David Mimno

David Mimno is an AI researcher who develops methods for analyzing text with topic models and large language models. He studied classics and computer science at Swarthmore, worked at the Perseus Project, UMass Amherst, and Princeton, and joined Cornell's Information Science faculty in 2013. His work includes Bayesian checks for topic models, methods for finding metadata correlations in topics, and LLM-based topic-coherence metrics. He received a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2016 and an NSF CAREER Award in 2017, and coauthored a 2025 paper on legal AI tasks. Since January 2024, he has chaired Cornell's Department of Information Science and is a professor there as of October 2026.

Now at: Cornell University
Works: 173
Citations: 8,849
h-index: 36

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

1999

Classics and computer science

He earns a B.A. in classics and computer science at Swarthmore College in 1999.
2002–2013

From Tufts to Cornell

From 2002 to 2005, he is head programmer at Tufts University's Perseus Project; from 2005 to 2010, he is a research assistant in UMass Amherst's Department of Computer Science and earns an M.S. there in 2009. From 2010 to 2011, he is a senior research assistant in Princeton's Department of Computer Science; in 2011, with David Blei, he publishes Bayesian Checking for Topic Models, which uses posterior predictive checks to identify topic-model fit problems. He begins a CRA Computing Innovation Fellowship at Princeton in 2011, completes a Ph.D. in computer science at UMass Amherst in 2012, and joins Cornell as an assistant professor in 2013; the fellowship runs through 2013.
2016–2017

A Sloan fellowship and NSF award

He receives the Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 2016 and the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2017.
2018

Authorless topic models

In 2018, with Laure Thompson, he introduces metrics for finding topics correlated with metadata. Their study finds this problem in 30–50% of topics across two real-world collections.
2024

LLM-based topic coherence

In 2024, with Hamed Rahimi and colleagues, he coauthors Contextualized Topic Coherence Metrics, an LLM-based family of measures inspired by human topic evaluation.
2025

Tasks in legal AI

In 2025, with Allison Koenecke, Jed Stiglitz, and Matthew Wilkens, he identifies data curation, data annotation, and output verification as three areas of special relevance to legal AI. The paper discusses legal text access, expert annotation, and systematic evaluation of AI outputs.
As of October 2026

Professor and department chair

He becomes chair of Cornell's Department of Information Science in January 2024. He is a professor and chair of the department in 2025 and as of October 2026.

Career

Since 2024Cornell UniversityProfessor, Chair
2010–2013Princeton UniversitySenior Research Assistant, CRA Computing Innovation Fellow
2005–2010University of Massachusetts AmherstResearch Assistant
2002–2005Tufts UniversityHead Programmer