PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Pat Pataranutaporn

Pat Pataranutaporn is an MIT researcher who studies how AI affects human learning, decisions and well-being. He studied biology at Arizona State University and completed a doctorate in media arts and sciences at MIT in 2024. He helped develop AI-generated characters for learning in 2021 and co-led a 2023 study of how people's beliefs shape their interactions with chatbots. In 2024, he helped build Future You, which enabled conversations with an AI-generated version of one's older self. He is an assistant professor of media arts and sciences, founding director of MIT's Cyborg Psychology group, and co-director of the Advancing Humans with AI research program.

Works
117
Citations
2,109
h-index
23

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. By 2017

    Biology at Arizona State

    He comes to the United States from Thailand for his final year of high school and earns a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Arizona State University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2017. His early research includes a visiting position at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2016 and an internship at IBM's Computational Biology Center in New York in 2017.

  2. 2020

    A master's at MIT

    He earns a master's degree in media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab in 2020.

  3. 2021

    AI-generated characters for learning

    Working in Pattie Maes' Fluid Interfaces research group at MIT, he is first author of the 2021 paper “AI-generated characters for supporting personalized learning and well-being.” The team builds an open-source pipeline that combines AI models for facial gestures, voice and motion to create audio and video characters.

  4. 2022

    Power-grid reinforcement learning

    At Frontier Development Lab in 2022, he coauthors the technical memorandum “Developing a Disaster-Ready Power Grid Agent Through Geophysically-Informed Fault Event Scenarios.” The research uses hurricane and wildfire hazards to train a reinforcement learning agent that helps advise power-grid operators.

  5. 2023

    Beliefs about AI chatbots

    He co-leads a 2023 study published in Nature Machine Intelligence with Ruby Liu, Ed Finn and Pattie Maes. In an experiment with 310 participants, the team finds that beliefs about an AI chatbot's motives affect users' perceptions of its trustworthiness, empathy and effectiveness.

  6. 2024

    A doctorate at MIT

    He completes a PhD in media arts and sciences at MIT in 2024, working in Professor Pattie Maes' group.

  7. 2024

    Conversations with Future You

    In 2024, he is a co-lead author of Future You, a system that uses a large language model and personal information to simulate a user's future self at age 60. In a study of 344 people, participants who use the system report less anxiety and a stronger connection with their future selves.

  8. 2024

    Co-creating Tomorrow and I

    He co-creates Netflix's science-fiction anthology Tomorrow and I, which premieres worldwide in 2024.

  9. 2026

    A Psychology of Technology award

    In 2026, he receives a Psychology of Technology Dissertation Award for “Cyborg Psychology: The Art & Science of Designing Human-AI Systems that Support Human Flourishing.”

  10. As of October 2026

    Professor at MIT

    He joins the MIT Media Lab as assistant professor of media arts and sciences in September 2025. As of October 2026, he is founding director of the Cyborg Psychology research group and co-director of the Advancing Humans with AI research program, studying how AI affects learning, decision-making and well-being.

Career

  1. Since 2025Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyAssistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Founding Director, Cyborg Psychology Research Group
  2. Nanyang Technological UniversityVisiting Researcher
  3. IBMIntern, Computational Biology Center

Education

  1. 2024Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhD in media arts and sciences
  2. 2020Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMaster’s degree in media arts and sciences
  3. 2017Arizona State UniversityBachelor’s degree in biological sciences

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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

  1. Pat Pataranutaporn — I Am A Scientist iamascientist.info. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Pat – MIT Researcher/Scientist patpat.world. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Pat Pataranutaporn — I Am A Scientist iamascientist.info. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Characters for good, created by artificial intelligence | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology news.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. FDL DOE — Frontier Development Lab USA fdl.ai. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Is AI in the eye of the beholder? | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology news.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. AI simulation gives people a glimpse of their potential future self | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology news.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. MIT Media Lab Appoints Dr. Pat Pataranutaporn as Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences — MIT Media Lab media.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. Dissertation Award Applications — Psychology of Technology Institute psychoftech.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  10. Overview ‹ Pat Pataranutaporn — MIT Media Lab media.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.