Jaemarie Solyst
Be in touch with me at
jsolyst [at] andrew.cmu.edu
I am a PhD candidate at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, advised by professors Amy Ogan and Jessica Hammer and collaboration with Motahhare Eslami. My work is at the intersection of responsible AI, learning science, & human-computer interaction.
With a commitment to social justice, I research how young people can be empowered in the age of AI with critical AI literacy and agency. I focus on diverse youth with identities underrepresented in computing, since they face heightened risks from AI but are overlooked as contributors to the future of AI fairness. My research has been published in top tier human-computer interaction and learning science venues and has been awarded at ACM CHI and CSCW.
I am a Kapor Foundation Research Fellow and a CERES Scholar with the Jacobs Foundation. I previously interned with Google's Responsible AI Team. Before my PhD studies, I received my BA with a double major in computer science and psychology from Mount Holyoke College and then was a Fulbright research scholar in Germany.
About my work
As regular users, youth are stakeholders of AI. However, it is increasingly well-known that AI can cause harm, such as through the reproduction of societal biases at scale. My research explores fostering young people's development of techno-social change agency in the age of AI—in other words, their critical socio-ethical understanding of AI-driven technologies and ability to make change toward a more ethical AI future.
💡 Are you a researcher or educator interested in youths' critical understanding of AI? Check out some examples of my AI literacy materials.
Recent selected publications
(a full list can be found on my curriculum vitae and Google Scholar page)
Jaemarie Solyst, Ellia Yang, Shixian Xie, Jessica Hammer, Amy Ogan, & Motahhare Eslami. CSCW 2023.
RAD: A Framework to Support Youth in Critiquing AI
Jaemarie Solyst, Emily Amspoker, Ellia Yang, Motahhare Eslami, Jessica Hammer, & Amy Ogan. Accepted to SIGCSE 2025. (Note: the link goes to a draft of this publication)
"I Would Like to Design": Black Girls Analyzing and Ideating Fair and Accountable AI
Jaemarie Solyst, Shixian Xie, Ellia Yang, Angela E.B. Stewart, Motahhare Eslami, Jessica Hammer, & Amy Ogan. CHI 2023.
Children's Overtrust and Shifting Perspectives of Generative AI
Jaemarie Solyst, Ellia Yang, Shixian Xie, Jessica Hammer, Amy Ogan, & Motahhare Eslami. ICLS 2024.
News
2024
November
Upcoming: Speaking at a workshop on Responsible Social Computing at CSCW in San Jose 🇨🇷
October
Shared my doctoral work at HCOMP'24 and learned a lot at Meaningful Play both in Pittsburgh!
New paper accepted to SIGCSE 2025 on the RAD (Recognize, Analyze, Deliberate) framework to support youth in critiquing AI 💡
September
Honored to have been awarded a Kapor Foundation Research Fellowship! 🎉
Thankful to have gotten the opportunity to attend the CERES retreat in Long Beach 🌴
July
Workshop speaker on youth engagement in responsible AI hosted by the University of Pennsylvania for teachers
June
Presented new paper on youths' overtrust of ChatGPT at ISLS in Buffalo!
Three posters accepted to ICER & one received an additional invited lightning talk! Excited for my students Ellia Yang and Emily Amspoker for submitting their first posters! 🎉
April
New research on promoting algorithmic justice in AI education in K-12 presented at the American Educational Research Association
Guest lecture at Carnegie Mellon University's Social Web course on Empowering AI Stakeholders
March
Guest talk at the University of Pennsylvania for the course: AI for Children and Youth: Learning, Creating, and Understanding
February
Invited talk at University of Texas at Austin's iSchool
Shared research on girls' empowerment in computing education with the American Association of University Women, Greater Richmond Branch
Guest lecture at Carnegie Mellon University in the JEDI course on Identity, Privilege, & Intersectionality in Computing
2023
December
Invited talk at the Barnard College, Columbia University Computer Science Department
October
🏆 Paper on youths' potential to contribute to the future of AI fairness won award recognizing Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion
Presented at CSCW in Minneapolis, MN!
Panelist in the Empower Learning in AI conference on AI and Education Equity in Higher Education
Invited talk at Google Kids and Families UX Group
Thrilled to be accepted to the CIRCLS Emerging Scholar Advisory Board
June
New methods paper on co-designing games for computing education and work on youths' critical understandings of AI presented at the International Society of Learning Sciences conference
May
Excited to spend the summer at Google's Responsible AI with the Technology, AI, Society and Culture team in New York City!
April
🏆 Paper on Black girls' engagement with the design of ethical AI received Best Paper Honorable Mention
Presented at CHI in Hamburg 🇩🇪
March
Lightning talk at the 2023 Mozilla Fest
Poster on speculative future booklets in AI literacy research and lightning talk on intergenerational games to learn about AI ethics presented at SIGCSE in Toronto 🇨🇦
. . .
the rest is history