Elizabeth Churchill

Elizabeth Churchill is the Director of Human Computer Interaction at eBay Research Labs in San Jose, California. In addition to her role at eBay, she is currently the Vice President of the Association of Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Human Computer Interaction (ACM SigCHI). She is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, and writes a column for ACM interactions magazine.

Churchill is an applied social scientist, interactive technology designer and social communications researcher. She has a background in psychology (neuro, experimental, cognitive and social), Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. For the past 18 years she has drawn on social, computer, engineering and data sciences to create innovative end-user applications and services. For the past few years, she has been most active in the areas of ubiquitous and mobile computing, social media, computer mediated communication, locative media and Internet/Web sciences. During this time, she has designed and evaluated enterprise and consumer-facing information/communication applications and services for desktop, mobile, tablet and large screen devices. She has also worked on infrastructure design for collaborative workflow systems and for Internet-based applications and services. Having worked in the UK, the US, and Asia, Churchill is particularly interested in understanding how technical, cultural and social factors affect the ways in which people do (or dot not) communicate and collaborate.

Her past affiliations include Yahoo! Research, PARC, and Fuji Xerox’s research lab in Palo Alto, FXPAL. As well as building successful multidisciplinary technology innovation teams and advising on corporate strategy, she has continued to be active in research. Churchill has conducted ethnographic design research, designed and managed field-based prototype/system trials, and run laboratory and field-based experiments. A number of technologies that she has designed with her collaborators have been launched as prototypes and products. Most recently, she has been exploring the notions of data aware design and experience mining.

Her personal interests include film, photography and snowboarding.