Juan Pablo Hourcade is a Professor at The University of Iowa's Department of Computer Science and Director of Graduate Studies for the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Informatics. His main area of research is Human-Computer Interaction, with a focus on the design, implementation and evaluation of technologies that support creativity, collaboration, well-being, healthy development, and information access for a variety of users, including children and older adults. He conducts research with his students at the HawCHI Lab.

Dr. Hourcade is the author of Child-Computer Interaction, the first comprehensive book on the topic, and has held various leadership roles in his research community (e.g., Papers Co-Chair for CHI 2016 and CHI 2017). He is in the Editorial Board of Interacting with Computers and the International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction. In 2022, Dr. Hourcade was named ACM Distinguished Speaker.

Research Interests (Keywords)

Child-Computer Interaction; Health Informatics; Ethics

Selected Publications

• Understanding Adult Stakeholder Perspectives on the Ethics of Extended Reality Technologies with a Focus on Young Children and Children in Rural Areas. Hourcade, J.P., Schmuecker, S., Norris, D., Currin, F.H. (2024). In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 455–468. Best Paper Award. Social Impact Honorable Mention.
• The 4Cs for Young Children’s Technology: Create, Connect, Communicate, and Control. Hourcade, J.P., Currin, F.H. (2023). XXIII Congreso Internacional de Interacción Persona-Ordenador (Interaccion 2023). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 28, 1–7. 
• Designing Stories to Inspire Preschoolers’ Creative, Collaborative Roleplay. Currin, F.H., Diedeirch, K., Superti Pantoja, L., Cargo, H., Franzone, N., Geiger-Lee, J., Hourcade, J.P. (2023). In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social Good (GoodIT '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 40–47. 
• Changing the dynamics of preschool children's social play with technology: evaluation of technology-based supports for tools of the mind style play. Diederich, K., Currin, F.H., Blasi, K., Schmidt, A.D., David, H., Peterman, K., Hourcade, J.P. (2023). Behaviour & Information Technology.
• Design Factors Affecting the Social Use of Programmable Robots to Learn Computational Thinking in Kindergarten. Bakala, E., Gerosa, A., Hourcade, J.P., Pascale, M., Hergatacorzian, C., Tejera, G. (2022). Interaction Design and Children 2022 (IDC 22). 
•  Child-Computer Interaction (2nd Edition). Hourcade, J.P. (2022). Iowa City, IA: Author.
• Research in Child-Computer Interaction: Provocations and envisioning future directions. Antle, A. and Hourcade, J.P. (2021). International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction.
• Supporting Shy Preschool Children in Joining Social Play. Currin, F.H., Diederich, K., Blasi, K., Schmidt, A.D., David, H., Peterman, K., Hourcade, J.P. (2021). IDC '21: Interaction Design and Children, June 2021, Pages 396-407.
• Preschool children, robots, and computational thinking: A systematic review. Bakala, E., Gerosa, A., Hourcade, J.P., Tejera, G. (2021). International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction.