Amy Pavel

We’re excited to have a fantastic lineup of speakers:
@amypavel.bsky.social, Anna Rohrbach, Mike Zheng Shou, Makarand Tapaswi. We’ll also host a panel discussion with the organizers!

I've seen folks talk about how "in four years" they'll be able to get back to their planned projects and I really don't think that's going to work out. People & projects losing funding now will not be able to hit pause and come back once funding is restored. Hard-won progress & capacity will be lost

The newest budget numbers out of NSF are... not good. We're looking at worse than worst case scenarios for U.S. research universities. That's in addition to all the other attacks. Every person w/ a word processer and an hour of time should be penning an op-ed to their local papers this weekend.

If you want to see the planned impact on science with the proposed National Science Foundation cuts, this table in particular demonstrates it most devastatingly. Going from 330,000 people to 90,000 people involved in NSF activities. #SaveNSF

From: nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

Thrilled to share that I’ve successfully defended my PhD dissertation and I will be joining MIT as an Assistant Professor starting Fall 2026, with a shared appointment between Sloan and EECS!

I will be recruiting 1-2 PhD students this upcoming cycle. Consider applying to MIT EECS!

10/ And to reiterate a key point:

CONGRESS 👏 SETS 👏 BUDGET 👏 LEVELS

Today's update is called a **request** for a reason.

And Congress should reject it. History provides optimism:

How the 'A' in DEIA is threatened, and what you can do | Op-Ed Disability accommodations made it possible for me to become a professor and are vital to the success of many of my disabled students and colleagues.

It didn't make it into my opinion piece, but NIDILRR (which funds disability research and much more) is among the organizations on the list of proposed cuts. We need action on so many fronts right now, within and beyond disability concerns!

www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-...

How the 'A' in DEIA is threatened, and what you can do | Op-Ed Disability accommodations made it possible for me to become a professor and are vital to the success of many of my disabled students and colleagues.

Wonderful op-ed on accessibility and the importance for advocating for disabled people’s rights by @jcmankoff.bsky.social www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-...

Announcing the “Unheard” Initiative -- together with @fractalecho.bsky.social and with the sponsorship of AccessSIGCHI, @acm-sigchi.bsky.social and @sigaccess.bsky.social we're launching a new talk series for folks with disability/travel restrictions. Please volunteer! tinyurl.com/unheard-init...

Congrats to Ruei-Che Chang for receiving the Apple Scholars in AI/ML PhD fellowship!! 🎉🎉🎉 Thanks Apple for the support!

Specifically in the AI for Accessibility category, previous awardees include: Zhuohao Zhang, Venkatesh Potluri, and Rachel Franz.

Screenshot of the paper with the author list and the teaser figure. Author list: Mina Huh, Dingzeyu Li, Kim Pimmel, Hijung Valentina Shin, Amy Pavel, Mira Dontcheva. Teaser figure shows the workflow with VideoDiff with three steps: (1). VideoDiff supports easy comparison by aligning videos and highlighting differences using timeline and transcript views (2). Users can narrow down options by sorting and further customize them by refining and regenerating AI suggestions (3). Timelines and transcripts of videos are color highlighted to show which parts are command and unique.

Recent AI models can suggest endless video edits, offering many alternatives to video creators. But how can we easily sift through them all?

In our #CHI2025 paper, we propose VideoDiff, an AI video editing tool designed for editing with alternatives.

Congratulations, Peya!!! What fantastic news!!

We're hiring!

The HCI & Visualization group at Autodesk Research is hiring for three Research Scientist positions at the intersection of HCI and AI.

If interested, please apply (and reach out if you have questions).

autodesk.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Ext/job/AMER...

ALA response to White House assault on IMLS To dismiss the mission of an agency that advances opportunity and learning is to dismiss the aspirations and everyday needs of millions of Americans. And those who will feel that loss most keenly live in rural communities.  As seedbeds of literacy and innovation, our nation’s 125,000 public, school, academic and special libraries deserve more, not less support. Libraries translate 0.003% of the federal budget into programs and services used by more than 1.2 billion people every year. Show Up for Our Libraries, ALA American Library Association, #ForOurLibraries

President Trump's executive order to eliminate the Institute of Museum & Library Services would have disastrous effects for communities nationwide. We call on all Americans who value reading & learning to reach out to their elected leaders.

Read ALA's full response: www.ala.org/news/2025/03...

Following inquiries, we are extending the deadline to the 20th. We look forward to your submission!

Amidst a lot of uncertainty these days, @shaunkane.bsky.social and I re-affirm our commitment to diversity and community for ASSETS 2025. With that in mind, accepted papers will appear in the proceedings, regardless of presentation/attendance modality. Please see our blog post for more.

Logo for the RESPECT Conference. It depicts a connected letter R and C shape, with these figures outlined and incorporating a central line in them, giving the appearance of a two lane road with a centerline. The connection where the visual of the "C" begins has only the center line connecting the two shapes, creating a visual link between the two elements while not fully connecting them. "RESPECT Conference" is written underneath.

✨ The inaugural SIGCSE 2025 Doctoral Consortium @ ACM RESPECT is coming! Doctoral students working @ comp ed & BPC intersections: come grow with peers & mentors 🌱 #RESPECT2025

Interested? Know someone who might be? 👀

Apply by 4/1 📝 Details: respectconference.org/doctoral-con...

Excited for
@emmharv.bsky.social
to present her CHI paper next month - thorough and ever-timely research on the harms of LLMs in education! arXiv link here: arxiv.org/pdf/2502.14592

The image displays information about an event called "GAi+A11y @ CHI 2025: Generative AI and Accessibility Workshop." The workshop includes invited panelists Stephanie Valencia from the University of Maryland, Dhruv Jain from the University of Michigan, Ariana Aboulafia, a disability rights attorney, and Chancey Fleet from NY Public Library. Organizers are listed as Kate Glazko from the University of Washington, Mina Huh from UT Austin, Jazette Johnson from the University of Washington, Amy Pavel from UT Austin, and Jennifer Mankoff from the University of Washington. The submission deadline for the workshop is March 12th, 2025, and the website for more information is "https://accessgaichi.com." The logos of CHI 2025, UT Austin, and UW appear at the bottom.

Introducing the 1st workshop on Generative AI and Accessibility (GAI+A11y@CHI25)! Come join us to build a community and discuss the opportunities and risks of GAI+Accessibility. More information on accessgaichi.com #CHI2025

A digital flyer for the "GAI+A11y @ CHI 2025: Generative AI and Accessibility Workshop" features headshots of invited panelists and organizers. The event's submission deadline is March 12th, 2025, with a website link: https://accessgaichi.com. Invited Panelists: Stephanie Valencia² - University of Maryland Dhruv Jain - University of Michigan Ariana Aboulafia - Disability Rights Attorney Chancey Fleet - NY Public Library Organizers: Kate Glazko - University of Washington Mina Huh - UT Austin Jazette Johnson - University of Washington Amy Pavel - UT Austin Jennifer Mankoff - University of Washington At the bottom of the flyer, there are logos for CHI 2025, University of Washington (W logo), and CREATE. The flyer uses a clean layout with blue and black text, circular headshots of speakers and organizers, and a white background.

Introducing the workshop on Generative AI and Accessibility (GAI+A11y@CHI25)! Come join us to build a community and discuss the opportunities and risks of GAI+Accessibility. More information on accessgaichi.com. #CHI2025 #accessibility #disability

Accessibility Is Taking a Hit Across the Sciences (Gift Article) Confusion has ensued about the future of programs and research supporting people with disabilities as a result of President Trump’s executive order.

There’s much talk about how early career researchers are getting shafted. Researchers with disabilities and those who are working hard to maintain mentoring pipelines: hold my beer.

I'm so excited for this workshop!! I'm also looking forward to checking out CVPR for the first time!

"All NSF grantees must [cease] all non-compliant activities... that [use] DEIA principles and frameworks" The EO asks that DEIA "discrimination programs" be terminated "to the maximum extent allowed by law." But it is illegal to fail at accessibility and to discriminate. I'll be obeying the law.

Announcement #1: our call for papers is up! 🎉
colmweb.org/cfp.html
And excited to announce the COLM 2025 program chairs @yoavartzi.com @eunsol.bsky.social @ranjaykrishna.bsky.social and @adtraghunathan.bsky.social

Two exciting internship opportunities at @msftresearch.bsky.social in 2025!!! 🎉

With FATE in NYC: jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/jo...

With STAC (and collaborators in FATE) in NYC or Redmond focusing on AI evaluation and measurement: jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/jo...

Reference-Based Metrics Are Biased Against Blind and Low-Vision Users’ Image Description Preferences Rhea Kapur, Elisa Kreiss. Proceedings of the Third Workshop on NLP for Positive Impact. 2024.

I'm excited to kick off my Bluesky presence with wonderful news: Our paper "Reference-Based Metrics Are Biased Against Blind and Low-Vision Users' Image Description Preferences" won a Best Paper Award at the NLP for Positive Impact Workshop at EMNLP! Read it here: aclanthology.org/2024.nlp4pi-...

Simulating human behavior with AI agents promises a testbed for policy and the social sciences. We interviewed 1,000 people for two hours each to create generative agents of them. These agents replicate their source individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. 🧵

arxiv.org/abs/2411.10109

Love the influx of academics to Bluesky. Will this be our new 🏠? To help grow the community, I just created an HCI+Accessibility "starter pack". Help me grow the list! Many are missing! go.bsky.app/PZxHNqP