Faculty Directory

Brent Hecht

Associate Professor of Computer Science

Associate Professor of Communication Studies

Contact

Website

Brent Hecht's Website

Departments

Computer Science

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science, Northwestern University, IL

M.S. in Geography, UC Santa Barbara, CA

B.S. in Computer Science & Geography, MN

Biography

Dr. Hecht received a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University, a Master’s degree in geography from UC Santa Barbara, and dual Bachelor’s degrees in computer science and geography from Macalester College. He was a keynote speaker at WikiSym (among other venues) and has received awards for his research at top-tier publication venues in human-computer interaction and geography (e.g. ACM CHI, ACM CSCW, ACM Mobile HCI, COSIT). He has collaborated with Google Research, Xerox PARC, and Microsoft Research, and his work been featured by NPR, Time Magazine, the Washington Post, MIT Technology Review, New York Magazine, Vox, El País, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and various international TV, radio, and Internet outlets.

Research Interests

My research is lies at the intersection of human–computer interaction, social computing, and spatial computing. Two active areas of research include (1) location-aware technologies and (2) better understanding and improving the interactions between algorithms and society (see below for a full list of recent publications and research areas). He takes mixed methods approaches, with an emphasis on "big data" projects. Dr. Hecht has appointments in the departments of Communication Studies and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and advises students in the computer science Ph.D. program and the Technology and Social Behavior (TSB) Ph.D. program.