H-STAR is a Stanford interdisciplinary research center focusing on people and technology

H-STAR, the Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute, is a Stanford interdisciplinary research center focusing on people and technology — how people use technology, how to better design technology to make it more usable (and more competitive in the marketplace), how technology affects people's lives, and the innovative use of technologies in research, education, art, business, commerce, entertainment, communication, national security, and other walks of life.

Among the large, complex, global problems that are at the heart of the H-STAR research agendas are:

• Reducing complexity of technology to enable its universal uses for work, learning and other vital sectors of life
• Closing digital divides across class, race, gender, age and nations, so that access to and fluencies with technologies can provide equal opportunities to learn and work productively for personal and societal well-being 
• Accelerating innovation in the creation and diffusion of products and services that better meet human needs
• Solving security and trust problems of computing, communications, and information systems at home, work and in governmental affairs
• Ensuring pervasive safety and health of people over the lifespan with human-centered technology innovations

Within H-STAR are two interdisciplinary centers that focus on particular subsets of H-STAR topics, CSLI (the Center for the Study of Language and Information) and SCIL (the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning), and an industry partners program, Media X.