PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Eytan Adar

Eytan Adar is a computer scientist and University of Michigan professor whose research connects artificial intelligence with human-computer interaction and visualization. His early work included Haystack, a personal information repository, social-network search and GUESS, a graph exploration system. Before graduate school, he worked at Xerox PARC and HP Labs and completed a PhD at the University of Washington in 2009. In 2022, he served as a program chair for UIST. He joined the 2025 ACM Fellows class and continues to study ways to integrate AI into user-facing interfaces.

Links
Website, Google Scholar and X

Timeline

  1. 1997–1999

    Haystack and an MIT award

    In 1997, he receives the Anna Pogosyants UROP Award as an MIT EECS senior for work on Haystack, a personal information repository. He earns an MEng at MIT in 1998 and coauthors “Haystack: Per-User Information Environments” in 1999, a design for per-user management of personal information.

  2. 2003–2005

    Searching social networks

    In a 2003 preprint, he and Lada Adamic study how people find short paths through social networks using local information about their contacts. Their article appears in Social Networks 27(3):187–203 in July 2005.

  3. 2006

    Graph exploration with GUESS

    In 2006, he presents GUESS, a graph exploration system that combines an interpreted language with a graphical front end for graph visualization.

  4. By 2009

    Research posts and a PhD

    Before graduate school, he works as a researcher at HP Labs's Information Dynamics Group and at Xerox PARC. In 2009, he completes a PhD at the University of Washington with a dissertation titled “Temporal-Informatics of the WWW.”

  5. 2022

    Program chair for UIST

    In 2022, he serves as a UIST program chair with Vidya Setlur.

  6. 2025

    An ACM Fellowship

    In 2025, he joins the ACM Fellows class as one of three MIT alumni in the cohort.

  7. As of October 2026

    Professor and AI researcher

    As of October 2026, he is a professor of information and computer science at the University of Michigan. His research sits at the boundary of HCI and AI and explores how to integrate AI into user-facing interfaces.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

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

  1. Eytan Adar Wins 1997 Anna Pogosyants UROP Prize people.csail.mit.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Antonio Torralba, three MIT alumni named 2025 ACM fellows news.mit.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Haystack: Per-User Information Environments cond.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. How to search a social network arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. How To Search a Social Network cond.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Eytan Adar Publications cond.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. GUESS: A Language and Interface for Graph Exploration cond.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. Eytan Adar cond.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  9. UIST 2022 Organizers uist.acm.org. Checked 19 October 2026.