Daniel A. Epstein
Biography
Daniel A. Epstein, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics at the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Computer Science. Epstein received a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Washington in 2018. His research examines how personal informatics technologies can align with people's everyday experiences in health and wellbeing, with particular focus on food journaling, menstrual tracking, activity monitoring, and mental health applications. Epstein has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers in venues including CHI, CSCW, UbiComp/IMWUT, and DIS.
Epstein's work has received multiple Best Paper Awards at CHI, including for his 2017 paper examining menstrual tracking and his 2023 paper on conversational AI for public health intervention. His 2015 paper proposing "A Lived Informatics Model of Personal Informatics" received a 10-Year Impact Award Honorable Mention at UbiComp in 2025. He has also received six Best Paper Honorable Mentions at CHI and DIS. Epstein received an NSF CAREER Award in 2023 for his work on advancing personal wellbeing through meaningful self-tracking experiences.
Epstein has mentored five Ph.D. students to graduation, including two who received competitive fellowships (Google Ph.D. Fellowship and ARCS Foundation Scholar). He has served on program committees for CHI, CSCW, and IMWUT, and received 30 special recognitions for reviewing. Epstein was named an ACM Senior Member in 2025 and received the ICS Dean's Award for Undergraduate Education in 2024. He has organized seven workshops and symposia on topics including interactive health systems and personal informatics.
Return to topEducation
- Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, 2018
- M.S. in Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, 2014
- B.S. in Computer Science, University of Virginia, 2012
Distinctions
- Best Paper Honorable Mention, CHI (for C31, top 5%), 2025
- 10 Year Impact Award Honorable Mention, UbiComp (for C5), 2025
- ACM Senior Member, 2025
- ICS Dean's Award for Undergraduate Education, 2024
- Best Paper Honorable Mention, CHI (for C25, top 5%), 2024
- Best Paper Award, CHI (for C22, top 1%), 2023
- Best Paper Honorable Mention, CHI (for C19, top 5%), 2022
- Best Paper Honorable Mention, DIS (for C12, top 5%), 2018
- Best Paper Award, CHI (for C11, top 1%), 2017
- Best Paper Honorable Mention, CHI (for C10, top 5%), 2017
Areas of Expertise
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Personal Informatics Systems
- Health Tracking Technologies
- Social Computing Platforms
- Large Language Model Chatbots
- Food Journaling Interfaces
- Wearable Device Experiences
Recent Publications
- Lika Haizhou Liu, Xi Lu, Pei-Chun Chiang, Daniel A. Epstein, Kurt Squire, “Meditating Together: Practices, Benefits and Challenges of Meditation on Social Virtual Reality”, 2025. Presented at CHI 2025.
- Julianne Louie, Tara Mukund, Chau Vu, Daniel A. Epstein, Alexandra Papoutsaki, “Understanding Temporality of Reflection in Personal Informatics through Baby Tracking”, 2025. Presented at CHI 2025.
- Eunkyung Jo, Young-Ho Kim, Sam-Houn Ok, Daniel A. Epstein, “Understanding Public Agencies' Expectations and Realities of AI-Driven Chatbots for Public Health Monitoring”, 2025. Presented at CHI 2025.
- Lucas M. Silva, Xi Lu, Emily Liang, Daniel A. Epstein, “Foody Talk: Exploring Opportunities for Conversational Food Journaling”, 2025. Presented at CHI 2025.
- Dennis Wang, Jun Zhu, Daniel A. Epstein, “Understanding How Personal Activities Are Shared In Short-form Videos”, Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 9, no. CSCW1, 2025.
- Xi Lu, Jacquelyn E. Powell, Elena Agapie, Yunan Chen, Daniel A. Epstein, “Understanding the Lived Experience of Collaborative Pregnancy Tracking”, 2024. Presented at CHI 2024.
- Eunkyung Jo, Yuin Jeong, SoHyun Park, Daniel A. Epstein, Young-Ho Kim, “Understanding the Impact of Long-Term Memory on Self-Disclosure with Large Language Model-Driven Chatbots for Public Health”, 2024. Presented at CHI 2024.
- Whitney-Jocelyn Kouaho, Daniel A. Epstein, “Socioeconomic Class in Physical Activity Wearables Research and Design”, 2024. Presented at CHI 2024.
- Lucas M. Silva, Franceli L. Cibrian, Clarisse Bonang, Arpita Bhattacharya, Aehong Min, Elissa M. Monteiro, Jesus Armando Beltran, Sabrina Schuck, Kimberley D. Lakes, Gillian R. Hayes, Daniel A. Epstein, “Co-Designing Situated Displays for Family Co-Regulation with ADHD Children”, 2024. Presented at CHI 2024.
- Whitney-Jocelyn Kouaho, Daniel A. Epstein, “Investigating Perspectives and Experiences of Low Cost Commercial Fitness Wearables”, Proceedings of the ACM: Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), vol. 8, no. 4, 2024.
- David V. Nguyen, Daniel A. Epstein, Shayan Doroudi, “Optimal Academic Plan Derived from Articulation Agreements: A Preliminary Experiment on Human-Generated and (Hypothetical) Algorithm-Generated Academic Plans”, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2024.
- Dennis Wang, Jocelyn Eng, Mykyta Turpitka, Daniel A. Epstein, “Exploring Activity-Sharing Response Differences Between Broad-Purpose and Dedicated Online Social Platforms”, Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 8, no. CSCW2, 2024.
- Eunkyung Jo, Rachael Zehrung, Katherine Genuario, Alexandra Papoutsaki, Daniel A. Epstein, “Exploring Patient-Generated Annotations to Digital Clinical Symptom Measures for Patient-Centered Communication”, Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 8, no. CSCW2, 2024.
- David V. Nguyen, Daniel A. Epstein, Shayan Doroudi, “Community College Articulation Agreement Websites: Students' Suggestions for New Academic Advising Software Features”, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2024.
- Xi Lu, Jacquelyn E. Powell, Elena Agapie, Yunan Chen, Daniel A. Epstein, “Examining the Social Aspects of Pregnancy Tracking Applications”, Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 8, no. CSCW1, 2024.
- Mayara Costa Figueiredo, Elizabeth Ankrah, Jacquelyn E. Powell, Daniel A. Epstein, Yunan Chen, “Powered by AI: Examining how AI Descriptions Influence Perceptions of Fertility Tracking Applications”, Proceedings of the ACM: Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), vol. 7, no. 4, 2024.
- Eunkyung Jo, Daniel A. Epstein, Hyunhoon Jung, Young-Ho Kim, “Understanding the Benefits and Challenges of Deploying Conversational AI Leveraging Large Language Models for Public Health Intervention”, 2023. Presented at CHI 2023.
- Rúben Gouveia, Daniel A. Epstein, “This Watchface Fits with my Tattoos: Investigating Customisation Needs and Preferences in Personal Tracking”, 2023. Presented at CHI 2023.
- Lucas M. Silva, Elizabeth Ankrah, Yuqi Huai, Daniel A. Epstein, “Exploring Opportunities for Multimodality and Multiple Devices in Food Journaling”, Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 7, no. MHCI, 2023.
- Eunkyung Jo, Whitney-Jocelyn Kouaho, Stephen M. Schueller, Daniel A. Epstein, “Exploring User Perspectives and Ethical Experiences of Teletherapy Apps: A Qualitative Analysis of User Reviews”, JMIR Mental Health, vol. 10, no. 1, 2023.
Contact Information
Website: https://depstein.net/
Email: epstein@uci.edu
Address: 6093 Bren Hall
Return to topThis profile was created with the help of AI.
Last updated on 6/25/2026.