Disability Theory in HCI: Research Reform through Community, Learning, and Play
Anna Williams · 2025
Despite a growing body of scholarship integrating Disability Studies into Human-Computer Interaction research, access to mentorship in this interdisciplinary approach to technology research remains limited. I detail an ongoing distributed mentoring program for disabled HCI academics supporting their research in disability, policy, and ethics. I then describe the Disability Theory in HCI Workshop Series (Fall 2024), which brought scholars together to learn broader concepts of disability theory, including disabled public scholarship. Such programs fill a critical gap in mentorship and development of cross-disciplinary research in HCI as the field continues to build capacity and interest for this paradigm shifting work.