PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Krzysztof Z Gajos

Krzysztof Z Gajos is a computer scientist whose work connects adaptive interfaces with human-AI decision support. After earning MIT degrees, he managed the Intelligent Room Project, completed a PhD at the University of Washington in 2008, and co-developed SUPPLE, a system that adapted interfaces to users' motor abilities. He joined Harvard in 2009, received a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2013, held ACM journal and conference leadership roles, and shared the 2019 IUI Most Impact Paper Award with Daniel Weld. His recent work studies personalized AI assistance, contrastive explanations, and reinforcement learning for decision support. As of October 2026, he holds Harvard's Bernier and McCaw professorship in computer science and leads the Intelligent Interactive Systems Group at Harvard.

Works
237
Citations
10,602
h-index
55
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. By 2008

    MIT degrees and the Intelligent Room

    By 2008, he holds B.Sc. and M.Eng. degrees from MIT. Before his 2008 doctorate, he works as a research scientist at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and manages the Intelligent Room Project.

  2. 2008

    A thesis on adaptive interfaces

    In 2008, he completes a Ph.D. at the University of Washington with a dissertation on automatically generating personalized user interfaces. His coauthored SUPPLE system assesses users' motor abilities and generates interfaces tailored to them; tests close the performance gap between disabled and able-bodied users by 62 percent.

  3. By 2009

    A Microsoft postdoctoral year

    Before joining Harvard in September 2009, he spends a year as a postdoctoral researcher in Microsoft Research's Adaptive Systems and Interaction group.

  4. 2013

    A Sloan Research Fellowship

    In 2013, he is an assistant professor of computer science at Harvard and receives an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. As director of the Intelligent Interactive Systems Group, he researches human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, and applied machine learning.

  5. 2013–2017

    ACM journal and conference leadership

    From 2013 to 2016, he serves as coeditor-in-chief of ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems. In 2017, he serves as general chair of ACM UIST.

  6. 2019

    The SUPPLE impact award

    In 2019, he and Daniel Weld receive the Most Impact Paper Award at ACM IUI for SUPPLE, which they first present at IUI 2004.

  7. 2025

    Personalising AI assistance

    In 2025, he coauthors Personalising AI assistance based on overreliance rate in AI-assisted decision making at ACM IUI. Probe questions identify users prone to overreliance, and tailored assistance improves human-AI team performance.

  8. 2025

    Contrastive explanations at CHI

    In 2025, he coauthors Contrastive Explanations That Anticipate Human Misconceptions Can Improve Human Decision-Making Skills, published at CHI. The paper compares an AI's decision with a predicted human choice; a 628-person experiment reports stronger independent decision skills and maintained decision accuracy.

  9. 2026

    Adaptive support with reinforcement learning

    In 2026, he coauthors a forthcoming ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction article on offline reinforcement learning for AI-assisted decisions. It adapts decision support to task context, individual differences, and goals such as decision accuracy and skill improvement.

  10. As of October 2026

    Professor at Harvard

    As of October 2026, he is the Yahn W. Bernier and N. Elizabeth McCaw Professor of Computer Science at Harvard and leads the Intelligent Interactive Systems Group there. His current interests include intelligent interactive systems and behavioral research at scale.

Career

  1. NowHarvard UniversityYahn W. Bernier and N. Elizabeth McCaw Professor of Computer Science
  2. NowHarvard UniversityLead, Intelligent Interactive Systems Group
  3. Until 2009MicrosoftPostdoctoral Researcher
  4. From 2009Harvard University
  5. Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyResearch Scientist, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; Manager, Intelligent Room Project
  6. Harvard UniversityAssistant Professor of Computer Science

Education

  1. 2008University of WashingtonPh.D. in Computer Science
  2. Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyB.Sc. in Computer Science
  3. Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyM.Eng. in Computer Science

From the biography.

Checked career sources: microsoft.com, seas.harvard.edu, seas.harvard.edu, kgajos.seas.harvard.edu.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Krzysztof Gajos kgajos.seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Microsoft Research Colloquium - Microsoft Research microsoft.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Automatically Generating Personalized User Interfaces eecs.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. For your eyes only: Custom interfaces make computer clicking faster, easier washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Krzysztof Gajos named 2013 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Allen School researchers earn Most Impact Paper Award at IUI 2019 for SUPPLE interface rendering system news.cs.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Publications – Krzysztof Gajos kgajos.seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. [2410.04253] Contrastive Explanations That Anticipate Human Misconceptions Can Improve Human Decision-Making Skills arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. Krzysztof Z Gajos | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences seas.harvard.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.