Abstract: A common belief is that technology can play a pivotal role in enhancing individuals' capacity to empathize with others. While it is true, it's worthwhile to adopt an alternative perspective that underscores the inherent duality of empathy and emphasizes the empowering aspect for the recipients of empathy. In this talk, I will focus on recent projects that explore how technologies can facilitate empathy. These approaches primarily focus on those who need to be empathized and help them express, reveal, and reflect on themselves. Through these works, I propose a new framework that offers various research topics relevant to enhancing computer-mediated empathy.

Bio: Sang Won Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. His research aims to understand how we can design interactive systems that facilitate empathy among people. His research vision of computer-mediated empathy comes from his background in computer music, striving to bring music's expressive, collaborative, and empathic nature of music making to computational systems. He creates interactive systems that can facilitate understanding by providing ways to share perspectives, preserve context in computer-mediated communication, and encourage self-reflection. He has applied these approaches to various applications, including creative writing, informal learning, and programming.