PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Elena Glassman

Also known as Elena Leah Glassman, Elena L. Glassman

Elena Glassman is a computer scientist whose work links programming tools for large classes with human-AI interaction. At MIT, she earned a BS in 2008, an MEng in 2010 and a PhD in 2016; her OverCode system helped instructors inspect large sets of student programs. She coauthored ChainForge for testing language-model prompts and an AI-resilient interface framework, then studied AI support for legal reading and data transfer across apps. After postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley, she joined Harvard in 2019 and received a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2023; she is an assistant professor of computer science and leads the Variation Lab.

Works
123
Citations
2,918
h-index
25

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2008–2010

    MIT engineering degrees

    At MIT, she earns a BS in Electrical Science and Engineering in 2008 and an MEng in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2010.

  2. 2015

    OverCode for programming classes

    In 2015, she is first author of OverCode, which groups student programs that use similar techniques for instructors to review. In usability tests, participants cover about 45 percent of responses on a difficult assignment with OverCode, compared with about 9 percent when reviewing raw code.

  3. August 2016

    A PhD in scalable programming

    She earns an EECS PhD at MIT CSAIL in August 2016. Her scalable systems analyze, visualize and provide insight into code from thousands of programming students.

  4. 2023

    A Sloan Research Fellowship

    She receives a Sloan Research Fellowship in computer science in 2023 while at Harvard SEAS.

  5. 2023–2024

    ChainForge for prompt testing

    She coauthors ChainForge, an open-source visual toolkit for prompt engineering and on-demand hypothesis testing of text-generation LLMs. Published at CHI 2024, it lets users compare responses across models and prompt variations.

  6. May 2024

    AI-resilient interfaces

    In May 2024, she coauthors AI-Resilient Interfaces, which defines interface features that help people notice AI choices and judge them with context. The framework targets open-ended work such as ideation, search, sensemaking and reading or writing text and code.

  7. September 2025

    Interfaces for legal reading

    In September 2025, she coauthors a study of legal professionals’ reading and writing practices. The team interviews 22 legal professionals and evaluates how skimming and writing prototypes fit legal workflows and support AI-resilient interaction.

  8. April 2026

    MagicCopy across applications

    In April 2026, she coauthors MagicCopy, an AI-powered copy-and-paste tool that uses app contexts and natural-language instructions to move and reformat data between applications. A study with 16 participants tests MagicCopy across three pairs of tools.

  9. Since 2019

    Assistant professor at Harvard

    Before joining Harvard, she works as an EECS postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley’s Berkeley Institute of Design. She joins Harvard SEAS as an assistant professor of computer science in January 2019. As of October 2026, she is an assistant professor at Harvard and leads the Variation Lab, where her group builds AI-resilient interfaces that help people notice and judge AI choices.

Career

  1. Since 2019Harvard UniversityAssistant Professor of Computer Science, Lab Lead
  2. University of California, BerkeleyEECS Postdoctoral Researcher

Education

  1. 2016MIT CSAILPhD
  2. 2010Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMEng
  3. 2008Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyBS

From the biography.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Elena Glassman yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Five new faculty join SEAS seas.harvard.edu. Checked 26 October 2026.
  2. Reviewing online homework at scale news.mit.edu. Checked 26 October 2026.
  3. Elena Glassman | Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) bids.berkeley.edu. Checked 26 October 2026.
  4. Pehlevan, Glassman, Idreos, McColl awarded 2023 Sloan Research Fellowships seas.harvard.edu. Checked 26 October 2026.
  5. ChainForge: A Visual Toolkit for Prompt Engineering and LLM Hypothesis Testing arxiv.org. Checked 26 October 2026.
  6. AI-Resilient Interfaces arxiv.org. Checked 26 October 2026.
  7. Interface Design to Support Legal Reading and Writing: Insights from Interviews with Legal Experts arxiv.org. Checked 26 October 2026.
  8. MagicCopy: Bring my data along with me beyond boundaries of apps arxiv.org. Checked 26 October 2026.
  9. People | Center for Human-driven AI Research and Methods (CHARM) at Harvard charm.seas.harvard.edu. Checked 26 October 2026.