Due to the increasing cost of Ph.D. students, decreasing federal science funding, and current size of the lab, I will not be taking new Ph.D. students for the next few years.
UNIVERSITY of  WASHINGTON Information School Computer Science & Engineering
Jacob O. Wobbrock Professor, The Information School
By courtesy, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
  Jacob O. Wobbrock, Ph.D.
The Information School
University of Washington
Box 352840
Seattle, WA 98195-2840   USA

 
 

Welcome!

I am a Professor of Information and, by courtesy, Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington (UW). My field is human-computer interaction (HCI) with a focus on mobile and accessible computing. I am a co-founder of the cross-campus DUB Group and the MHCI+D degree, of which I am Chair and Interim Director. I also direct the ACE Lab and am Associate Director and founding Co-Director Emeritus of the CREATE center. My Ph.D. students come from information science and computer science.

I seek to scientifically understand people's performance and experiences with interactive technologies, and to design, build, and evaluate better interaction techniques and systems, especially for people with disabilities. I have done extensive work in text entry, pointing, touch, and gesture; human performance measurement and modeling; HCI research and design methods; virtual reality; mobile computing; accessible computing; and human-centered AI. Methodologically, I combine computer science, design, psychology, and statistics.

In 2010, I received an NSF CAREER award. In 2017, I was awarded the SIGCHI Social Impact Award. In 2019, I was inducted into the CHI Academy. In 2021, I was named an ACM Fellow for "contributions to human-computer interaction and accessible computing." I have received four 10-year lasting impact awards: from ASSETS 2019, ICMI 2022, UIST 2024, and ASSETS 2025.

I received my Ph.D. in 2006 from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where my advisor was Brad Myers. I received my B.S. in Symbolic Systems in 1998 and my M.S. in Computer Science in 2000 from Stanford University, where my advisor was Terry Winograd.

I have also been an entrepreneur. In 2012, I co-founded AnswerDash—a SaaS company providing A.I.-powered context-sensitive help—where I was a venture-backed CEO for about three years. In 2020, AnswerDash was acquired by CloudEngage. My conversations with The New York Times and The Huffington Post capture some of my experiences as a startup CEO from academia.

See my full bio, curriculum vitae, faculty profile, Wikipedia page, ACM author page, or Google Scholar page.

Information School logo MHCI+D logo DUB logo

ACE Lab logo Logo for CREATE, the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences at the University of Washington. Icon is a person with a prosthetic arm holding a lightbulb. Coursera course