Cynthia Bennett

As of September, 2022 I'm a Senior Research Scientist in Google's People + AI Research group. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute and a researcher at Apple, Inc. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Washington’s Human Centered Design and Engineering Department and I have interned at Microsoft Research. I received my BA in Psychology with minors in African American Studies and Women’s Studies from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

I have received funding from a Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Seven of my co-authored papers at the ACM’s ASSETS, CHI, and DIS conferences have received awards.

Read my About page for more information.

Current Research Focuses

1. The intersection of AI, novel accessibility solutions, and bias. Recent outcomes include:

• A position paper, a technical report, and podcasts (e.g., Radical AI and The Good Robot on AI, bias, and disability. They argue for cautious AI deployments and for more attention to potential disability bias in AI systems more generally, and attention to the ways AI-powered accessibility solutions may also be harmful. These topics remain under-discussed in popular AI-bias discourse.
• This publication and this WWDC talk (excerpt starting at 13:12) on bias and ethics concerns around ML generating descriptions of people in images. While they are intended to make photos accessible to blind people who cannot see them, ML-generated image descriptions may also perpetuate documented race, gender, and disability-based bias. 
• This publication on ethical concerns related to interactions among people with disabilities and semiautonomous delivery robots in public space. 

2. Cultivating accessible computing research labs and design studios which invite, celebrate, and incorporate disability culture. Some outcomes include:

• Access Is... My keynote arguing that accessibility is a process, not a product, requiring structural support and collective participation.
• A publication on current accessibility practices researchers and disability organizers engage to run accessible human-centered methods such as interviewing, design workshops, and user tests. We created a workflow diagram and tips you can incorporate into your own practice, and hopefully, improve upon and share back.
• Bringing disability activism and perspectives into HCI research and professional design: Some papers concern what it’s like to ‘Live Disability theory’ as disabled women academics, a critique of empathy’s application to understand disability experience in human centered design, disability design storytelling through Biographical Prototypes, and honoring Interdependence from disability activism as generative for accessibility design and research.