I am a human-centered NLP researcher focused on mutual interpretability: language models that can interpret implicit meaning in human communication, and systems whose behavior humans can interpret in turn.
I am currently a postdoc in Computer Science, working with Ellie Pavlick at Brown University. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University, advised by Kathleen McKeown. My thesis focused on interpretation and interpretability in subjective domains. Prior to graduate school, I worked on GPT-3 at OpenAI (co-first-author on Language Models are Few-Shot Learners), and machine learning research at Apple.
My work is unified by a central focus on prioritizing human well-being in how we develop and use AI, including respect for human expertise, lived experience, and data privacy. I am currently interested in: (1) improving long-term memory for chatbots across multi-session interactions through continual learning in weights, in-context effects and external memory, (2) protecting users by ensuring safe responses in sensitive conversations and preserving human agency, control, and ownership in AI collaborations, and (3) building systems of collective AI governance that protect people’s data and provide avenues to challenge and direct AI development. My goal is humanistic AI grounded in mutual interpretability.
Research themes
News
- Nov 2026Gave a talk, “Optimism in AI: A Human Problem,” at the Hope and Optimism conference.
- Oct 2026Awarded a $25,000 Goodfire research grant to study behavioral drift in long contexts.
- Sep 2026Ownership in AI-Assisted Everyday Tasks accepted to the AI & the Self workshop at NeurIPS 2026.
- Sep 2026Started as a postdoc at Brown University with Ellie Pavlick.
- Jun 2026Completed my Ph.D. at Columbia and received the department's PhD Service Award.
For students
I love working with students. At Columbia I mentored eleven undergraduate and master's students, many of whom published at top-tier venues (NeurIPS, EMNLP, TACL, ACL) and went on to Ph.D. programs (see where they are now).
Undergrads and master’s students @ Brown: If you are interested in getting involved with research or advice on next steps after Brown, send me an email or drop by SOLAR Lab hours.