I am a critical HCI education researcher. I pursue ethical, equitable, and liberatory technology futures by envisioning novel pedagogies for critical design education and exploring ways to broaden participation within post-secondary CS learning contexts. My interdisciplinary work draws upon ideas from human-computer interaction (HCI), computing education research, design theory & methods, accessibility, information science, and software engineering. I often partner with communities of HCI and computing educators, working to identify pedagogical challenges and evaluate potential solutions. I employ qualitative and design research methods to deeply explore these contexts and the experiences of the people within them.

In Fall 2024, I started as an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Denver. Previously, I worked with Amy J. Ko at the University of Washington Information School for my doctoral studies and Margaret M. Burnett at Oregon State University CS for my undergraduate research.

⭐ I am recruiting masters and Ph.D. students to start in Fall 2025! ⭐ If you want to work with me, send me an email with your CV and draft statement of interest attached. Read more about the DU CS graduate programs, and learn more about PhD admission requirements and deadlines (DU has rolling admissions).

News & Talks

Research

Lab

I lead the TEACCUP lab at the University of Denver. We conduct research around Teaching Ethical Awareness, Critical Computing, and Understanding People in computing education contexts. (Lab website coming soon)

Research Interests

Critical Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) & Design Pedagogy

• How might we enable computing students to think more critically about the technologies they create and the real-world impacts of their design decisions?
• What kinds of pedagogical interventions might help students recognize and mitigate technological design biases?

This branch of my research develops and evaluates theoretically-grounded pedagogical methods and tools for teaching accessiblity concepts, inclusive design, and critical thinking in computing education contexts. This work can also include developing tools to support critical and ethical CS education.

CS Educator Knowledge Development

• What do computing educators need to know to effectively teach critical & ethical computing topics?
• What resources and supports might CS educators need to develop these competencies?
• How can educator communities (such as communities of practice) support each other in developing and sustaining knowledge?

This branch of my research explores the pedagogical content knowledge that educators develop as they become experts in teaching critical computing topics, with a specific focus on accessibility and inclusive design knowledge. This work includes the development of workshops and community-based interventions to share and evaluate teacher knowledge.

Theoretical Foundations for Computing Design Education

• How do design and computing education intersect?
• How is the work of computing design similar to (different than) other applied design fields?
• What "lenses" might we leverage to better understand how biases and values become embedded in designed artifacts?

This branch of my research develops new theoretical models for understanding the intersection of design and computing within educational contexts. This work tends to draw on interdisciplinary expertise (e.g. critical theory, information science, translation studies), enabling unique perspectives for making sense of how computing students learn to design technology.

Equitable, Inclusive, and Accessible Computing Education & Technology Design

• How do students and educators with non-normative identities interact with computing education?
• How might normative ideas be (explicitly or implicitly) encoded through the design of technology?
• How might we challenge & subvert technology design norms to create more accessible, inclusive, and equitable technologies?

This branch of my research explores how people differentially experience and navigate both the norms of computing education (which is known to privilege some identities over others) and technological design norms (which tend to assume normative capabilities, contexts, and identities of users). Understanding these experiences can help us identify and challenge implicit assumptions in technological contexts, supporting efforts to broaden participation in computing, create more inclusive technologies, and address issues of algorithmic bias and fairness.

Publications

Below are a few of my most recent publications. All conference proceedings listed are strictly peer-reviewed, archival works.

For a full list of my papers, refer to my publications page.

Factors Influencing the Social Help-Seeking Behavior of Introductory Programming Students
Anael K. Cohen, Alannah Oleson, Amy J. Ko (2024)
ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE)
[ACM DL Link]

Teaching Inclusive Design Skills with the CIDER Assumption Elicitation Technique
Alannah Oleson, Meron Solomon, Christopher Perdriau, Amy J. Ko (2023)
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI)
[ACM DL Link] [Blog Post Summary]

🏆 Best Paper Award
Funds of Knowledge used by Adolescents of Color in Scaffolded Sensemaking around Algorithmic Fairness
Jean Salac, Alannah Oleson, Lena Armstrong, Audrey Le Meur, Amy J. Ko (2023)
ACM International Computing Education Research Conference (ICER)
[ACM DL Link]

A Decade of Demographics in Computing Education Research: A Critical Review of Trends in Collection, Reporting, and Use
Alannah Oleson*, Benjamin Xie*, Jean Salac, Jayne Everson, F. Megumi Kivuva, Amy J. Ko (2022)
ACM International Computing Education Research Conference (ICER)
[ACM DL Link]

🏆 Best Paper Award for Diversity & Inclusion Contributions
Surfacing Equity Issues in Large Computing Courses with Peer-Ranked, Demographically-Labeled Student Feedback
Benjamin Xie, Alannah Oleson, Jayne Everson, Amy J. Ko (2022)
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (PACMHCI), presented at ACM Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW)
[ACM DL Link]

Books

I have edited or authored chapters in a few online textbooks. Unlike print books, these are free, digital, searchable, interactive, and web-accessible resources. These are living documents that lower barriers to accessing knowledge and best practices within computing education. I plan to continue developing and refining resources like these throughout my academic career.

Teaching Accessible Computing

A book for computing educators who want to integrate accessible computing concepts and skills into (mostly post-secondary) computer science courses. Each chapter focuses on teaching accessibility in a different CS curriculum course, like data structures, artificial intelligence & machine learning, or human-computer interaction. Includes example activities and teaching resources as well as pedagogical content knowledge about how to teach accessibility topics successfully. I edited this book, led the community-sourced writing effort, and currently am evaluating the book's effectiveness and reach.

Critically Conscious Computing: Methods for Secondary Education

A book for secondary educators who want to teach CS from a critical lens, examining it from technical, sociotechnical, and sociopoitical stances. I co-authored the chapter on CS and Design that frames computing work as a practice of design-informed engineering. Includes a unit sketch about how to teach computing through critical design approaches. This book is used as the foundation for multiple courses in the University of Washington's justice-centered CS teacher prep program, STEP CS.

Teaching

These are the courses I teach. Courses I'm actively teaching or developing are closer to the top of the list.

Human-Computer Interaction

University of Denver COMP 3/4100 | Teaching Winter 2025, planned Winter 2026

This course covers the foundations of human-computer interaction for undergraduate and graduate students, such as basic HCI theories and principles, protoyping, empirical user research, and critical and ethical perspectives on HCI. Students apply their learning by incrementally building a prototype demonstrating HCI principles then, in groups, further developing and evaluating prototypes through user studies. Through discussions and presentations, students develop their communication skills. Fulfills the Ethics requirement within the undergraduate CS program.

Intro to Computer Science I

University of Denver COMP 1201 | Next planned offering Fall 2025

This introductory (CS0) course introduces undergraduate students to the discipline of computer science beyond programming, discussing topics like algorithmic thinking, career readiness, and ethical perspectives on technology development. Students engage in interactive activities and group discussions to build CS foundations and identities. First in a three-course series.

User-Centered Design Methods

University of Washington INFO 360 | Last taught Spring 2020

This undergraduate class teaches students design thinking skills in the domain of information and computing. It leverages multiple forms of active learning, involves a significant amount of studio-based learning, and helps students develop creative confidence.

Cooperative Software Development

University of Washington INFO 442 | Last taught Fall 2020

This undergraduate software engineering class teaches foundations of team-based software development, leveraging the latest research on coordination, cooperation, and human cognition in software development. Students leave ready to become meaningful contributors to teams big and small, but also to understand the processes that teams use and how they can improve them.

Communities

I work with these communities to research, advocate, and impact the world beyond academia.

EduCHI Community of Practice

EduCHI's annual symposium brings together an international community of scholars and practitioners to discuss and shape the future of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) education. Though small and growing, EduCHI is the leading venue focusing specifically on HCI education. I am on the symposium steering committee and have been a part of this community since 2018, acting in several roles like technical program chair (2023, 2025) and co-organizer of the inagural HCI pedagogy workshop for graduate students and early-career faculty.

AccessComputing

First funded by NSF and led by Richard Ladner and Sheryl Burgstahler, AccessComputing creates pathways for students with disabilities into computing. The Teaching Accessible Computing book was created in partnership with this program. I am the AccessComputing partner at the University of Denver, supporting efforts to ensure our programs are accessible and inclusive, and plan to host AccessComputing REUs in the future.

DUB

DUB is the grassroots community of HCI and design researchers, educators, and industry professionals at the University of Washington. I was part of this community during my time at UW, participating in several community-building activities and acting as a student coordinator for the weekly research seminar in 2019-2020.

ComputingEd@UW

ComputingEd@UW is the grassroots community of computing education researchers and educators at the University of Washington, spanning the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, The Information School, the College of Education, Human-Centered Design and Engineering, and the Department of Communication. I was part of this community as a graduate student and later a postdoc at the Center for Learning, Computing, and Imagination (LCI).

EUSES Consortium

The EUSES Consortium was a former coalition of end-user programming and end-user software engineering researchers. I worked on several of its Gender HCI and inclusive end-user software engineering projects as an undergraduate researcher at Oregon State University.

OSU STEM Leaders Program

The OSU STEM Leaders program began as an NSF-funded effort to promote retention of minoritized students in STEM through cohort-based workshops, peer mentoring, and early reserach experiences. I was part of the very first class of STEM Leaders in 2014 and peer mentored several STEM students from underrepresented backgrounds in 2015-2018.

Awards & Honors

I've recieved several awards for various contributions to my research and teaching communities.

University of Washington Husky 100 (2022)

Awarded annually to 100 of UW’s 60,000 students who make exceptional contributions to research, teaching, mentorship, and service to the institution. Highest honor available for students.

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2018-2023)

Recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in National Science Foundation-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines.

CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher, Finalist (2018)

Recognizes undergraduate students in North American colleges and universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research.

Adobe Research Women-in-Technology Scholar (2017)

Recognizes outstanding undergraduate and masters students anywhere in the world who study computer science. Led into to an internship at Adobe Research with Cynthia Lu, Jose Echevarria, and Radomir Mech.

Contact Me

Office Hours (ECS 371)

If you are a current DU student enrolled in one of my courses, see the syllabus for office hours information. If you are a DU student but not currently enrolled in my courses, or if you are not a DU student, contact me via email and we will meet if appropriate.

My office is in the Engineering and Computer Science building on the 3rd floor, room 371.

Email

My institutional email is alannah.oleson@du.edu. Email is the best way to reach me in many cases. To maintain work-life boundaries, I typically do not check my email on weekends or holidays.

CV

The most current version of my CV can be found at this link: October 2024 CV (pdf)

Online profiles

• Google Scholar
• Medium: @OAlannah
• LinkedIn: aoleson
• GitHub: aoleson
• Twitter: @OAlannah (largely inactive)

Phone