Upol Ehsan | hiring PhD students Fall'26
🎯 Making AI less evil= human-centered + explainable + responsible AI
💼 Harvard Berkman Klein Fellow | CS Prof. @Northeastern | Data & Society
🏢 Prev-Georgia Tech, {Google, IBM, MSFT}Research
🔬 AI, HCI, Philosophy
☕ F1, memes
🌐 upolehsan.com
- 🚨[Pls repost!] Agentic AI is stress-testing Explainable AI. We need to fix it. That's why I'm thrilled to announce the 6th Human-Centered Explainable AI (HCXAI) workshop at CHI 2026 in Barcelona! 🚀 📝 2-5 page single column papers (excluding refs) 🗓️ Deadline: Feb 19, 2026 🔗 hcxai.jimdosite.com 1/n
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- Trump is MAGA for Mamdani. I've never seen another politician being as adept as Mamdani when it comes to coming back to the point. How is he this good? My hot take: it's his training as a rapper. Somewhere there's a thesis to be written on nerdy rappers who end up as professionals.
- 📣 (pls repost, self plugs welcomed!): Looking for papers on the precarity of *knowledge/white-collar workers* under AI. Lots on gig work + AI, but less on how non-unionized, higher-income knowledge workers face rising risks from AI systems they help create. Got recs? #academicSky #HCI #AI
- Test of Time awards eat Best Paper awards for lunch 🔥🔥🔥 Given how fast moving Computer Science is as a field, work that stands the test of time is the real deal 💯 Congrats @markriedl.bsky.social! So wholesome to see fellow EI-lab alum @matthewguz.bsky.social up there as well!
- My mentor @markriedl.bsky.social posted this from the AIES conference. Made my day! Turns out people were opening conversations by saying: "Hey… you're Upol's advisor, right?" On the surface, hilarious. Underneath, it's the mentoring philosophy he's practiced for years. Here's why: 1/n
- There are many ways to motivate people. We've seen what fear and division do. Now we've a chance to see what hope and unity can do.
- Thank you, New York City. Together we made history. Now let’s get to work. transition2025.com
- Didn't realize Bsky logged me out. Came back to this banger. Made my day!
- Peak academic mood: ghosting Nobel Prize for solitude. ✨ The real prize was peace.
- Academics after a paper deadline. #academicSky
- It is eye opening to see the same CS conference venues loudly talking about "accessibility" and "allyship" are forcing people to travel (regardless of visa/health issues) and banning hybrid efforts.
- ⚠️ The #CHI2026 paper I submitted? It almost didn't exist. That's the BTS part academics never post. So I will…to normalize what I call unglamorous persistence. This summer was one of my hardest, mentally. 🌥️ Between ... 1/n
- 🎉 Post-CHI submission reflection: Yes, academia has its mess. But amidst all that, there's one joy I keep coming back to...building something meaningful with people you truly love working with. This summer.... 1/n #academicsky #chi2026 #collaboration
- 'Tis that time of the year, homies. May your contributions be accepted by the grumpy R2s #academicSky #chi2026
- Tried something new today. Gave quick nods to everyone wearing a respirator at the airport. Almost everyone nodded back. A few even gestured to the respirator. A quick "I see you homie" moment. People understood the assignment y'all.
- Reposted by Upol Ehsan | hiring PhD students Fall'26
- gpt5 writes like it considers mayonnaise is spicy. and considers salt and pepper as spices.
- Homies, you aren't getting it. The math isn't wrong. It's just GPT-5 being "PhD level"
- [Pls repost] Hi folks, do you have any templates for reasonable accommodations letters written by your provider/doc for Long Covid? I'm collecting samples to help the broader community, esp those who are underserved. If you feel comfortable sharing, it will help a lot of people. DMs open.
- The Onion used to make jokes. Now it does academic ethnography.
- 🧠 LLMs don’t think; they 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 thinking. Treating performance as proof is how we fall into the 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲. Enjoyed reading this paper: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Findings from the paper that were worth my time, reflections, and takeaways ↓
- Imagine this being your opening line. Reads like someone asked ChatGPT: “Write a DM to an expert but make it weird.” what a time to be alive.
