AI should help people work better with other people. To achieve this, AI should help us think more broadly and deeply about the people we’re working with, instead of merely generating content to send to others. That vision animates my research and teaching.
My research focus is on AI for writing. My dissertation work showed that even simple AI suggestions nudged people to write less thoughtfully, so I have been working on alternative ways that AI could help writers serve readers, especially through revising their writing. Student researchers have contributed to various projects along this theme, including tools that have AI generate questions (rather than answers), tools that help writers see their work from different perspectives, and tools to help writers express and enact their revision goals.
For more, see Publications and Projects.
Highlighted Posts
Updates
- 2024-03-18: Student first author Jiho Kim presented Towards Full Authorship with AI: Supporting Revision with AI-Generated Views at HAI-GEN 2024 workshop at IUI 2024
- 2023-10-27: Poster from summer research work presented at WMRUGS and Calvin
- 2023-07-27: Presented at ASA 2023 in Toronto (with 3 summer students)
- 2023-07-01: Awarded NSF CRII grant for writing research
- 2023-06-01: 7-student summer research team begins work
- 2023-03-06: University Panel on ChatGPT
- 2023-02-14: Calvin Philosophy Club roundtable on AI
- 2023-01-26: Talk at Big Data Ignite: “ChatGPT is Not Magic”
Teaching
I teach computer science, data science, and machine learning. Recent classes:
- DATA 202 Data Science 2, a data wrangling, predictive modeling, and visualization course in Python (pandas, plotly, sklearn, etc.), with a project emphasis. (In prior years I taught this using R tidyverse.)
- CS 375 / 376 AI and Machine Learning, formerly CS 344 Artificial Intelligence, a hands-on (but also concept-heavy) machine learning course based F. Chollet’s Deep Learning with Python (formerly, based on the fast.ai course) and Hugging Face Transformers
- CS 108 Introduction to Computing and CS 106, Calvin’s first-year Computer Science courses, in Python.
- INFO 602 Predictive Analytics (for Calvin’s MBA program)
See CV for others.
Doing research with me
I welcome students who are interested in human-computer interaction, machine learning, data science, interactive visualization, and Christian perspectives on data and computation. I have a range of ideas and ongoing projects, but bring your own interests too! Please contact me via email (Calvin: ka37) or Teams.
Education
- PhD in Computer Science, Harvard, 2020
- MS in Media Arts and Sciences, MIT, 2010
- BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell, 2007
Selected Press Coverage
- (2019-08-12) How ‘smart’ email could change the way we talk. BBC Future.
- (2023-09-11) AI Will Shape Your Soul. Christianity Today.
