New professor brings focus on human-centered machine learning

While she won’t be officially joining as an assistant professor until the spring of 2021, Stevie Chancellor is the newest faculty member in the Computer Science & Engineering department at the University of Minnesota.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Stevie to the team. She will extend our existing expertise in social computing into the crucial area of human-centered artificial intelligence,” shared Loren Terveen, CS&E associate department head.

Chancellor is excited to join the dynamic computer science faculty at the U of M. “Minnesota has always stood out to me as a strong department supported by a comprehensive university,” she noted.

“I can’t wait to get to Minneapolis and join a collegial group of people, who are conducting cutting-edge research and committed to mentoring junior faculty members.” - Stevie Chancellor

She will be teaching as well as conducting research as part of the GroupLens lab. Dr. Chancellor’s research combines approaches from human computer interaction and machine learning to build and critically evaluate human-centered machine learning in online communities, focusing currently on high-risk health behaviors, such as suicidal ideation, pro-eating disorder, and opioid addiction.

“I’m looking forward to collaborating with peers inside of the Computer Science & Engineering department and combining our interests to shape joint research proposals,” said Chancellor. “I’m also excited to collaborate with the Medical School to help support the clinical and health side of my research.”

To date, Chancellor’s research has produced 13 publications in premier venues and has received four Honorable Mention awards at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) and the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Additionally, her work has been featured in national publications such as The Atlantic, Wired, and Gizmodo.

Dr. Chancellor is currently the CS + X Postdoctoral Fellow in Computer Science at Northwestern University. She received her doctorate in human-centered computing from Georgia Tech in 2019, her master of arts in communication, culture, and technology from Georgetown University in 2014, and her bachelor of arts in media studies from the University of Virginia in 2012.