Daniela Damian
Professor; ECS-CAPI chair in inclusive science, technology & engineering
Computer Science
- Contact:
- Office: ECS 558 danielad@uvic.ca 250-472-5788
- Area(s) of expertise:
- Software engineering, requirements engineering, human-AI collaboration, computer-supported collaborative work, human-computer interaction, value-based software engineering, global software development, human-centric hybrid intelligence
About Daniela
Daniela is a professor of software engineering and the ECS-CAPI Chair in Inclusive Science, Technology and Engineering at the University of Victoria. For the past two decades her work has studied participatory approaches that respect and leverage the human, social, cultural and geographical contexts of software development. In her current work, she builds on these contributions to advance research and innovation in digital technologies that align with human and societal values. Together with her students in the SEGAL lab she is developing human-centric approaches to hybrid intelligence that reshape but preserve human agency in how software purpose is defined, co-designed and validated in line with human and society values. Empirically grounded, her work leverages a rich, unique ecosystem in the INSPIRE Program she founded in 2022 and which brings together industry, community and academic partners to support research and entrepreneurship digital technologies of the future for a sustainable society.
She has received a number of honors and recognitions. At UVic, she received the Faculty of Engineering teaching award (2019) and the 2020 Provost’s REACH Award for Excellence in Experiential Learning. Nationally, she has served on several committees including the New Frontier Research Fund and the NSERC Alliance. In the international software engineering community, she was awarded the 2025 Lero Fellowship, held leadership positions, including program chair for major SE conferences (ICSE 2022, RE2019), member of the editorial boards of journals such as the Transactions on Software Engineering, Software and Systems, Requirements Engineering and Empirical Software Engineering; she has served on ACM’s Living Curriculum Task force and in 2026 she received the SIGSOFT Influential Educator Award. She is an ACM distinguished speaker and serves on the advisory board of the Empirical Software Engineering Journal. Watch her TEDx talk on the role and influence of empathy in technology design for a kinder world.