PrincetonCS

Maryam Hedayati, an expert in human-computer interaction, has joined the computer science department as a member of the teaching faculty.

Inspired by her undergraduate professors Carleton College, Hedayati is excited to introduce Princeton students to computer science. In an intro class, she said, students are learning to think in a whole new way. "I really enjoy helping them through that.”

https://bit.ly/4sq73T4

Congratulations to Anha Khan on winning first place in the student research competition at SIGCSE, an ACM conference dedicated to improving computer science education. 🥇

Khan, a senior, won first place for her thesis project. She developed and deployed a custom LLM, CubBot, that students used in COS 324: Introduction to Machine Learning, an upper-level course. She gathered empirical evidence about how students used CubBot, showing how generative AI tools can impact learning outcomes.

Congratulations to Sayash Kapoor on winning the Jacobus Fellowship, Princeton University's top honor for graduate students. 🎉🏅

The core of Kapoor's dissertation, “AI’s Impact on Science and Society,” is improving rigor in evaluations of artificial intelligence.

https://bit.ly/4c2EEOk

Congratulations to Ben Eysenbach on being awarded a 2026 Sloan Foundation fellowship!

The fellowship recognizes creative early-career researchers. Eysenbach, an assistant professor of computer science, is an expert in reinforcement learning.

https://bit.ly/3ZCf6jD

Schmidt Sciences has awarded Peter Henderson an award from the Humanities and AI Virtual Institute.

The award supports Henderson's work building AI tools that help scholars understand legal thinking across jurisdictions since the nation’s founding.

https://bit.ly/4aGLTJv

Jialin Ding, expert in databases and systems, has joined the dept.

“To most people, databases are kind of opaque, because they work behind the scenes,” Ding said. While a typical user doesn’t interact with databases directly, they power nearly every application.

Ding’s research focuses on using machine learning techniques to tailor data storage and indexing to the unique needs of the user or the application, in order to optimize speed and efficiency.

https://bit.ly/4kfSkYd

Congrats to Alison Lee on being named a Schwarzman Scholar!

Lee graduated from Princeton University in 2024 with a degree in computer science. She will attend a one-year, fully funded master’s program at
Tsinghua University in Beijing.

https://bit.ly/4k1xGen

Before Amazon, Microsoft and Google built today’s cloud, computer scientists built PlanetLab, a pioneering system that linked servers at research universities across the world.

Led by Larry Peterson at Princeton University, PlanetLab allowed researchers to test ideas and build new, innovative computer systems and networks.

Dozens of services that are now key to the modern internet, including content delivery networks for streaming, were prototyped on PlanetLab.

bit.ly/4qYRFwm

Adji Bousso Dieng and her lab have developed an ML tool to speed discovery of metal organic frameworks.

These materials can absorb and filter substances at the molecular level, potentially improving batteries, carbon capture and access to clean water.

https://bit.ly/49cqsjU

Congratulations to Ellen Zhong and Mohammad Seyedsayamdost on being selected for an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund award!

Zhong, assistant professor of computer science, is working with Seyedsayamdost, professor of chemistry, to develop a new AI system to transform how scientists identify small molecules.

Their work is one of four Princeton research projects to be selected for funding this year: https://bit.ly/44Zc1x9

Kyle Jamieson, expert in wireless systems, has been named a Fellow of the IEEE.

He has been recognized for "contributions to indoor localization and sensing, and physics-inspired wireless network design.”

Jamieson's research uses classical, quantum and physics-inspired computation to expand efficiency of wireless systems to meet increasing demand for connectivity.

https://bit.ly/3XMNuav

Researchers @citp@micro.blogs.princeton.edu have created a new tool, FairFare, that gives gig workers access to aggregate wage data that companies do not provide.

The tool has been used by labor unions to advocate for greater wage transparency.

Learn more about the research from @andresmh@hci.social, @varunrao@hci.social and @samanthadalal@hci.social and others!

https://bit.ly/3XFzO11

Using a new deep learning algorithm, researchers at Princeton University have designed an approach to map the cellular organization of tissues by modeling spatial patterns in molecular data. This development has implications for advancing cancer treatment and understanding aging, development and other cellular processes.

https://bit.ly/3MlUvfQ

Join us for the next CS Colloquium Seminar on Monday, November 17!

Christian Borgs, professor at UC-Berkeley, will discuss whether travel bans are effective at containing the spread of disease.

🗓️ Monday, Nov 17
🕛12:10pm
🏛️ CS 105

Brenden Lake, an expert in human and machine intelligence, joins Princeton as an associate professor of computer science and psychology.

He studies intelligence in machines and people, how each learns differently and how they draw on what they know.

“Despite the amazing progress in AI, people are still smarter than machines in so many different ways,” Lake said. “We’re trying to understand why.”

Learn more: https://bit.ly/4oClD8T

Victoria Dean has joined the department as a member of the teaching faculty.

Dean said she's excited to be at a liberal arts university like at Princeton and get to work with students who "want look at machine learning through different lenses.”

https://bit.ly/4ox269M

Join us for the next CS Colloquium Seminar on Monday, November 10!

Ben Shneiderman, professor at the University of Maryland, will discuss Human-Centered AI, a new approach that integrates AI technologies with human-computer interaction.

🗓️ Monday, Nov 10
⏲️ 12:10pm
🏛️ CS 105

@hci@micro.blogs.princeton.edu

Undergraduates Venkat Subramanian and Patrick Chen and doctoral students Hongyu Wen and Yiming Zou recently attended the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) in Hawaii! 🙌

Subramanian, Class of 2027, said he never thought he would be able to contribute to cutting-edge research in ML as an undergrad, but "the support of my lab group, Princeton faculty, and the numerous friends I have made in the COS department made pursuing such innovative work feel tremendously more accessible."

"The first thing we had to do was buy a computer."

Robert Sedgewick was the founding chair of the computer science department from 1985-1994. That period in computing, he recalls, was transformational for the university and the world.

In 2025, the department continues to educate the next generation of leaders and foster innovation in the nation's service and the service of humanity.

Until now, pricing structure on rideshare apps has been opaque. 🚗

To help fix this, The Workers' Algorithm Observatory, including @andresmh@hci.social and @varunrao@hci.social created the FairFare app to crowdsource payment info from drivers.

Now, thanks in part to the data collected by FairFare, Colorado has passed a law mandating rideshare payment transparency.

Learn more on the @citp@micro.blogs.princeton.edu blog!

https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2025/03/25/revolutionizing-rideshare-researchers-develop-fairfare-app-to-empower-workers/

Manoel Horta Ribeiro joined the computer science faculty in January. He is an associated faculty member at @citp@micro.blogs.princeton.edu.

His research focuses on how people interact with computing tools, everything from social media to crowdsourcing platforms to AI chatbots. He not only studies how people use these platforms, he also works on ways to build better systems.

https://bit.ly/3XKOw75

Congratulations to grad students Kun Woo Cho, Dan Friedman, Sunnie S. Y. Kim, Sadhika Malladi and Zirui Colin Wang on being named 2025 Siebel Scholars! 🎉

Now in its 24th year, the Siebel Scholars Program awards fellowships to students based on academic achievement and leadership. The 78 distinguished fellows of the Class of 2025 join a worldwide network of more than 1,900 fellowship alumni.

https://bit.ly/3ZLtrv4

Congrats to @andresmh@micro.blogs.princeton.edu on receiving the Graduate Mentoring Award from the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning and Princeton's Graduate School!

“He was always available to meet and provided actionable feedback,” said one student. “He was also kind and supportive. Those who know Andrés will agree he has an amazing ring of positive energy.”

Congrats to Huacheng Yu on receiving a National Science Foundation CAREER award, a top honor for early career faculty! 🎉

Yu, an assistant professor of computer science, will use the grant for research on data structures and streaming algorithms.

https://bit.ly/4bahXV3

Marcel Dall'Agnol, an expert in theoretical computer science, joined the department as teaching faculty in September 2023.

Dall'Agnol was an elementary school teacher for disadvantaged students before completing his Ph.D. at the University of Warwick.

https://bit.ly/3xGAUj3

Check out the PAW Princeton profile of @andresmh@micro.blogs.princeton.edu who leads the @hci@micro.blogs.princeton.edu lab at Princeton.

He's working to build tech that serves the greater good — including research aimed at making platforms like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash better and more equitable for gig workers.

https://paw.princeton.edu/article/human-computer-interaction-lab-tackles-gig-economy