About me
Hi, this is Haiyi Zhu (Chinese characters: 朱海一). My first name is pronounced “High-ee”.
I am an Associate Professor of Human-Computer Interaction and the Director of HCI Undergraduate Programs at Carnegie Mellon University. I also direct the Social AI Group at CMU.
About my research: I conduct research in Human-AI Interaction. At a high level, I study both AI and human behavior. I draw on theoretical knowledge and principles from the social sciences to inform the design of innovative AI applications. In turn, new AI applications shape emerging patterns of human behavior, which I examine through mixed-method empirical studies to advance our scientific understanding of how people interact with AI. Through rigorous, interdisciplinary research at the intersection of social science and AI, I aim to design AI for collective well-being by developing technologies that nurture meaningful human-to-human relationships, foster cohesive and collaborative communities, and enable more effective and compassionate organizations and society.
My research is supported by multiple programs at the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and various industry sponsors. I have received more than ten paper awards at venues such as CHI, CSCW, Human Factors, and CHIWORK, as well as honors including Pittsburgh’s 40 Under 40 and the Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence. You can download my CV here. Check out the class I teach: Human AI Interaction (2020-present).
Selected research
* My research follows a “two hats” framework, as I approach this research area from two complementary roles. Wearing the AI designer hat, I use insights from human behavior and social science to guide the design of AI systems that support human relationships and collective well-being. Wearing the social scientist hat, I study how people interact with AI in real-world settings, examining emerging practices, patterns, and needs to advance our scientific understanding of human behavior around AI.
Research under the “AI Designer” Hat
- Botender: Supporting Communities in Collaboratively Designing AI Agents through Case-Based Provocations [Link, Accepted at CHI 2026].
- Designing a Multi-Agent System to Support Couple Therapy Training and Practice [Link]
- Social Simulation for Everyday Self-Care: Design Insights from Leveraging VR, AR, and LLMs for Practicing Stress Relief [CHI 2025 Best Paper Honorable Mention🏆]
- If This Person is Suicidal, What Do I Do?”: Designing Computational Approaches to Help Online Volunteers Respond to Suicidality [ACM Link, CHI 2024]
- Gig2Gether: Datasharing to Empower, Unify and Demistify Gig Work [Best Paper Honorable Mention at CHI 2025🏆]
Research under the “Social Scientist” Hat
- Improving Human-AI Partnerships in Child Welfare: Understanding Worker Practices, Challenges, and Desires for Algorithmic Decision Support [ACM Link, CHI 2022 Best Paper Honorable Mention🏆]
- Understanding Frontline Workers’ and Unhoused Individuals’ Perspectives on AI Used in Homeless Services [ACM Link, CHI 2023 Best Paper Award 🏆]
- Factors Influencing Perceived Fairness in Algorithmic Decision-Making: Algorithm Outcomes, Development Procedures, and Individual Differences [ACM Link, CHI 2020].
- Explaining Decision-Making Algorithms through UI: Strategies to Help Non-Expert Stakeholders [ACM Link, CHI 2019].
- Public Technologies Transforming Work of the Public and the Public Sector [ACM Link, CHIWORK 2024 Best Paper 🏆].
- Keeping Community in the Loop: Understanding Wikipedia Stakeholder Values for Machine Learning-Based Systems [ACM Link, CHI 2020 Best Paper Honourable Mention🏆].
News
March 2026: I am very excited that a joint collaboration center between Teleperformance and CMU has launched. Stay tuned for more press releases.
Feb 2026: I will also serve as the General Chair of Human–Agent Interaction 2026, and I am very excited to help nurture the research community in this area.
April 2025 – Our paper, “Gig2Gether: Datasharing to Empower, Unify and Demistify Gig Work”, received a Best Paper Honorable Mention at CHI 2025.
April 2025 – Our paper, “Social Simulation for Everyday Self-Care: Design Insights from Leveraging VR, AR, and LLMs for Practicing Stress Relief”, received a Best Paper Honorable Mention at CHI 2025.
Nov 2024 – I am very honored to be named to the 2024 Class of Pittsburgh’s 40 Under 40.
July 2024 – Our paper – “Public Technologies Transforming Work of the Public and the Public Sector” [link] – received best paper award at CHIWORK 2024!
July 2023 – Our paper – “Designing Individualized Policy and Technology Interventions to Improve Gig Work Conditions” [link] – received best paper award at CHIWORK 2023!
April 2023 – Our paper – “Understanding Frontline Workers’ and Unhoused Individuals’ Perspectives on AI Used in Homeless Services” [link] – received best paper award at CHI 2023!
2023.02 – Our paper -“A Validity Perspective on Evaluating the Justified Use of Data-driven Decision-making Algorithms”[link] – received best paper award at IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning (SaTML) 2023!
2022.04 – The AP article reported our CHI paper – “How Child Welfare Workers Reduce Racial Disparities in Algorithmic Decisions” [Link]. Some new follow-up [AP 2023.01].
2022.04 – Three papers accepted by CHI 2022. Please check out our Honorable Mention paper “Improving Human-AI Partnerships in Child Welfare: Understanding Worker Practices, Challenges, and Desires for Algorithmic Decision Support” [Link].
2022.06 – Four papers appeared at FAccT 2022. These papers explored a wide range of topics related to fair and responsible AI, including imagining new futures beyond predictive systems in child welfare [link], designing model card authoring toolkit [link], exploring how practitioners (try to) use fairness toolkits [link], and studying algorithmic content moderation systems [link].
2021.10 – Our paper “Join, Stay or Go? A Closer Look at Members’ Life Cycles in Online Health Communities” has been awarded an Honorable Mention at CSCW 2021 [link]
2020.8 – Our 2 million, 3-year NSF award on “Empowering and Enhancing Workers Through Building A Community-Centered Gig Economy” has been funded [Award Abstract]!