-supervision of PhD students and research bids, contributing human-computer interaction expertise. I firmly believe that interdisciplinarity is fundamental in being able to address the most pressing challenges we face, and I’m keen to develop more design-led research and innovation projects in the lab over the next five years, with a view to addressing some of these challenges.  

Within Informatics, I’m part of the Creative Technology group. I use participatory and empirically-grounded approaches to design and develop novel technologies in application areas including education, learning and community engagement. My collaborators and I work with groups that are often excluded from the technology design process, including children and young people, disabled people and older people. My goal is to create evidence-based digital tools that are fair and empowering for the communities that use them.  

My undergraduate degree was in Philosophy and this grounding has continued to influence my research career. I always find myself drawn to the more fundamental questions when working on design and evaluation projects. I take a systematic approach to understanding new areas, and I have a strong radar for faulty reasoning!  

I really enjoy walking and talking research with colleagues in Stanmer Park on my lunch break. I also love swimming in the sea. In the winter I only manage short dips, but I’ve been doing longer swims in the spring and summer in recent years. I’ve been taking lessons with the amazing local community interest company, , and taken part in organised swims around and between the piers. It's wonderful to enjoy being in the sea and look back at the beautiful Brighton seafront. I would like to do a triathlon: I am fairly average at running, cycling and swimming, and that would be a fun way to develop my abilities in all of them, and challenge myself!