Delta Lab Logo
  • Lab members in Delta Lab hoodies.
  • Lab meeting in a glass fishbowl-like room overlooking a machine shop.
  • Lab members collaborating with post-it notes in a glass fishbowl-like room.
  • Lab members in Delta Lab hoodies.

Delta Lab

Our vision is to transform the way we learn, play, work, and live to create the society in which we want to live. To achieve this vision we research and design systems in real world environments, and train the future generation of researchers and designers. The most important problems we need to tackle can't be solved by any one alone.

Delta Lab is the first interdisciplinary research lab and design studio at Northwestern University. We study, design, and build systems in the domain of social and crowd computing, human computer interaction, learning sciences, civics, and innovation. The primary goal of the Delta Lab is to teach people how to be outstanding designers and researchers capable of building excellent theory and eloquent systems. To achieve this goal, Delta Lab faculty work closely with a tightly knit cohort of doctoral students who have access to Northwestern's entire human computer interaction community, which is one of the largest in the country. Students take classes in Computer Science, Engineering, Design, Education and Social Policy, Communities, Management, and Journalism to build a unique perspective on technology and social behavior. Upon graduation, students push the boundaries of scholarship as professors at universities and researchers in industry labs and develop radically new technologies as designers and entrepreneurs in the tech industry.

Delta Lab is led by Dr. Eleanor O'Rourke, Dr. Liz Gerber, Dr. Matt Easterday, and Dr. Haoqi Zhang.

Visit Us
Segal Design Institute, 3.230
2133 Sheridan Rd
Evanston, IL 60208

Mudd Hall (Department of Computer Science), 3-542
2233 Tech Drive, Third Floor
Evanston, IL 60208

Delta Lab projects are made possible through generously support from National Science Foundation grants in Cyberlearning, Cyber-Human Systems, iCorps, and the Research Initiation Initiative; a Hastac Digital Media Learning Grant supported by the MacArthur and Mozilla Foundations; a Microsoft FUSE Labs Research Award; Northwestern's Murphy Society Grant; and Northwestern's Office of the Provost Award for Digital Learning.