PeopleofSuperintelligence

Lab leader

Kiana Ehsani

Kiana Ehsani is a computer scientist whose AI work spans embodied agents and computer-use systems. She earned a computer-science PhD at the University of Washington in 2021, then worked on indoor robotics at AI2 and coauthored ProcTHOR and SPOC. Molmo and PixMo, her open vision-language model work, received a CVPR 2025 Best Paper Honorable Mention; she also served as Vercept's CEO and co-founder in 2025. Since February 2026, she works with Anthropic's computer-use team after the company acquired Vercept.

Now at
Anthropic
Works
41

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026. Citations and h-index are hidden because this OpenAlex record may be incomplete or mix in other authors.

Timeline

  1. 2015–2021

    A UW contest and PhD

    At the 2015 ACM regional programming contest, her UW Voila team places 12th in the region. She earns a computer-science PhD at UW in 2021.

  2. 2022

    ProcTHOR earns a NeurIPS award

    She coauthors ProcTHOR, a framework for procedurally generating virtual environments for embodied-agent training; the paper receives a NeurIPS Outstanding Paper Award in 2022.

  3. February 2023

    Indoor robotics at AI2

    At AI2, she is a research scientist on the PRIOR team and works on indoor robotics in February 2023.

  4. 2024

    SPOC for real-world agents

    She coauthors SPOC in 2024, showing that imitation of simulated shortest-path planners can train agents to navigate and manipulate objects in the real world using RGB sensors.

  5. 2025

    A CVPR honor for Molmo

    In 2025, she coauthors Molmo and PixMo, a paper introducing an open family of vision-language models; it receives a CVPR Best Paper Honorable Mention.

  6. December 2025

    CEO and co-founder at Vercept

    In December 2025, she is CEO and co-founder of Vercept, whose AI agent turns demonstrations into computer automation.

  7. Since February 2026

    Computer-use work at Anthropic

    Since February 2026, she works with Anthropic's computer-use team after the company acquires Vercept and brings its team into Claude's computer-use effort.

Sources and credits

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  1. UW CSE students compete in ACM’s International Collegiate Programming Contest news.cs.washington.edu. Checked 15 October 2026.
  2. Kiana Ehsani csauthors.net. Checked 15 October 2026.
  3. NeurIPS 2022 Awards neurips.cc. Checked 15 October 2026.
  4. AI2 Newsletter | February 2023 allenai.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  5. CVPR 2024 Open Access Repository openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  6. CVPR 2025 Best Papers and Best Demos cvpr.thecvf.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  7. Molmo and PixMo: Open Weights and Open Data for State-of-the-Art Vision-Language Models arxiv.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  8. Transcending the Limits of Human-Machine Interactions: 'Vercept' The AI Agent Turning Demonstrations into Automation scb10x.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  9. Vercept is joining Anthropic vercept.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  10. Anthropic acquires Vercept to advance Claude's computer use capabilities anthropic.com. Checked 15 October 2026.