About

Gillian Hayes is Vice Provost for Academic Personnel at the University of California, Irvine. She holds the titles of Chancellor's Professor and the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Professor of Informatics in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, as well as appointments in the School of Education and the School of Medicine at UC Irvine. Her research interests focus on human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, assistive and educational technologies, and health informatics. She designs, develops, deploys, and evaluates technologies aimed at empowering people to use collected data to address real human needs in sensitive and ethically responsible ways. Hayes is a Jacobs Foundation Senior Research Fellow alumna and completed her education at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech and the College of Arts and Sciences at Vanderbilt University.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Engineering
• Medicine
• World Wide Web
• Developmental psychology
• Social Science
• Data science
• Knowledge management
• Psychiatry
• Social psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Cognitive science
• Nursing
• Embedded system
• Engineering ethics
• Internet privacy
• Psychotherapist
• Public relations
• Management science
• Human–computer interaction

Selected publications

• Sona: Real-Time Multi-Target Sound Attenuation for Noise Sensitivity

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-04-01

  preprintOpen access

  For people with noise sensitivity, everyday soundscapes can be overwhelming. Existing tools such as active noise cancellation reduce discomfort by suppressing the entire acoustic environment, often at the cost of awareness of surrounding people and events. We present Sona, an interactive mobile system for real-time soundscape mediation that selectively attenuates bothersome sounds while preserving desired audio. Sona is built on a target-conditioned neural pipeline that supports simultaneous attenuation of multiple overlapping sound sources, overcoming the single-target limitation of prior systems. It runs in real time on-device and supports user-extensible sound classes through in-situ audio examples, without retraining. Sona is informed by a formative study with 68 noise-sensitive individuals. Through technical benchmarking and an in-situ study with 10 participants, we show that Sona achieves low-latency, multi-target attenuation suitable for live listening, and enables meaningful reductions in bothersome sounds while maintaining awareness of surroundings. These results point toward a new class of personal AI systems that support comfort and social participation by mediating real-world acoustic environments.

  PublisherDOI

• The Capacity to Care: Designing Social Technology for Sustained Engagement With Societal Challenges

  ArXiv.org · 2026-05-07

  articleOpen access

  People care about climate change, injustice, and humanitarian crises. The challenge is not apathy but capacity: sustained engagement with large-scale problems is psychologically costly, and social media architecture often amplifies awareness while providing few pathways to meaningful action. The result is rising distress, overwhelm, and disengagement -- particularly among young people who encounter global suffering through platforms designed for attention capture rather than constructive response. This workshop examines how social technology design shapes the conditions for sustained engagement with societal challenges. Drawing on Tronto's care ethics framework and research in moral psychology and platform studies, we ask why caring at scale is difficult and how social media can both exacerbate and potentially mitigate this difficulty. Tronto's framework shows that good care requires more than awareness: it demands responsibility, competence, and community. Dominant social media architectures stall the caring process at its earliest phase. We invite researchers and designers to identify platform designs that deplete or support the capacity to care, and to develop design directions for \textit{sustainable care}: engagement that people can maintain over time without burning out.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Sona: Real-Time Multi-Target Sound Attenuation for Noise Sensitivity

  ArXiv.org · 2026-04-01

  articleOpen access

  For people with noise sensitivity, everyday soundscapes can be overwhelming. Existing tools such as active noise cancellation reduce discomfort by suppressing the entire acoustic environment, often at the cost of awareness of surrounding people and events. We present Sona, an interactive mobile system for real-time soundscape mediation that selectively attenuates bothersome sounds while preserving desired audio. Sona is built on a target-conditioned neural pipeline that supports simultaneous attenuation of multiple overlapping sound sources, overcoming the single-target limitation of prior systems. It runs in real time on-device and supports user-extensible sound classes through in-situ audio examples, without retraining. Sona is informed by a formative study with 68 noise-sensitive individuals. Through technical benchmarking and an in-situ study with 10 participants, we show that Sona achieves low-latency, multi-target attenuation suitable for live listening, and enables meaningful reductions in bothersome sounds while maintaining awareness of surroundings. These results point toward a new class of personal AI systems that support comfort and social participation by mediating real-world acoustic environments.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Exploring Implicit Perspectives on Autism in Large Language Models Through Multi-Agent Simulations

  ArXiv.org · 2026-01-21

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT offer potential support for autistic people, but this potential requires understanding the implicit perspectives these models might carry, including their biases and assumptions about autism. Moving beyond single-agent prompting, we utilized LLM-based multi-agent systems to investigate complex social scenarios involving autistic and non-autistic agents. In our study, agents engaged in group-task conversations and answered structured interview questions, which we analyzed to examine ChatGPT's biases and how it conceptualizes autism. We found that ChatGPT assumes autistic people are socially dependent, which may affect how it interacts with autistic users or conveys information about autism. To address these challenges, we propose adopting the double empathy problem, which reframes communication breakdowns as a mutual challenge. We describe how future LLMs could address the biases we observed and improve interactions involving autistic people by incorporating the double empathy problem into their design.

  PublisherOA PDF

• The Capacity to Care: Designing Social Technology for Sustained Engagement With Societal Challenges

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-05-07

  preprintOpen access

  People care about climate change, injustice, and humanitarian crises. The challenge is not apathy but capacity: sustained engagement with large-scale problems is psychologically costly, and social media architecture often amplifies awareness while providing few pathways to meaningful action. The result is rising distress, overwhelm, and disengagement -- particularly among young people who encounter global suffering through platforms designed for attention capture rather than constructive response. This workshop examines how social technology design shapes the conditions for sustained engagement with societal challenges. Drawing on Tronto's care ethics framework and research in moral psychology and platform studies, we ask why caring at scale is difficult and how social media can both exacerbate and potentially mitigate this difficulty. Tronto's framework shows that good care requires more than awareness: it demands responsibility, competence, and community. Dominant social media architectures stall the caring process at its earliest phase. We invite researchers and designers to identify platform designs that deplete or support the capacity to care, and to develop design directions for \textit{sustainable care}: engagement that people can maintain over time without burning out.

  PublisherDOI

• The Capacity to Care: Designing Social Technology for Sustained Engagement With Societal Challenges

  ArXiv.org · 2026-05-07

  articleOpen access

  People care about climate change, injustice, and humanitarian crises. The challenge is not apathy but capacity: sustained engagement with large-scale problems is psychologically costly, and social media architecture often amplifies awareness while providing few pathways to meaningful action. The result is rising distress, overwhelm, and disengagement -- particularly among young people who encounter global suffering through platforms designed for attention capture rather than constructive response. This workshop examines how social technology design shapes the conditions for sustained engagement with societal challenges. Drawing on Tronto's care ethics framework and research in moral psychology and platform studies, we ask why caring at scale is difficult and how social media can both exacerbate and potentially mitigate this difficulty. Tronto's framework shows that good care requires more than awareness: it demands responsibility, competence, and community. Dominant social media architectures stall the caring process at its earliest phase. We invite researchers and designers to identify platform designs that deplete or support the capacity to care, and to develop design directions for \textit{sustainable care}: engagement that people can maintain over time without burning out.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Exploring Implicit Perspectives on Autism in Large Language Models Through Multi-Agent Simulations

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-01-21

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT offer potential support for autistic people, but this potential requires understanding the implicit perspectives these models might carry, including their biases and assumptions about autism. Moving beyond single-agent prompting, we utilized LLM-based multi-agent systems to investigate complex social scenarios involving autistic and non-autistic agents. In our study, agents engaged in group-task conversations and answered structured interview questions, which we analyzed to examine ChatGPT's biases and how it conceptualizes autism. We found that ChatGPT assumes autistic people are socially dependent, which may affect how it interacts with autistic users or conveys information about autism. To address these challenges, we propose adopting the double empathy problem, which reframes communication breakdowns as a mutual challenge. We describe how future LLMs could address the biases we observed and improve interactions involving autistic people by incorporating the double empathy problem into their design.

  PublisherDOI

• Informing the Design of Mobile and Wearable Technology for Noise Sensitivity MHCI017

  Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025-09-09 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Research on understanding and supporting the experiences of people with noise sensitivity (PWNS) and their challenges is limited within HCI. Therefore, we build on prior work to understand the challenges they consider and what technological solutions they create to support them. Through eight participatory design workshops involving PWNS and their carers, we considered their needs and challenges and how technology can be designed to support their well-being. Results indicate that wearable and mobile technology can facilitate awareness of sensory triggers and impacts on their well-being. Further, enabling both self and collaborative regulation is also necessary, especially as end users seek independence or interdependence with those around them to manage their experiences. We identified three tensions for designing technology to support PWNS and their sensory experiences.

  PublisherDOI

• Testing the feasibility of passive sensing among adolescents: Implications for mental health.

  Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science · 2025-10-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  = 131) participated in a 90-day passive sensing study, which collected data on both digital (keystroke and app usage) and offline (sleep and physical activity) behaviors. Although correlations indicated a small signal between same-day mental health indicators and several passively sensed variables (e.g., proportion of typed negative words and call behaviors), associations typically disappeared when disaggregating between- from within-person associations. Additionally, participation uptake was low, but there was little evidence of bias in participation or data coverage based on mental health risk or demographics. Results demonstrate the feasibility of collecting passive sensing data with a diverse sample of adolescents, but barriers remain on adolescent willingness to engage in this research and the strength of signal between passively sensed variables and self-report constructs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Beyond Individual Accommodations: The Collaborative Practices of ADHD Students in Post-Secondary Education

  2025-10-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP)

  NSF · $16.4M · 2018–2023

• CAREER: Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing Technologies for Young Children with Chronic Health Conditions

  NSF · $561k · 2009–2015

Frequent coauthors

• Gregory D. Abowd

  Northeastern University

  49 shared

• Franceli L. Cibrian

  Chapman University

  41 shared

• Julie A. Kientz

  University of Washington

  39 shared

• Kimberley D. Lakes

  University of California, Riverside

  32 shared

• Matthew S. Goodwin

  Washington University in St. Louis

  24 shared

• Khai N. Truong

  22 shared

• Lynn Dombrowski

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  20 shared

• Melissa Mazmanian

  University of California, Irvine

  18 shared

Labs

• STAR LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Computer Science

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  2007

• B.S., Mathematics and Computer Science

  Vanderbilt University

  1999

Awards & honors

• ACM Distinguished Member
• ACM Senior Member
• ACM SIGCHI Social Impact Award
• Orange County Business Journal, Women in Business Award, Nom…
• Sapphire Business Aviation Award for Innovation, AVIAA