Despite being such a young profession, HCI researchers have contributed to large amount of innovative research, spanning from computer-supported cooperative work, ubiquitous technologies, educational technologies, and accessibility. Amazing and important research is being done here at CMU’s HCI Institute, check out the highlights of the impactful research projects at HCII Impacts!
In April 2025, CMU and Seoul National University (SNU) recently announced their partnership to launch the Human-Centered AI Research Center (HCAI) to “advance human-centered artificial intelligence research that prioritizes human well-being, accessibility and social responsibility.”
CMU and SNU’s joint projects aim to advance ethical, people-centered AI to explore these key challenges in AI:
How AI can support teamwork in programming
Enhancing interactive problem-solving
Detecting societal bias in vision-language models
Assisting older adults through socially intelligent agents
Check out their latest paper: **“Letters from Future Self: Augmenting the Letter-Exchange Exercise with LLM-based Future Self Agents to Enhance Young Adults’ Career Exploration,”** focusing on how “large language models (LLMs) can support young adults in imagining their futures through guided career exploration activities.”
Self-guided interventions like writing reflective letters were augmented with LLM-based agents to help stimulate the “participants' future selves into the letter-exchange exercise,” increasing their engagement.
The initial founders of the HCI Institute brought together expertise from the fields of computer science, psychology, design and technology, and these areas of expertise have only continued to grow to explore the emerging innovations and shape our rapidly changing society. Check out the interdisciplinary labs at CMU conducting cutting edge research!