Directory

Hawra Rabaan

Postdoctoral Researcher
hrabaan@umd.edu
https://sites.google.com/view/techie-nomad/

Dr. Hawra Rabaan recently earned her doctorate from Indiana University, grounded in theories of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), social computing, social justice, and feminism, in addressing domestic violence within marginalized communities through empirical and participatory research and sociotechnical systems design. Rabaan’s work is driven by a deep consideration for designing technologies that address cultural and gender-based inequities. Through her Ph.D. study, she employed quantitative and qualitative methods to (i) understand challenges faced by women in non-Western contexts; (ii) design interventions that address these challenges within users’ cultural values & practices; and (iii) apply frameworks, including Islamic feminism and transformative justice, to the design of new technologies. Rabaan has several strong indicators of her research quality. She has eight scholarly papers in top-tier journals, including Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Her work has received an honorable mention. Honorable mention awards indicate the top 5% of submissions in terms of overall scholarship quality and content.

Previously, Hawra completed her master’s in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she studied and used mobile technologies for social good. Her contributions included using open-source software to develop a fog-harvesting reporting system in the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco and support low-income farmers in Cameron. Additionally, she contributed to the Aspire IT project at the National Center for Women in IT (NCWIT). In joining UMD, Rabaan is eager to leverage its rich environment and work with highly competent scholars, specifically Dr. Sheena Erete and her lab, on social justice-oriented research that bridges academia, technology, and on-the-ground community pursuits.

(Advised by Dr. Sheena Erete)