PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jennifer Neville

Jennifer Neville is a machine learning researcher whose work runs from learning on relational and network data to testing how language models behave in multi-turn conversations. She earned a PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and joined Purdue's faculty in 2006, and in 2007 she and David Jensen published "Relational Dependency Networks" in JMLR. IEEE Intelligent Systems named her one of AI's 10 to Watch in 2008, and she received an NSF CAREER Award in 2012. After joining Microsoft in 2021, she coauthored "LLMs Get Lost In Multi-Turn Conversation", which found an average 39% drop in multi-turn performance and won an ICLR 2026 Outstanding Paper award. She is a partner research manager at Microsoft Research, where she leads the AI Interaction and Learning group, and the Samuel Conte Chair Professor of Computer Science and Statistics at Purdue.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 2006

    PhD at UMass Amherst

    After starting in math and physics and then cognitive science, she turns to computer science to work with data, and an honors research project on mining interconnected web data draws her into statistical relational learning. In 2006, she earns her PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and joins Purdue as an assistant professor of computer science and statistics.

  2. 2007

    Relational dependency networks

    With David Jensen, she publishes "Relational Dependency Networks" in JMLR in 2007. The paper presents graphical models that express cyclic dependencies among instances in relational data and gain significant performance over conventional conditional models.

  3. 2007–2008

    AI's 10 to Watch

    From 2007 to 2008, she is a member of the DARPA Computer Science Study Group. In 2008, IEEE Intelligent Systems names her one of ten researchers on its AI's 10 to Watch list, which recognizes researchers who completed their doctoral work in the last couple of years.

  4. 2012–2013

    NSF CAREER Award and Simons visit

    She receives an NSF CAREER Award in 2012. In fall 2013, she is a visiting scientist at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, in its Theoretical Foundations of Big Data Analysis program.

  5. 2015–2023

    AAAI council and program chair

    She is an elected member of the AAAI Executive Council from 2015 to 2018. In 2019, she is program chair of the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, and in 2023 she is program chair of AAAI.

  6. 2019–2020

    Conte professorship at Purdue

    Purdue selects her as a University Faculty Scholar in 2019, with a five-year term that starts in fall 2020. In 2020, she is honored with the title Samuel Conte Professor in Computer Science, and she directs the Network Learning and Discovery Lab.

  7. 2025–2026

    Lost in multi-turn conversation

    In May 2025, she coauthors "LLMs Get Lost In Multi-Turn Conversation" with Philippe Laban, Hiroaki Hayashi and Yingbo Zhou. Large-scale simulations, including analysis of 200,000+ simulated conversations, show that top open- and closed-weight LLMs score an average of 39% lower in multi-turn conversations than in single-turn ones across six generation tasks. In April 2026, ICLR names the paper one of its two Outstanding Papers for 2026.

  8. As of October 2026

    Partner research manager at Microsoft

    In 2021, she joins Microsoft from academia while remaining a professor at Purdue, after a sabbatical at Microsoft Research shows her how algorithms behave with real users and real data. She is a partner research manager at Microsoft Research Redmond, leads the AI Interaction and Learning group, and is the Samuel Conte Chair Professor of Computer Science and Statistics at Purdue. Her group studies how AI systems perform in realistic work environments and works to improve them.

Career

  1. Since 2021Microsoft ResearchSabbatical, Partner Research Manager
  2. Since 2006Purdue UniversityAssistant Professor of Computer Science and Statistics, Samuel Conte Professor in Computer Science
  3. 2013Simons Institute for the Theory of ComputingVisiting Scientist

Education

  1. 2006University of Massachusetts AmherstPhD

From the biography.

  1. 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes Jennifer Neville. We estimate that 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a company; 29% of moves starting at a university went to a company, and 76% ended the university role.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Jennifer Neville. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. Among employers with 30+ full-time cases, OpenAI leads primary technical role H-1B pay at $310,000, and Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 57% of all casesIncludes Microsoft. Across 440,669 certified US H-1B filings from 44 employers (FY2020–FY2026), OpenAI leads primary technical role base pay at $310,000 and xAI leads overall base pay at $290,000.
  4. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Microsoft. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. What AI gets wrong and what failure teaches us - Microsoft Research microsoft.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Neville in AI's 10 to Watch - Department of Computer Science - Purdue University cs.purdue.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Relational Dependency Networks jmlr.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Jennifer Neville at Microsoft Research microsoft.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Jennifer Neville simons.berkeley.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Bio/CV | Jennifer Neville jenneville.github.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Neville selected as University Faculty Scholar - Department of Computer Science - Purdue University cs.purdue.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Professors Neville and Tan honored with named professorships - Department of Computer Science - Purdue University cs.purdue.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. [2505.06120] LLMs Get Lost In Multi-Turn Conversation arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Announcing the ICLR 2026 Outstanding Papers - ICLR Blog blog.iclr.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.