Fernanda Viégas
Kempner Faculty Steering Committee
Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science
Sally Starling Seaver Professor, Harvard Radcliffe Institute
She/Her
Contact Information
Subjects I Teach:
- Data Visualization
- Human/AI Interaction
- Artistic Computation
Areas I Research:
About
Fernanda Viégas is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, and Sally Starling Seaver Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Fernanda is also a Principal Scientist at Google, where she co-founded the PAIR (People+AI Research) initiative. Her work in machine learning with long-time collaborator Martin Wattenberg focuses on transparency and interpretability, as part of a broad agenda to improve human/AI interaction. She is well known for her contributions to social and collaborative visualization, and the systems her teams have created are used daily by millions of people. Viégas and Wattenberg are also known for their visualization-based artwork, which has been exhibited worldwide, and is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Viégas holds a PhD from the MIT Media Lab.
Research Focus
Viégas’s current research focuses on AI interpretability, human/AI interaction, and data visualization. She is interested in exploring new modes of human/AI interaction, including those that draw from her roots in data visualization. Her current work leverages advances in AI interpretability (usually aimed at experts) to help drive improvements in lay-user agency and control of AI systems.