About

Julie Kientz is a Professor and the Department Chair in the Human Centered Design & Engineering department at the University of Washington. Her specialization includes human-computer interaction, interaction design with children, health and wellbeing technologies, computer supported cooperative work, gaming, and accessibility. As a faculty member, she contributes to advancing research and education in these areas, focusing on designing technologies that support health and wellbeing, particularly for children and diverse user groups. Her work integrates principles of interaction design and cooperative work to create accessible and engaging technological solutions.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Public relations
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Developmental psychology
• Applied psychology
• Pedagogy
• Psychiatry
• Engineering ethics
• Human–computer interaction
• Engineering
• Telecommunications
• Cognitive science
• Clinical psychology
• Business
• Internet privacy

Selected publications

• Relief or displacement? How teachers are negotiating generative AI's role in their professional practice

  2026-04-13 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  As generative AI (genAI) rapidly enters classrooms, accompanied by district-level policy rollouts and industry-led teacher trainings, it is important to rethink the canonical “adopt and train” playbook. Decades of educational technology research show that tools promising personalization and access often deepen inequities due to uneven resources, training, and institutional support. Against this backdrop, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 teachers from a large U.S. school district that was an early adopter of genAI. Our findings reveal the motivations driving adoption, the factors underlying resistance, and the boundaries teachers negotiate to align genAI use with their values. We further contribute by unpacking the sociotechnical dynamics—including district policies, professional norms, and relational commitments—that shape how teachers navigate the promises and risks of these tools.

  PublisherDOI

• Toys that listen, talk, and play: Understanding Children's Sensemaking and Interactions with AI Toys

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-04-03

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Generative AI (genAI) is increasingly being integrated into children's everyday lives, not only through screens but also through so-called "screen-free" AI toys. These toys can simulate emotions, personalize responses, and recall prior interactions, creating the illusion of an ongoing social connection. Such capabilities raise important questions about how children understand boundaries, agency, and relationships when interacting with AI toys. To investigate this, we conducted two participatory design sessions with eight children ages 6-11 where they engaged with three different AI toys, shifting between play, experimentation, and reflection. Our findings reveal that children approached AI toys with genuine curiosity, profiling them as social beings. However, frequent interaction breakdowns and mismatches between apparent intelligence and toy-like form disrupted expectations around play and led to adversarial play. We conclude with implications and design provocations to navigate children's encounters with AI toys in more transparent, developmentally appropriate, and responsible ways.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Where Does AI Leave a Footprint? Children's Reasoning About AI's Environmental Costs

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-03-28

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Two of the most socially consequential issues facing today's children are the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the rapid changes to the earth's climate. Both issues are complex and contested, and they are linked through the notable environmental costs of AI use. Using a systems thinking framework, we developed an interactive system called Ecoprompt to help children reason about the environmental impact of AI. EcoPrompt combines a prompt-level environmental footprint calculator with a simulation game that challenges players to reason about the impact of AI use on natural resources that the player manages. We evaluated the system through two participatory design sessions with 16 children ages 6-12. Our findings surfaced children's perspectives on societal and environmental tradeoffs of AI use, as well as their sense of agency and responsibility. Taken together, these findings suggest opportunities for broadening AI literacy to include systems-level reasoning about AI's environmental impact.

  PublisherDOI

• A Systematic Review of Narrative Game-based Interventions for Mental Health

  ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare · 2026-04-17

  articleSenior author

  Video games have increasingly been used to support mental health through various game-based interventions (GBIs), including exergames, virtual reality therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy-based games. While these approaches often emphasize novel game mechanics and gamification, such features may undermine intrinsic motivation, which is critical for meaningful internalization of mental health messaging. Narrative, a well-studied mechanism in communication theory for fostering engagement and persuasion, remains underexplored in GBIs for mental health. This systematic review investigates narrative GBIs (NGBIs) using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Seventeen studies met the inclusion criteria. The majority addressed depression and anxiety, and CBT was common as an evidence-based grounding. However, few of the studies investigated the narrative factorially, and the disparate measures used to evaluate success made it difficult to determine the overall efficacy of NGBIs for mental health. We conclude with suggestions for future directions for research and design of NGBIs.

  PublisherDOI

• Consent under Constraints: Negotiating Photography and Media Sharing in Institutionalized Childcare

  2026-04-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Taking and sharing photos is a routine practice in childcare institutions, used to document children’s learning, communicate with families, and support marketing. These practices are typically regulated through consent forms, the institutional mechanism for authorizing photography and media use. While prior research has examined parents’ photo-taking and sharing, little is known about consent in institutional childcare, where formal policies and non-parental figures (e.g., staff and administrators) shape children’s privacy in distinct ways. To investigate this, we analyzed 42 consent forms and conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with parents, educators, and administrators in U.S.-based childcare institutions. Our findings reveal that consent forms serve as procedural, one-time agreements rather than meaningful safeguards. Parents navigate consent pragmatically amidst structural precarity and power asymmetries, while staff performs the unseen labor of consent enforcement. We conclude with implications for reimagining consent and designing usable institutional mechanisms that support children’s privacy and safety in practice.

  PublisherDOI

• Toys that listen, talk, and play: Understanding Children's Sensemaking and Interactions with AI Toys

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-04-03

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Generative AI (genAI) is increasingly being integrated into children's everyday lives, not only through screens but also through so-called "screen-free" AI toys. These toys can simulate emotions, personalize responses, and recall prior interactions, creating the illusion of an ongoing social connection. Such capabilities raise important questions about how children understand boundaries, agency, and relationships when interacting with AI toys. To investigate this, we conducted two participatory design sessions with eight children ages 6-11 where they engaged with three different AI toys, shifting between play, experimentation, and reflection. Our findings reveal that children approached AI toys with genuine curiosity, profiling them as social beings. However, frequent interaction breakdowns and mismatches between apparent intelligence and toy-like form disrupted expectations around play and led to adversarial play. We conclude with implications and design provocations to navigate children's encounters with AI toys in more transparent, developmentally appropriate, and responsible ways.

  PublisherDOI

• Where Does AI Leave a Footprint? Children's Reasoning About AI's Environmental Costs

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-03-28

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Two of the most socially consequential issues facing today's children are the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the rapid changes to the earth's climate. Both issues are complex and contested, and they are linked through the notable environmental costs of AI use. Using a systems thinking framework, we developed an interactive system called Ecoprompt to help children reason about the environmental impact of AI. EcoPrompt combines a prompt-level environmental footprint calculator with a simulation game that challenges players to reason about the impact of AI use on natural resources that the player manages. We evaluated the system through two participatory design sessions with 16 children ages 6-12. Our findings surfaced children's perspectives on societal and environmental tradeoffs of AI use, as well as their sense of agency and responsibility. Taken together, these findings suggest opportunities for broadening AI literacy to include systems-level reasoning about AI's environmental impact.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Exploring AI-Based Support in Speech-Language Pathology for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Children

  2025-04-24 · 9 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Preliminary Results from a Systematic Review of NarrativeGame-based Interventions for Mental Health

  2025-06-16

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Video games have increasingly been used to support mental health through various game-based interventions (GBIs), including exergames, virtual reality therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy-based games. While these approaches often emphasize novel game mechanics and gamification, such features may undermine intrinsic motivation, which is critical for meaningful internalization of mental health messaging. Narrative, a well-studied mechanism in communication theory for fostering engagement and persuasion, remains underexplored in GBIs for mental health. This systematic review investigates narrative GBIs (NGBIs) using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Seventeen studies met the inclusion criteria. The majority addressed depression and anxiety, and CBT was common as an evidence-based grounding. However, few of the studies investigated the narrative factorially, and the disparate measures used to evaluate success made it difficult to determine the overall efficacy of NGBIs for mental health. We suggest future directions for research and design of NGBIs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Navigating Challenges with IRB Review for Community‐Engaged Research with Transgender Youth in the United States

  Ethics & Human Research · 2025-11-01

  article

  Navigating the complexities of institutional review board (IRB) determinations in participatory research with transgender youth is essential for prioritizing youth voices and establishing equitable opportunities for research participation. We codesigned an online interactive sexual education tool with an advisory board of transgender youth as lived-experience experts. Early codesign efforts revealed challenges in classifying advisory board members as either research participants or study team members and highlight the frequent irreconcilability between participatory approaches and IRB standards. We describe challenges our research team encountered in the IRB review process and discuss lessons learned, emphasizing the need for flexible IRB guidelines, ongoing consent practices, greater attention to power dynamics, and enhanced IRB education on participatory research, particularly with transgender youth. These lessons highlight critical insights regarding youth involvement in participatory research that are essential for prioritizing youth voices in the creation of effective, youth-led interventions.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• RAPID: Education, Work, and Life during COVID-19: Supporting Families at Home with Technology

  NSF · $125k · 2020–2022

• SCH: INT: Supporting Healthy Sleep Behaviors through Ubiquitous Computing

  NSF · $1.4M · 2014–2018

• CAREER: Healthy Families: Technology to Support the Health and Wellness of Young Children

  NSF · $520k · 2010–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Gregory D. Abowd

  Northeastern University

  52 shared

• Gillian R. Hayes

  University of California, Irvine

  39 shared

• Sean A. Munson

  37 shared

• Shwetak Patel

  University of Washington

  24 shared

• Matthew S. Goodwin

  Washington University in St. Louis

  24 shared

• Arpita Bhattacharya

  Seattle University

  22 shared

• Alexis Hiniker

  18 shared

• Alissa N. Antle

  Simon Fraser University

  16 shared

Labs

• Julie Kientz's Research Group ArchivePI

Education

• Ph.D., Computer Science

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  2008

Awards & honors

• National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2009)
• MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 (2013)
• UW College of Engineering Faculty Research Innovator award (…