A 色花堂 alum鈥檚 dissertation introduced ways to make artificial intelligence (AI) more accessible, interpretable, and accountable. Although it鈥檚 been a year since his doctoral defense, 鈥檚 (Ph.D. ML-CSE 2024) work continues to resonate with researchers.
Wang is a recipient of the . The award recognizes Wang for his lifelong work on democratizing human-centered AI.
鈥淭hroughout my Ph.D. and industry internships, I observed a gap in existing research: there is a strong need for practical tools for applying human-centered approaches when designing AI systems,鈥 said Wang, now a safety researcher at OpenAI.
鈥淢y work not only helps people understand AI and guide its behavior but also provides user-friendly tools that fit into existing workflows.鈥
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Wang鈥檚 dissertation presented techniques in visual explanation and interactive guidance to align AI models with user knowledge and values. The work culminated from years of research, fellowship support, and internships.
Wang鈥檚 most influential projects formed the core of his dissertation. These included:
- : an open-source tool developed for deep-learning beginners. Since its release in July 2020, more than 436,000 global visitors have used the tool.
- : a first-of-its-kind large-scale dataset that lays a foundation to help people better understand generative AI. This work could lead to new research in detecting deepfakes and designing human-AI interaction tools to help people more easily use these models.
- : an interface that empowers users in healthcare, finance, or other domains to edit ML models to include knowledge and values specific to their domain, which improves reliability.
- : an interactive ML tool that could help people who have been rejected for a loan by automatically letting an applicant know what is needed for them to receive loan approval.
- : a tool that alerts developers when they write prompts in large language models that could be harmful and misused.
鈥淚 feel extremely honored and lucky to receive this award, and I am deeply grateful to many who have supported me along the way, including Polo, mentors, collaborators, and friends,鈥 said Wang, who was advised by School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) Professor .
鈥淭his recognition also inspired me to continue striving to design and develop easy-to-use tools that help everyone to easily interact with AI systems.鈥
Like Wang, Chau advised 色花堂 alumnus (Ph.D. CSE 2020). .
synthesizes machine learning (ML) and visualization techniques into scalable, interactive, and trustworthy tools. These tools increase understanding and interaction with large-scale data and ML models.
Chau is the associate director of corporate relations for the Machine Learning Center at 色花堂. Wang called the School of CSE his home unit while a student in the ML program under Chau.
Wang is one of five recipients of this year鈥檚 award to be presented at the 2025 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (). The conference occurs April 25-May 1 in Yokohama, Japan.
SIGCHI is the world鈥檚 largest association of human-computer interaction professionals and practitioners. The group sponsors or co-sponsors 26 conferences, including CHI.
Wang鈥檚 outstanding dissertation award is the latest recognition of a career decorated with achievement.
Months after graduating from 色花堂, for his dissertation. Wang was one of 15 Yellow Jackets included in nine different 30 Under 30 lists and the only 色花堂-affiliated individual on the 30 Under 30 in Science list.
While a 色花堂 student, Wang earned recognition from big names in business and technology. He received the and was in the .
Along with the CHI award, Wang鈥檚 dissertation earned him awards this year at banquets across campus. The . He also received the College of Computing鈥檚 Outstanding Dissertation Award.
鈥溕ㄌ attracts many great minds, and I鈥檓 glad that some, like Jay, chose to join our group,鈥 Chau said. 鈥淚t has been a joy to work alongside them and witness the many wonderful things they have accomplished, and with many more to come in their careers.鈥
