Faculty Projects

New Programs and Technologies for Undergraduates in Design, Technology, and Research (DTR)

Project Manager

Haoqi Zhang, Associate Professor of Computer Science

Amount Requested

$16,000

Summary

Design, Technology, and Research (DTR) is a Computer Science and Segal Design initiative that empowers undergraduates to drive cutting-edge research that shape new experiences with people and technology. As a program and model for undergraduate research, DTR prepares students for careers in engineering, design, innovation, and research by providing authentic practice. The effort embodies McCormick’s mission to engage students in the creation, exploration, and application of engineering and scientific principles to solve challenging problems, produce new knowledge, and advance society. DTR also aligns with Northwestern’s strategic focus on Design and the advancement of inventive and rigorous models of education.

Through 10 years of our highly successful program:

• We mentored 160 students (46 percent women) to self-direct complex work.
• DTR students place at top tech and design companies; in a recent survey, an astonishing 40 percent of DTR undergrads place at Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.
• Students iteratively designed, built, and tested 50-plus new socio-technical systems; they have applied for and received $70,000-plus in outside funding, including 65 URG grants.
• 30 student papers are published at premier conferences; students won eight research competitions nationally and internationally, including first and second place at the ACM CHI Student Research Competition in 2022.
• We publicly released the DTR documentary short film, Forward (see http://forward.movie).
• I founded Agile Research University (ARU) to support 70-plus faculty at universities across the world using the DTR model (even in the humanities!)
• We hosted DTR’s 10-Year Anniversary Celebration, with a series of public-facing events and gatherings to connect our Northwestern and DTR community with DTR alumni.

With this third year renewal Murphy Society grant, we aim to continue building on this success by connecting our undergraduates to those most interested in our program and the successes we have already had: our outstanding alumni and leading faculty at top universities who wish to use our model to mentor students. This will further enrich and advance our learning space and community for our undergraduates. Moreover, the funding will allow us to continue updating our technical infrastructure so we can continue to push on the latest advances in technologies.

Planned Activities/Investments

For academic year 2024-2025, I propose two major initiatives:

1. Programs to connect DTR students to our alumni network and outside faculty
2. Updating our loaner laptops for students

NEW PROGRAMS TO CONNECT TO DTR ALUMNI AND OUTSIDE FACULTY

We now have 100-plus DTR alumni working at top tech companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook), leading startups, and teaching aspiring designers and technologists. Our alumni network is strong, and before this Murphy award, we hadn’t designed programming to connect our current students to alumni for job/career advice, mentoring, forming social connections, etc. Such efforts can provide our undergraduates with social and professional connections that serve them well beyond their time at Northwestern.

This year, we plan to continue the programming we designed in the last two years with Murphy funding and to create new programming, including (1) creating a DTR professional program for networking, job search, professional development, and coaching; (2) involving local alumni in current DTR social events such as hackathons; and (3) hosting alumni DTR workshops, in which alumni teach and share relevant skills learned in industry.

Additionally, we will develop new programming to connect DTR students to faculty at other universities. Building on a partnership with the HCI faculty at the University of Chicago (established through an earlier Murphy award), I plan to host a one-day UChicago/Northwestern HCI/DTR workshop that will engage our undergraduates with leading HCI researchers in the Chicago area. We will also continue to connect our students to faculty interested in our model for training students.

Our efforts to share our model for training has not only helped to establish Northwestern and McCormick as leaders in undergraduate design research education, but also connected our students to leading faculty at MIT, Harvard, Michigan, and other schools. With the seed funding sought, we’ll connect our undergraduates to faculty through faculty visits through the Agile Research University program (see agileresearch.io), through conferences, and through my disseminating the DTR model at other universities, e.g., through documentary screenings (see forward.movie

UPDATING OUTDATED TECHNOLOGIES

We need to update two DTR loaner laptops we provide to students to develop new interactive applications.

Impact

DTR is structured to realize McCormick undergraduates’ potential for developing novel technologies and creative solutions through design, engineering, and research. By giving students the independence to drive their own projects while providing the program structure, mentoring, and community to promote productivity, learning, and collaboration, DTR develops students’ innovation self-efficacy, provides students with practical experiences in design, research, engineering, and communication, and connects students to a larger community of peers, alumni, and faculty.

Specific to this proposal, we will evaluate the impact of our programming with alumni and outside faculty by conducting surveys and semi-structured interviews to understand the impact of these programs on undergraduates' learning and growth, career planning, and well-being. We will craft survey and interview questions using existing literature, such as those created got evaluate the effectives of mentoring relationships (e.g., Berk et al., 2005).

We will also continue to evaluate the impact of DTR overall through semi-structured interviews, self-assessment questionnaires, and pre- and post- surveys to assess student learning and development outcomes. We will also use quantitative measures of participation, retention, products, publications, student diversity, and student internship/job placement to evaluate DTR as an effective and scalable model for promoting undergraduate contributions to design, innovation, and research.

Sustainability

My goal is to establish DTR as a long-term, sustainable program for supporting undergraduate design, research, and technical innovation. The core approach is to use Murphy funding as "incubator" funds to start new initiatives, fund small capital investments, and produce early results that are then used to apply for larger external funds. So far this model has shown tremendous success; I have earned four NSF grants as primary investigator through the incubator projects in DTR.

Additionally, with matching funds and commitment from the Computer Science department and the Segal Design Institute to support DTR's regular operations, we intend to use the Murphy funding to test out and refine new ideas, and to then integrate them into DTR's regular operations over time.

Additionally, we will work to gather outside funding through:

• NSF REU sites proposals
• Gift funds from tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Facebook, and Yahoo
• Gift funds from donors
• Northwestern Office of Undergraduate Research

Deliverables

The major deliverables for academic year 2024-2025 include:

• Alumni-undergraduate programs, including dinners, workshops, mentoring network, and social events.
• New faculty-undergraduate networking opportunities, particularly in partnership with my colleagues at the University of Chicago, and with other faculty interested in DTR through my outreach efforts via Agile Research University and the DTR documentary.
• DTR students designing, developing, and evaluating 10-plus cutting-edge technologies and applications, with 15-plus students participating in demos, presentations, poster sessions, and student research competitions locally and at national/international conferences and workshops. 

Budget Overview

• Alumni and Faculty Programs, $11,000
• Technology Update, $5,000

ALUMNI AND FACULTY PROGRAMS, $11,000
DTR-hosted alumni dinners, social events, workshops ($5,000): Workshops and social events ($3,000), including two events per quarter for three quarters. These estimates are based on $500 per hackathon, workshop, or social event for supplies, food, and refreshments; and travel supplements for four alumni visitors ($2,000).

DTR-hosted faculty/student events ($4,000): Hosting a University of Chicago HCI and Northwestern DTR / HCI one-day workshop for 20-plus faculty and students ($2,000); covering additional travel beyond what is covered by current seminar programs for faculty visits, and costs associated with disseminating DTR and the Agile Research Studios model at other universities ($2,000).

Supplemental funds for students to connect with outside faculty and students at conferences ($2,000): Cover conference registration costs for up to 4 students at $500 per student.

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE, $5,000
Two new loaner MacBook Air laptops for prototyping and testing interactive technologies ($5,000)

Total Budget Amount: $16,000

Matching Funds

The following matching funds are expected (and were secured and provided last year):

• NU Computer Science ($3,000 for DTR’s operational budget)
• NU Segal Design ($3,000 for DTR’s operational budget)
• Northwestern Undergraduate Research Grants Office ($5,000)
• NSF Cyberlearning Grant ($4,000 devoted for user studies, stipends, and travel)

Previous Projects

With our 2023-2024 Murphy funding, we successfully connected our undergraduates to our outstanding alumni through alumni panels and a series of public- and private- facing events to celebrate DTR’s 10-Year Anniversary Celebration. This occasion provided significant opportunities to connect current DTR students, and our larger Northwestern Segal Design, Computer Science, and Entrepreneurship (the Garage) communities, to our exceptional DTR alumni.

Some highlights:

• In Winter 2024 we hosted an alumni panel with DTR alumni Meg Grasse (Apple), Kalina Silverman (Big Talk), and Katherine Lin (Dispatch), who spoke about their journey in finding their own paths and doing what they are passionate about, than simply following a “typical” career path post-college. Kalina had pursued her passion on Big Talk (https://www.makebigtalk.com/) ever since college; Katherine transitioned from tech consulting into developing technologically-enabled solutions for sustainability; and Meg is considering leaving Apple to study Environmental Engineering. The panel gave students a rarely seen perspective on pursuing meaningful careers, than simply landing a job in tech or media.
• In Spring 2024 we hosted 3 public facing events as part of DTR’s 10-year anniversary celebration including:
  • An art exhibition titled “Uncharted Path” that celebrates 10 years of students’ learning and growth in DTR. The exhibition, hosted for a week in the lobby of the Segal Design building, explored how students in DTR learn to lead research projects while also learning about their own work processes and metacognitive blockers, culminating in both project progress and personal growth over time.
  • A special screening of the DTR documentary, Forward (http://forward.movie)
  • A stellar DTR alumni panel, who shared the lasting and powerful impact DTR has had on their personal and professional life, as reflected in their memories, values, and purposeful career paths. The panel included:
    • Roxy Wilcox: Software Engineer, Google
    • Victoria Cabales: Software Engineer, Apple
    • Ryan Louie: Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford
    • Nicole Zhu: Engineering Manager, The New York Times
    • Kevin Chen: Software Engineer, Hidden Road
    • Zak Allen: CTO and co-founder, Homemade
    • Jennie Werner: Product Manager, Afresh
    • Maxine Whitely: COO and co-founder, Otto Health
    • Corey Grief: Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft
• Beyond these public-facing events to share the values and community of DTR with students, faculty, and staff across Segal Design, Computer Science, the Garage, and the Northwestern community at large, we also hosted a three-day alumni weekend celebration to connect our current students to our alums. These events helped to strengthen our alum network and included:
  • Studio session with alums and current students
  • An end-of-year student-alum dinner
  • A private showing of the DTR exhibition
  • 10-year anniversary celebration dinner
  • A student-alumni brunch

Overall, these events connected our students and larger Northwestern community to 20-plus DTR alumni. Beyond hosting these in-person events, I also wrote the second DTR annual letter, which shares DTR’s learning culture with other faculty, designers, researchers, and educators. We are leading in CS and design research education, and sharing what we are doing with the world.

Current DTR students found these events to be extremely helpful for their thinking about their careers and lives beyond Northwestern. Moreover, students reported that these events helped to strengthen the DTR community, and also their connection to Northwestern CS and Design. We know that the deepening of these communities and connections can be extremely powerful. Already, multiple alums have offered to provide career advice and mentoring for our current students.