[1] Her research concerns humanistic informatics, feminist approaches to human–computer interaction, and sustainable design.
She received a master's degree in 1994 and completed her Ph.D. in 2004, with the dissertation Hospitality and Gift Exchange: Reciprocity and Its Roles in Two Medieval Narratives.
[2] After continuing at Indiana University Bloomington as a visiting assistant professor in the School of Public Health, she took a position as an assistant professor in the School of Informatics and Computing of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis in 2007.
She took over the department chair previously held by Ayanna Howard, who became dean of engineering at Ohio State University.
[4] Bardzell received the SIGCHI Societal Impact Award in 2023, and in 2024 she was named to the CHI Academy.