Kate Larson
Kate Larson studies how computational limits, incentives and preferences affect cooperation among people and AI agents. Larson earned a mathematics degree at Memorial University in 1997, a computer science master’s at Washington University in 1999 and a doctorate at Carnegie Mellon in 2004. Her doctoral work concerned mechanism design for computationally bounded agents. She began an assistant professorship at Waterloo in 2004. Her shared 2024 CHI paper examined human and machine explanations for errors in language models. Her coauthored Soft Condorcet Optimization received an AAMAS 2025 best paper award. This work sits within her stated interests in social choice and human–AI cooperation.
- Now at
- University of Waterloo
- Works
- 185
- Citations
- 2,810
- h-index
- 23
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1997–2004
Mathematics and bounded agents
Larson earned a mathematics degree at Memorial University in 1997, a computer science master’s at Washington University in 1999 and a doctorate at Carnegie Mellon in 2004. Her doctoral work concerned mechanism design for computationally bounded agents. She began an assistant professorship at Waterloo in 2004.
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2001–2011
Bargaining and mechanism design
With Tuomas Sandholm, she published Bargaining with Limited Computation: Deliberation Equilibrium in 2001. Later shared work studied procuring services with uncertain durations. With Iyad Rahwan, she published Logical Mechanism Design in 2011. These papers concern decisions made by agents with limited information or resources.
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2019–2022
Cooperation and learning
She coauthored research on empathetic decision making in social networks in 2019. In 2021 she coauthored Cooperative AI: Machines Must Learn to Find Common Ground. In 2022 she coauthored Multi-Agent Advisor Q-Learning with S. Subramanian, Matthew Taylor and Mark Crowley. Her work connects cooperation with learning and decisions.
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2024–2025
Human explanations and collective choices
Her shared 2024 CHI paper examined human and machine explanations for errors in language models. Her coauthored Soft Condorcet Optimization received an AAMAS 2025 best paper award. Her work addresses social choice and human–AI cooperation.
Sources and credits
Photo: cs.uwaterloo.ca; Kate Larson profile photograph; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: cs.uwaterloo.ca. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.