Department Directory

Paul Ginsparg is a professor of information science and physics. Among his many awards and honors, Ginsparg is a fellow of the MacArthur Foundation, the American Physical Society, the Alfred P. Sloane Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute, and is a recipient of the Einstein Foundation Berlin Award and the Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics. He is the founder of arXiv, the preeminent open-access, preprint repository. Ginsparg received an A.B. in physics from Harvard in 1977 and a Ph.D. in physics from Cornell in 1981. He joined the Cornell faculty in 2001. 

Carla Gomes is the Ronald C. and Antonia V. Nielsen Professor of Computing and Information Science, director of the Institute for Computational Sustainability at Cornell University, and co-director of the Cornell University AI for Science Institute. Gomes received a Ph.D. in computer science in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. Her research area is AI with a focus on large-scale constraint reasoning, optimization, and machine learning. 

Keith Evan Green is the Jean and Douglas McLean Professor of Human Centered Design and professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. Green is also Graduate Field member in the Department of Information Science. 

Green's Architectural Robotics Lab (ARL) investigates a new frontier in human-machine interaction: meticulously designed, increasingly intelligent, cyber-physical environments that support and augment us at work, school and home, as we roam, interconnect and age. In architectural robotics, computation is embedded in the physical fabric of our living environments, manifested mostly as robotic devices, furniture and rooms. Green’s book Architectural Robotics: Ecosystems of Bits, Bytes and Biology (MIT Press) defines this emerging field at the interface of design, robotics and psychology. A registered architect, Green earned B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
 

James Grimmelmann is the Tessler Family Professor of Digital and Information Law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School. He studies how laws regulating software affect freedom, wealth, and power. He helps lawyers and technologists understand each other, applying ideas from computer science to problems in law and vice versa.

François Guimbretière is a professor of information science. Guimbretière's research explores how hardware/software co-design can deliver novel interactions in a broad set of application domains. Blending system building and design, Guimbretière and his students strive to turn future visions of seamless interactions into today’s reality. His prior work explored pen-based interfaces on paper and screen. He currently focuses on novel fabrication techniques, such as interactive printing and yarn-based fabrication. He is also interested in the intersection of HRI and sustainability, including the design of immersive and engaging remote collaboration interfaces that limit our reliance on physical travel. For more information, visit Guimbretière's ACM webpage for the most up-to-date description of his work.

Joe Halpern is a professor of computer science. His research focuses on the interface between game and decision theory and computer science, on reasoning about knowledge and uncertainty, and on causality. He has also done work on and continues to think actively about security, (fault tolerant) distributed computing, and modal logic. His work lies at the boundary of a number of fields. He said, "I once gave a talk in the economics department at Princeton where I described myself as someone with a Ph.D. in mathematics, who calls himself a computer scientist, and is giving a talk to economists about a subject mainly studied by philosophers. That's probably the best one-sentence description I can give." 
 

Kyle Harms teaches courses emphasizing programming and human-computer interaction, often with web technologies. He primarily focuses on classroom innovation at scale. His pedagogical approach incorporates active learning methods, motivating students with personal projects, and carefully integrating generative AI into the classroom.

Haym Hirsh is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University. His research has focused on foundations and applications of machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, and artificial intelligence, especially targeting questions that integrally involve both people and computing. Most recently these interests have turned to crowdsourcing, human computation, and collective intelligence. Haym received his B.S. from the Mathematics and Computer Science Departments at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. Prior to moving to Cornell in 2013 to serve as dean of the Faculty of Computing and Information Science, Hirsh spent 24 years on the computer science faculty at Rutgers University, and has had visiting positions at AT&T Labs, Bar-Ilan University, Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and the University of Zurich. From 2006-2010 he served as director of the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems at the National Science Foundation. In 2022 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 
 

I study politics and health, especially the social effects of government actions and how small groups of people adapt to sudden changes in their lives. 

My recent projects have studied the development of public attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act, how social networks heal after a death, and unintended consequences of online censorship in China. Most of my methodological work focuses on causal inference, representative sampling, and machine learning with small training sets.

Some of my work has been covered in popular media, including The Atlantic, Science Magazine, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
 

Dr. Guy Hoffman is an Associate Professor and the Mills Family Faculty Fellow in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. Prior to that he was an Assistant Professor at IDC Herzliya and co-director of the IDC Media Innovation Lab. Hoffman heads the Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship (HRC²) group, studying the algorithms, interaction patterns, and designs enabling the co-existence of people and robots in the workplace and at home. Among others, Hoffman developed the world’s first human-robot joint theater performance, and the first real-time improvising human-robot Jazz duet. His research papers won several top academic awards, including Best Paper awards in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. In both 2010 and 2012, he was selected as one of Israel’s most promising researchers under forty. His TEDx talk is one of the most viewed online talks on robotics, watched more than 3 million times. Hoffman holds a Ph.D from MIT in the field of human-robot interaction and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University as part of the Adi Lautman interdisciplinary excellence scholarship program.

Hoffman heads the Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship HRC² group studying the algorithms, interaction schema, and designs enabling close interactions between people and personal robots in the workplace and at home. His research interests include human-robot collaboration and companionship, embodied cognition for social robots, anticipation and timing in HRI and multi-agent MDPs, nonverbal behavior in HRI, robotics for the performing arts, and non-anthropomorphic robot design. Hoffman's research papers won several top academic awards, including Best Paper awards at HRI and robotics conferences in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, and 2015. In both 2010 and 2012, he was selected as one of Israel’s most promising researchers under forty.

To learn more about Hoffman's research, visit here.
 

Lee Humphreys is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. She is interested in the social uses and perceived effects of communication technology. Her research has explored mobile phone use in public spaces and emerging norms on mobile social networks both in the US and in Indonesia. Using qualitative field methods, she focuses on how people integrate communication technology in their everyday lives in order to facilitate identity management and social interaction. Her work also explores how people perceive privacy and surveillance issues around mobile social media. Her research also seeks to historicize new media. She teaches New Media & Society, Mobile Communication in Public Life, Qualitative Research Methods and the Sociology of Communication. She received her BS in Communication from Cornell University and her MA and PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
 

Steve Jackson is a professor of information science and science & technology studies, with additional graduate field appointments in communication and public affairs. He is also the former chair of information science and former dean of William Keeton House. Since July 2023, he has also served as Vice Provost for Academic Innovation at Cornell.  

Thorsten Joachims is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of computer science and information science at Cornell University. He has also served as the interim dean for Cornell Bowers and as associate dean for research and as chair of the Department of Information Science. He is the director of the Cornell AI Initiative and Radical Collaboration. He has served as program chair of the ICML, KDD, and RecSys conferences, and he is a member of the IMLS Board and the SIGKDD Executive Committee. Thorsten Joachims joined Cornell in 2001 after finishing his Ph. D. as a student of Prof. Morik at the University of Dortmund, from where he also received a Diplom in computer science in 1997. 

Wendy Ju is an associate professor of information science at Cornell Tech, the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Malte Jung is an associate professor of information science at Cornell University and the Nancy H. ’62 and Philip M. ’62 Young Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow. He directs the Interplay Research Studio that explores the interplay between people and automation.

Saleh Kalantari is the Lois and Mel Tukman Assistant Professor in Cornell University’s Department of Human Centered Design, with graduate field faculty appointments in the Department of Information Science. He is the director of the Design and Augmented Intelligence Lab (DAIL) at Cornell, where his research group investigates human–technology partnerships in the design process with the goal of amplifying the effectiveness of design practice and expanding our knowledge about the outcomes of design. Dr. Kalantari’s work promotes the generative-design approach and the adoption of new design technologies to improve the relationship between people and their created environments. Drawing from behavioral and neurological research methods, he studies human spatial experiences in both virtual and real-world contexts.

Dr. Kalantari’s research has led to applications in the computational evaluation of design outcomes, including an evidence-based, cognitive-agent model for simulating diverse human behaviors in relation to prospective building designs. He also has developed virtual reality (VR) games tailored for enhancing spatial wayfinding skills in older adults. Dr. Kalantari’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s program in Human-centered Computing; by the National Institute of Health (NIH)’s National Institute on Aging; and by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). His work has been recognized through the Center for Health Design’s Touchstone Award. 

Prior to joining Cornell, Dr. Kalantari taught at the University of Houston and Washington State University. He previously worked as a design researcher at Parkin Architects Ltd., where his team won multiple recognitions, including an International Academy for Design and Health (IADH) Award for their work on the Southwest Regional Forensic Mental Health Centre. He holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from Texas A&M University.
 

​Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao is an Assistant Professor of Design + Environmental Analysis at Cornell University. She holds a Ph.D. from the MIT Media Lab. Her research practice themed Hybrid Body Craft blends aesthetic and cultural perspectives into the design of on-body interfaces. She also creates novel processes for crafting technology close to the body. Her research has been presented at various conferences and magazines (ACM CHI, UbiComp/ISWC, TEI, UIST, ACM Interactions, IEEE Pervasive Computing), while receiving media coverage by CNN, TIME, Forbes, Fast Company, WIRED, among others. Her work has been exhibited and shown internationally at The Boston Museum of Fine Art, Ars Electronica, Dutch Design Week, New York Fashion Week, and more. She has worked at Microsoft Research developing cosmetics-inspired wearables, and is a recipient of the Google Anita Borg Scholarship. Among her awards include an Honorable Mention/Best Paper Award at ACM CHI, UIST and ISWC, the A'Design Award, the Fast Company Innovation by Design Award Finalist, an Ars Electronica STARTS Prize Nomination, and the SXSW Interactive Innovation Award.

Prior to the MIT Media Lab, she earned a Master's degree in Computer Science; and two Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and in Technology Management, all from National Taiwan University.
 

Rene Kizilcec is an associate professor of information science at Cornell, where he directs the Cornell Future of Learning Lab. Kizilcec studies behavioral, psychological, and computational aspects of technology in education to inform practices and policies that promote learning, equity, and academic and career success. His work has appeared in Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, won multiple awards, and is funded by the National Science Foundation, Schmidt Futures Foundation, and Jacobs Foundation. Kizilcec holds a Ph.D. in communication and M.Sc. in statistics from Stanford University.

Jon Kleinberg is a professor in both computer science and information science. His research focuses on issues at the interface of networks and information, with an emphasis on the social and information networks that underpin the Web and other online media. His work has been supported by an NSF Career Award, an ONR Young Investigator Award, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Packard Foundation Fellowship, a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and grants from Google, Yahoo!, and the NSF. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

Robert Kleinberg is an associate professor of computer science at Cornell University and a member of the field of information science. His research studies the design and analysis of algorithms and their applications to electronic commerce, networking, information retrieval, and other areas. Prior to receiving his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005, Kleinberg spent three years at Akamai Technologies, where he assisted in designing the world's largest Internet Content Delivery Network. He is the recipient of a Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and an NSF CAREER Award.