Jasmine Lu on Sustainable Computing: Rethinking E-Waste and Innovation

As the world races to develop new technologies, a critical question often gets overlooked: What happens to the old ones? Jasmine Lu, a sixth-year PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Chicago, didn’t initially set out to study sustainable computing. But as she progressed in her research, she became increasingly aware of the environmental consequences of rapid technological innovation—particularly the growing problem of electronic waste (e-waste). Now, her work focuses on designing more sustainable approaches to computing, from rethinking how we build and dispose of devices to exploring alternative models of repair and reuse.

Most recently, Lu received special recognition from the 2025 ACM SIGCHI Awards for pioneering research in ecological HCI through novel hardware interfaces and fostering communities around sustainable computing.

Lu’s research spans technical solutions, philosophical perspectives, and community-driven efforts to address sustainability in computing. Her recent projects, including Unmaking Electronic Waste and ProtoPCB, explore ways to extend the life cycle of electronic components and reduce waste in prototyping. Beyond her research, she has played a key role in fostering dialogue within the SIGCHI community on sustainable prototyping practices and the broader role of human-computer interaction (HCI) in sustainability.

In this Q&A, Lu shares insights on the challenges and opportunities in sustainable computing, her evolving perspective on e-waste, and what’s next for her research.

What inspired you to focus your research on sustainable computing and electronic waste?

I didn’t come into my PhD thinking I wanted to work in sustainable computing and electronic waste. But as I learned more about computing research and attended conferences, I was amazed at how rapidly we innovate and create new technologies. Equally, I was amazed at how we rarely focus on the waste generated with every new technology that comes to market. For example, consider how many people immediately upgrade their phones when the latest iPhone is released. Given that e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, I really wanted to explore how we could reduce e-waste generation. More importantly, I wanted to reduce my own e-waste generation, so researching this topic aligned with my personal goals and research interests.

How has your perspective on sustainability in computing evolved throughout your PhD?

I think my perspective on sustainability in computing has evolved in two main ways:

I try to think about sustainability in computing at both large and small scales. When we think of sustainability, it’s really easy to think at large scales: global warming, climate change, landfills, and pollution. The same goes for e-waste too; our main solution is bulk material recycling because it scales well. But I think we miss out on a lot by only looking at the large scale. For instance, e-waste is also a very personal issue: on average, a person generates 9.7 kg of e-waste per year. Encouraging small-scale actions like buying secondhand or repairing devices instead of tossing them aside is also very meaningful toward sustainable computing.

Similarly, I avoid seeing solutions in sustainable computing as one size fits all. I think it’s really limiting to think that way. For example, while it may be worthwhile to have a completely biodegradable device in some instances, in other cases it may be more important to have a highly durable device. Instead of ‘one size fits all’ solutions, I like to think of my research (and other sustainable computing research) as seeds—ideas that can germinate into new ways of thinking about computing that may allow us to move toward more sustainable approaches.

Can you share more about your upcoming CHI’25 papers, Unmaking Electronic Waste and ProtoPCB? What are the key takeaways from these works?

In Unmaking Electronic Waste, we explore practices in reusing, recycling, or repairing electronic waste—in other words, ‘unmaking’ e-waste. In the paper, we interviewed experts in unmaking e-waste to get a better understanding of the pathways that led them into these practices, their processes in unmaking e-waste, the challenges they often face, what motivates them, and finally, what cultures exist around unmaking e-waste. There were a lot of interesting nuggets in this work, but I would say there are three main takeaways:

1. ‘Unmaking’ e-waste is a very non-traditional approach, so there is a lack of tools and resources to support these processes. Additionally, most electronic devices are built in ways that actually discourage taking them apart and even repairing them. So even for our experts, unmaking e-waste can be hard to do. Key takeaway: there’s a lot of opportunity in computing research and device design to better support these practices of recycling, repairing, and reducing e-waste.

2. When you take apart a device, you learn a lot. You learn even more when you try to repair, hack, modify, or upcycle that device too. You get a deeper appreciation of the inner workings of a device, learn to think about engineering creatively, and extend the lifetime of your device (so that it no longer becomes e-waste). Key takeaway: unmaking e-waste offers a lot of pedagogical benefits in learning about technical systems.

3. When we design for device use, we usually only think about designing for the user of a device but not the many other hands a device is likely to fall into during its lifetime, like repair technicians, secondhand users, resellers, or upcyclers. Key takeaway: device design should consider not just the primary user but also other ‘users’ that facilitate sustainable computing work.

In ProtoPCB, we introduce a tool that helps users reuse e-waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) to prototype new circuits. Our tool offers: (1) a new approach to prototyping with electronics beyond the limitations of breadboards (a standard method of prototyping electronics) and (2) a new approach to reducing e-waste during electronics prototyping. With our tool, we introduce a strategy to computationally solve for how to implement the circuit using computer vision. We identify how to solder the needed components of the circuit onto the existing PCB as well as how to use the existing traces on the PCB to implement the needed connections. If a circuit cannot be implemented using a PCB’s existing traces, our tool identifies interventions like cutting a trace, adding a wire, or stitching together multiple boards.

To evaluate our approach, we tested it across 9 open-source PCBs, evaluating pairwise how often the circuits of those PCBs could be implemented on a different board designed for an entirely different purpose. Across all cases, we found that an average of 81.7% of components in the circuit could be implemented on a different board, showcasing the promise of this approach for prototyping circuits.

This approach to reusing PCBs is significant in reducing electronic waste because while every modern device has a PCB inside it, prototyping with PCBs is a very wasteful process. This is because most PCBs need to be manufactured in PCB fabrication labs so every PCB design needs to be designed, manufactured, and shipped. Additionally, PCBs are all designed for a single purpose and design—they are not inherently reusable. You can imagine that every prototype iteration requires the manufacturing of a whole new PCB—an incredibly wasteful process. Key takeaway: With ProtoPCB, whereas originally PCBs were single-purpose, our tool extends the possible uses of a PCB (that would most likely become e-waste) by allowing a user to prototype entirely new circuit designs on them.

Your research often combines technical solutions with broader ecological and philosophical perspectives. How do you balance these approaches in your work?

I think incorporating broader ecological and philosophical perspectives makes me a better engineer and researcher. Often it’s when I’m reading or engaging with topics and ideas not directly related to computing that I’m inspired to think about new approaches to my research. I definitely see the combination of these different perspectives as a core part of my research process—ecological and philosophical perspectives drive me to identify and pursue new technical challenges, and on the other hand, building new technical systems allows me to explore new ecological and philosophical perspectives through them. I don’t see it as a balancing act but more as a deeply interwoven approach in my work.

In your ecoEDA project, you explored designing with e-waste in mind. What challenges and opportunities did you encounter in promoting component reuse?

In ecoEDA, we made a tool that suggests component reuse during the design process by integrating the tool into an electronics design editor. This posed some challenges because the way you typically design electronics follows a pretty linear path—draft a schematic, order the components you need, and then assemble that electronic prototype. When reusing components, your design decisions need to be informed by what you already have on hand, and you may need to adjust your design depending on the availability of that component. You’re not relying on the assumption that you will just be able to order components you need. However, because assuming you’ll be able to order all your components anew is the default, design editors are not built to support the processes needed for reusing components. So it was challenging to upend some of our preconceptions about the processes in prototyping with electronics when designing a tool for component reuse.

In terms of opportunities: In the process of doing the project, we explored so many different ways electronic components could be interchanged and what considerations engineers might have when making those changes. Organizing this information and making it accessible to engineers is an open space with a lot of exciting research questions. Similarly, this type of knowledge is less explored in traditional engineering education but presents a great opportunity to build the sort of critical and creative engineering skills I mentioned earlier.

Your Integrating Living Organisms in Devices study introduces a speculative, care-based interaction model. What reactions did you receive from this work, and what implications do you see for future device design?

The reactions I saw were overwhelmingly positive. I had so many people tell me they wanted a device like the one I built: ‘When is it going to be something I can buy?’ People loved the idea of their smartwatch becoming something they had to take care of (like a Tamagotchi) or the idea of wearing a little slime friend.

As far as implications for future device design, it’s a little murkier. While cool, I don’t think the future of device design necessarily needs to be biohybrid devices with integrated living organisms—there are a lot of devices where we don’t want to depend on a slime mold’s growth in order for it to work. However, I think the device and study prompted a lot of interesting bits about what happens when you actively care for a device and invest energy into making sure it works. The slime mold integrated watch that we designed to have a care-based interaction model perhaps induces more active caretaking practices than a standard device, but I think it still suggests that caretaking practices like repair and maintenance are often missing in our relationships with the devices we own.

How we can design devices to uplift those sorts of care practices is something I’ve been actively thinking about with the project.

You’ve played a major role in fostering a community within SIGCHI, including launching the Sustainable Prototyping Practices blog series. What inspired this initiative, and what impact has it had?

When I joined the SIGCHI Sustainability Committee, I was the only member who was doing research in building out novel interactive devices and was from a lab that actively prototyped those systems. Because of this, I was super familiar with the type of HCI research that focuses on making new devices through the likes of 3D printing, electronics design, novel materials, etc. One thing about prototyping with these technologies is that it generated a lot of waste either through failed prototypes or just in the remnants of the fabrication process. I wanted to do a series to have a conversation within the community about how we deal with the amount of waste we generate in research labs when prototyping these physical systems.

Across several conversations before I started the series, I knew other labs valued sustainability and had many informal strategies for trying to be as sustainable as possible (including my own lab). We were missing a mechanism for sharing those strategies within the broader community, so I hoped to facilitate that sort of exchange. The blog also facilitated something else that I did not expect—in the interviews, in addition to talking about best practices for sustainability, we also often found ourselves talking about the challenges of doing sustainability research in HCI. Oftentimes, the blog series also identified how HCI could better support sustainability-driven research and how the sustainability-related impacts of HCI research should be evaluated.

What challenges do you see in making HCI research more sustainable, and how can the SIGCHI community address them?

I think HCI research (and the computing industry as a whole) tends to operate under the mentality of ‘build fast and break things,’ but that’s absolutely the wrong approach if we want to build more sustainable systems. We also tend to think about innovation in computing with the assumption that we will always have infinite resources to accomplish our vision. Instead, with sustainability, we need to operate within constraints and limits.

I think there’s incredible research being done within the SIGCHI community that directly tries to address these pervasive mentalities in computing research by suggesting alternatives and describing how computing infrastructure actually works in often precarious contexts (i.e., in the face of climate change with hurricanes tearing down internet infrastructure). At the same time, I think sustainability research is still primarily at the margins of HCI research, so I think building community is really at the heart of trying to make HCI research more sustainable.

You’ve been involved in organizing workshops, panels, and mentorship opportunities. What motivates your dedication to community building in HCI?

I guess first and foremost – I think the HCI community is really cool! I love that the field is so broad and encompasses so many of my interests. The community is also so diverse as it encompasses engineers, designers, anthropologists, etc., so it’s just fun to talk to people about technology.

I also think HCI is pretty good at thinking about what technology should and should not be for, which is something I like to think about a lot. Because of that, I am a big proponent of having a diversity of voices discussing that! I think it’s a huge danger to have computing research being driven by a small subset of the population, as computing technologies have so much potential to harm marginalized communities. As a woman and woman of color, I definitely know what it’s like to be the only one in the room, and it’s only through community that I’ve been able to be successful. I also have experienced how detrimental a lack of community can be, and I know how relieving it can be to find community with people who have similar values or identities (even if it’s just one person!). Because of this, I try to extend that sense of community wherever I can and support people however I can!

What advice would you give to students or researchers interested in pursuing sustainability in computing?

To do it because there’s a huge need for research in sustainable computing. I can’t tell you the number of times people have told me they didn’t realize their interest in sustainability could be combined with their interests in computing. I think most people don’t even realize that computing technologies are drastically reshaping and often really negatively impacting our ecosystems. We need more people who value sustainability to be in the field of computing.

However, I would also advise them to be critical about when technological solutions are the answer to sustainability issues, as I think computer scientists often forget how their work doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Sometimes we need to look towards how environmental justice activists or environmental policymakers are shaping sustainability issues.

What’s next for you after your PhD? Are there new directions in sustainable computing you’re eager to explore?

Yes! So many. Every project brings 5 new ideas. Right now, I’m focusing a lot on repair and exploring how we can support the average user with repairing their device. Hopefully, we can help address some of the challenges in figuring out how to repair devices rather than just throwing them away.

After my PhD, I’m hoping to be a professor and continue to do work in sustainable computing. I’ll be applying to places next Fall, so hopefully, I will have a clearer view of my next steps in a year!