Sophie Rollins

Welcome!

I’m Sophie (she/her), and I am a PhD student in Technology and Social Behavior at Northwestern University. I’m part of the Creative Interfaces Research + Design Studio and advised by Prof. Duri Long.

My research lies in human-computer interaction, and my interests include designing interventions for fostering AI literacy, as well as participatory speculative design of emerging technologies. Currently, I work with Prof. Long on developing museum exhibits that utilize embodied interaction and creative making to teach middle school-aged youth about AI.

Before starting my PhD, I graduated with a joint BS/MS in Computer Science from Northwestern University in 2023. I have experience as a Software Engineering Intern at Lyft and RightHand Technologies.

I spend most of my free time knitting and crocheting and connecting with other fibre artists over social media.

You can contact me at sophierollins2023@u.northwestern.edu.

Publications

  1. Governing Together: Toward Infrastructure for Community-Run Social Media.
    Sohyeon Hwang, Sophie Rollins*, Thatiany Andrade Nunes*, Yuhan Liu, Richmond Y. Wong, Aaron Shaw, & Andrés Monroy-Hernández. 2026. In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘26). [link]
    * authors contributed equally
  2. Designing and Evaluating Museum Exhibit Prototypes to Foster Middle Schoolers’ AI Literacy through Creativity and Embodiment.
    Hasti Darabipourshiraz*, Sophie Rollins*, Milka Trajkova, Chengzhi Zhang, Yasmine Belghith, Tom McKlin, Jessica Roberts, Brian Magerko, & Duri Long. 2026. In Proceedings of the Twentieth Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ‘26) [link]
    * authors contributed equally
  3. AI Unplugged: Exploring Pathways from Physical Simulation to Conceptualization of AI Reasoning Processes.
    Hasti Darabipourshiraz, Lily Murakami Ng, Grace Wang, Sophie Rollins, & Duri Long. 2026. ACM Transactions on Computing Education [link]
  4. Knowledge Net: Fostering Children’s Understanding of Knowledge Representations Through Creative Making and Embodied Interaction in a Museum Exhibit.
    Sophie Rollins, Katherine Hancock, Jasmin Ali-Diaz, Nyssa Shahdadpuri, & Duri Long. 2024. In Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Creativity & Cognition (C&C ‘24) [link]
  5. Fostering AI Literacy with Embodiment & Creativity: From Activity Boxes to Museum Exhibits.
    Duri Long, Sophie Rollins, Jasmin Ali-Diaz, Katherine Hancock, Samnang Nuonsinoeun, Jessica Roberts, & Brian Magerko. 2023. In Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC ‘23) [link]