HRAI Research

HRAI serves as a resource for the University and community partners to provide expertise in the theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and best practices of designing, implementing, and creating responsible computing systems that collaborate with human users to supplement and augment their capabilities.

The lab is committed to advancing Notre Dame’s pursuit of being the leading global Catholic research university, on par with but distinct from the world’s best private universities.

The lab’s work specifically aligns with key areas of the University’s Strategic Framework.

More information about past, current and on-going projects are listed below:

Poverty

Transportation Insecurity and Rideshare in South Bend, Indiana | Li, Brockman

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame, including a group of undergraduate and high school student interns with the Lucy Civic Innovation Lab, analyzed data provided from Uber trips that were taken through the Commuters Trust program, which aims to subsidize rideshare trips for low-income workers in the South Bend region.

This project received an award as part of The Lucies Societal Impact Awards at the 2024 Lucy Annual Celebration.

Inclusive AI for Good: A Pilot Project in the Community of South Bend on Homelessness Mitigation | Curto Rex, Hauenstein, Pfeil

Funded by the Notre Dame Strategic Plan Seed Grants

Ethics

AI Literacy project with Data & Society | Badillo-Urquiola

Funded by ND-IBM Technology Ethics Lab

LLM evaluations to align their behaviors with human values and preferences | Gomez-Zara, Li

Funded by ND-IBM Technology Ethics Lab

Research Spotlight

“Transportation Insecurity and Rideshare in South Bend, Indiana” | Researchers analyzed data provided from Uber trips that were taken through the Commuters Trust program, which aims to subsidize rideshare trips for low-income workers in the South Bend region.

Investigating the Online Safety of Youth In Out-of-Home-Care | Badillo-Urquiola

Funded by Google

Responsible Computing Curriculum | Badillo-Urquiola

Funded Notre Dame Global’s México Faculty Grant
Learn more, Visit the project website here

Towards Thoughtful and Ethical Integration of Generative AI in Undergraduate Writing Education | Myers, Li, Clauss, Ambrose

Funded by the Notre Dame Strategic Framework Grant, Learn more

AI inequality in Gig Work | Li, Jiang, Kay, Yang, Brockman,

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation

Estimating the Deep-Replicability of Scientific Findings Using Human and Machine Intelligence | Yang, Wu, Uzzi

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117, 2020

A discipline-wide investigation of replicability in Psychology over the past 20 years | Yang, Wu, Uzzi

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120, 2023

Democracy

An Empathy-Based Sandbox Approach to Bridge the Privacy Gap among Attitudes, Goals, Knowledge, and Behaviors | Li

New.nd story, ACM publication, Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation

Gender-diverse Teams Produce More Novel and Higher Impact Scientific Ideas | Yang, Tian, Woodruff, Jones, Uzzi

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119, 2022

Health & Well-Being

Accessibility and assistive technologies | Li, Ning

Learn more

Sustainability

Environmental Physical Intelligence | Cheng

Learn more

Workforce Development

The HRAI is interested in creating responsible AI systems that augment human intellect in complex problem-solving tasks, boost human creativity, and build bridges to facilitate effective team collaboration, especially across disciplinary and cultural boundaries. A particular focus of our work in this area is to enhance inclusivity in work settings, empower under-resourced workers, and facilitate workforce development.

AI professional development support for early childhood education teachers | Pentimonti, Li, Johnson

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation

Designing, building, and evaluating the impact of immersive reality technologies and artificial intelligence on collaborative scientific work | Gomez-Zara

Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Examining the effects of gender composition on disruptive science | Gomez-Zara

Funded by the National Science Foundation

Enhancing team effectiveness and cohesion with AI-generated automated feedback | Gomez-Zara

Funded by Slack, inc.

Exploratory Models of Human-AI Teams (EMHAT) | Gomez-Zara, Weninger

Funded by DARPA

A network’s gender composition and communication pattern predict women’s leadership success | Yang, Chawla, Uzzi

Learn more

AI support for programmers | McMillan, Li

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation

Luminate and LADICA for facilitating creativity and group sensemaking | Li

Learn more about Luminate here, and learn more about LADICA here.