Joyce Chai
Joyce Chai studies language understanding and embodied dialogue, including shared research on grounding language in robot interaction. Chai earned a mathematics degree from Trinity College in 1992 and a computer science doctorate from Duke in 1998. Her research field is natural language understanding. Her early work extracted information from online text. In June 2019, the Regents appointed Chai professor of electrical engineering and computer science effective September 1, 2019. Her work examines language that uses surrounding discourse, gaze, gesture and physical context.
- Now at
- University of Michigan
- Works
- 197
- Citations
- 3,811
- h-index
- 32
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1992–1998
Mathematics and computer science
Chai earned a mathematics degree from Trinity College in 1992 and a computer science doctorate from Duke in 1998. Her research field is natural language understanding. Her early work extracted information from online text.
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1998–2013
IBM and Michigan State
She held an IBM postdoctoral role from 1998 to 1999 and worked on its research staff from 1999 to 2003. She joined Michigan State as an assistant professor in 2003, became an associate professor in 2007 and a professor in 2013.
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2014–2017
Language in shared physical contexts
Chai, Rui Fang and Malcolm Doering published shared work on generating referring expressions for situated dialogue in 2014. With Changsong Liu, she studied perceptual differences in human–robot dialogue in 2015. With Lanbo She, she published interactive learning of grounded verb semantics in 2017. These publications make the embodied language program concrete.
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2019
Appointment at Michigan
In June 2019, the Regents appointed Chai professor of electrical engineering and computer science effective September 1, 2019. Her work examines language that uses surrounding discourse, gaze, gesture and physical context.
Sources and credits
Photo: sled.eecs.umich.edu; Joyce Y. Chai | SLED Research Lab @ UMich; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: sled.eecs.umich.edu. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.