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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 Sussex 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 Sussex 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! 

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