Shreya Shankar, a final-year PhD student at UC Berkeley specializing in AI tools for data, will join the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon in fall 2027. She will also hold an honorary position at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute and is already seeking PhD students for her group.
AI Systems and Human-Machine Collaboration 🤖
Her research focuses on designing AI systems that not only automate tasks but also enable seamless collaboration with humans. Shankar has worked on tools for debugging data pipelines and interfaces that explain model decisions. The goal is to reduce the friction between what AI does and what the user understands, a key area for the development of intelligent assistants in professional environments.
The Drama of Recruiting PhD Students Before Moving the Office 🎭
The most curious part is that she is already recruiting PhD students for 2027, while she still has months of thesis left and probably hasn't decided what plants she will put in her new office. One imagines candidates asking about the project and her responding: I don't even know where the coffee machine is yet, but I promise the AI will be great. At least, uncertainty is a classic in academia.