News
10/2025: I defended my dissertation Feeling Environmental Entanglements: A Crip Posthuman Approach on Designing within Precarious Worlds!!
10/2025: Reflexive Data Walks is presented at CSCW 2025 virtually
9/2025: Toxic Speculations won an honorable mention at the 4S Conference!
9/2025: Attending the 4S Conference in Seattle
7/2025: Making Local Data Memoirs and Queer/Crip Body Mapping are published and presented at DIS 2025 in Madeira
5/2025: Designing for Rest is presented at the alt.chi session at CHI 2025 in Yokohama
4/2025: Queer Data Ecologies is happening from 4/4-4/12 at the Public Art Futures Lab in Underground Atlanta!
Hello!
I am a designer, design researcher, and currently a PhD candidate at Georgia Tech’s Digital Media program. I work with Dr. Yanni Loukissas in the Interdisciplinary Media Arts Center, Dr. Noura Howell in the Future Feelings Lab, and previously with Dr. Nassim Parvin in the Design and Social Justice Studio.
I do research in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Science and Technology Studies (STS). My work combines humanistic scholarship with tangible interaction design to explore body-environment relationships through data. My dissertation examines how disability theory and chronic illness experiences can expand how we understand and relate to the environment, and reimagine approaches to designing for sustainability.
Prior to Georgia Tech, I studied and practiced Landscape Architecture for many years in Wisconsin and Washington State, focusing on sustainable urban design and accessibility in the built environment. I also worked as a design researcher, translator, and free-lance visual designer in Taipei, Taiwan.
Selected Works in Digital Media
Supporting the Experience of Place for People with Chronic Illness
Selected Works in Landscape & Urban Design
Urban Alleyway Activation
Community Building through A Native Medicinal Garden
Stormwater Managemetnt and Ecological Restoration in PDRT Campus Master Plan
(with Saiki Design)
(with Saiki Design)
(with Saiki Design)
(with Saiki Design)
Publications & Presentations
Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers
Sylvia Janicki and Yanni Loukissas. 2025. Making Local Data Memoirs: Changing Orientations in Relation to Environmental Concerns. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’25), July 05–09, 2025, Funchal, Portugal. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3715336.3735760
Alexandra Riggs, Sylvia Janicki, Tim Moesgen, Noura Howell, and Karen Cochrane. 2025. Queer/Crip Body Mapping: Expressing Dynamic Bodily Experiences with Data. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’25), July 05–09, 2025, Funchal, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735438
Sylvia Janicki, Julio De Pereda Banda, Lisette Romero, Sarah Harris, Xuanyu Guo, Noura Howell, and Abigale Stangl. 2025. Designing for Rest: Rethinking Access for/from Chronic Illness. In Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’25), April 26-May 1, 2025, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 10 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706599.3716241
Sylvia Janicki, Nassim Parvin, and Noura Howell. 2024. Crip Reflections on Designing with Plants: Intersecting Disability Theory, Chronic Illness, and More-than-Human Design. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’24), July 01–05, 2024, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 15 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3661509 *Best Paper Award.
Sylvia Janicki, Alexandra Riggs, Noura Howell, Anne Sullivan and Abigale Stangl. 2024. Queering / Cripping Technologies of Productivity. In Extended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613905.3644067
Alexandra Teixeira Riggs, Sylvia Janicki, Noura Howell, Anne Sullivan. 2024. Designing Embodied Archives of Feelings through Queer Tangible Interaction. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642312
Sylvia Janicki, Alexandra Teixeira Riggs, Noura Howell, Anne Sullivan, and Nassim Parvin. 2024. Sensing Bodies: Engaging Postcolonial Histories through More-than-Human Interactions. In Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 41, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3623509.3633389
Shubhangi Gupta, Sylvia Janicki, Pooja Casula, and Nassim Parvin. 2022. Rethinking Safe Mobility: the Case of Safetipin in India. ACM Information & Communication Technologies and Development Conference (ICTD ‘22). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1145/3572334.3572392.
Sylvia Janicki, Matt Ziegler, and Jennifer Mankoff. 2021. Navigating Illness, Finding Place: Enhancing the Experience of Place for People with Chronic Illness. ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS ’21). Available at: https://doi.org/10/1145/3460112.3471955
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Sylvia Janicki, Shubhangi Gupta, and Nassim Parvin. 2025. Reflexive Data Walks: Cultivating Feminist Ethos through Place-Based Inquiry. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 9, 2, Article CSCW156 (May 2025), 28 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3711054
Lorraine Johnson, Mira Shapiro, Sylvia Janicki, Jennifer Mankoff, Rafael B. Stricker. 2023. Does Biological Sex Matter in Lyme Disease? The Need for Sex-Disaggregated Data in Persistent Illness. Int J Gen Med. 2023;16:2557-2571
https://doi.org/10.2147/IJGM.S406466
Yen-Fu Chen and Sylvia Janicki. 2020. A Cognitive-Based Board Game With Augmented Reality for Older Adults: Development and Usability Study. JMIR Serious Games. 8(4):e22007. doi: 10.2196/22007. PMID: 33315015; PMCID: PMC7769693. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33315015
Conference Presentations (peer reviewed abstracts)
Sylvia Janicki, Blaire Bosley, Katherine Bennett, Rachel Donley, Mohsin Yousufi. 2024. “I Feel You”: Sensing Media. Panel at National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conferences. Detroit, MI: Nov 14 – Nov 17, 2024.
Sylvia Janicki. 2024. The Politics of Rest: Mapping Access for / from Chronic Illness. Presented at the WGS Conference. Spartanburg, SC. Mar 28 – 30, 2024.
Sylvia Janicki. 2023. Interactive Bioart as a Site for Postcolonial Inquiry. Presented at the 4S annual conference. Honolulu, Hawaii. Nov 8 – 12, 2023.
Sylvia Janicki, Katherine Bennett, Alexandra Riggs. 2023. Stories from the Street: Represencing Pasts and Futures of Atlanta’s Fourth Ward Through Digital and Tangible Craft. Panel at National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conferences. Baltimore, MD: Oct 26 – Oct 29, 2023.
Sylvia Janicki, Katherine Bennett, Alexandra Riggs. 2023. Embodied Histories: Crafting Interactive Narratives. Roundtable Discussion at WGS South Conference. Virtual: Mar 30 – Apr 1, 2023.
Sylvia Janicki, Shubhangi Gupta. 2021. Unsettling Boundaries through Data. Workshop at the Information+ Conference. Virtual: Sep 29 – Oct 1, 2021.
Sylvia Janicki. 2019. [Dis]placed by Illness: Exploring Narratives of Chronic Illness for a More Inclusive Built Environment. Presented at the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) Conference in Sacremento, CA: Mar 6 – 9, 2019.
Workshop Position Papers
Sylvia Janicki. 2025. Crip Ecologis: Designing with Data across Bodies and Worlds. Companion Publication of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 86–90. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715668.3735616 (Doctoral Consortium)
Sylvia Janicki. 2023. Crip Feminism for Chronic Illness: Rethinking Digital Technologies and Data Practices through the Political / Relational Model of Disability. Presented at the CSCW ’23 Workshop: A Toolbox of Feminist Wonder. Minneapolis, MN: Oct, 2023.
Sylvia Janicki and Nassim Parvin. 2023. Sensing Bodies: Being, Feeling, and Breathing with Plants. Presented at the DIS ’23 Workshop: Temporalities of Thinking with Care. Pittsburgh, PA: June, 2023.
Sylvia Janicki. 2021. Selective Memories, Shifting Places: Exploring Repressed Spatial Narratives of Taiwan’s White Terror Era. Presented at the Land/scaping Taiwan Workshop organized by University of Washington’s Taiwan Studies Program. Virtual: Jan, 2021.
Thesis & Dissertation
Sylvia Janicki. 2025. Feeling Environmental Entanglements: A Crip Posthuman Approach on Designing within Precarious Worlds. Dissertation. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. Forthcoming
Sylvia Janicki. 2018. [Dis]placed by Illness: Lyme disease as a Case for Re-imagining Everyday Places to Recognize Invisible Chronic illnesses. MLA and MUP Thesis. University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Available at https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/42423
Reports
Lorraine Johnson and Sylvia Janicki. 2022: Access to Care in Lyme Disease: Clinician Barriers to Providing Care. Chartbook. figshare. Book. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21321195
Exhibits & Demos
Sylvia Janicki. “Toxic Speculations: Feeling with Pollution through Tangible Embodied Design” Demonstrated at the 4S Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, September 2-6, 2025. *Honorable Mention
Alexandra Teixeira Riggs, Sylvia Janicki, Eve Brown, Heidi Biggs, Catherine Wieczorek. Queer Data Ecologies. Fulton County Public Art Futures Lab, Atlanta, GA. April 4-12, 2025. (link)
Sylvia Janicki and Nassim Parvin. “Sensing Bodies” in Extensions of Community, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA. Aug 21st– Oct 28th, 2023. (link)
Sylvia Janicki. “Sensing Bodies” and “Heart Sense.” Exhibited at the Reproductive Salon/Reproductive Immersion, King’s College, London, England. May 30th, 2023. (link)
Sylvia Janicki. “A Memorial To Earth.” Demonstrated at the 4S/ECOCITE Annual Conference, Universidad Iberoamericana, Cholula, Mexico, December 6-10th, 2022.
Sylvia Janicki. “Heart Sense: An Interactive Visualization of Embodied Social Connection.” Exhibited at Gender Equality: Reimagining Our Future Through Art and Technology. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. April – August, 2022.(link)
Sylvia Janicki, Noura Howell, Anne Sullivan, Nassim Parvin. “Sensing Bodies: Reflections on Human-Plant Relationships” Demonstrated at the GVU 30th Anniversary Event, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, November 2nd, 2022. (link)
Sylvia Janicki, Aditya Anupam, Nassim Parvin. “Heart Sense: An Interactive Visualization of Embodied Social Connection.” Demonstrated at the GVU 30th Anniversary Event, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, November 2nd, 2022.
Sylvia Janicki, Aditya Anupam, Shubhangi Gupta, Mohsin Yousufi, Pooja Casula, Anne Pollock, Lewis Wheaton and Nassim Parvin. “Heart Sense.” Demonstrated at ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival 2022, National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C., April 8th – 10th, 2022. (link)
Sylvia Janicki. “Screen Printed Memories in Taipei Landscapes.” Exhibited as featured artist at Minami Zephyr, Taipei, Taiwan, April 18th – May 11th, 2021.
SYLVIA H JANICKI 