Wesley
H. Deng

Welcome! I am Wesley Hanwen Deng, a forth-year Ph.D. student at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) at Carnegie Mellon University. At CMU, I am extremely fortunate to be advised by Ken Holstein and Motahhare Eslami, and work closely with Jason I. Hong and Hoda Heidari. I also work with Jenn Wortman Vaughan and Solon Barocas from Microsoft Research on a set of exciting projects on AI impact assessment and regulation. Before coming to CMU, I graduated with the Highest Distinction and an EECS Research Honor in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, where I conducted Human-centered AI research with Niloufar Salehi.

I work on responsible AI (RAI), AI safety, AI ethics, algorithmic fairness, and human-AI interaction. My current work aims at building tools and processes to support both AI practitioners and end users in designing and developing safer, more responsible AI systems, with a specific focus on AI auditing, red-teaming, and impact assessment. My work has been recognized through awards such as Microsoft AI & Society Fellowship, K&L Gates Presidential Fellowship, CERES Fellowship, and Best Paper Awards at the AAAI HCOMP and AIES conferences. My PhD has also been supported by fundings from CMU Block Center for Technology and Society, Norte-Dame IBM Tech Ethics Lab, and a Google Research Scholar Award.

In my free time, I like to cook 🍲🥘, play pickle ball 🥒🎾, do hot yoga 🧘‍♂️♨️, and read/write at a coffee shop ☕️📚. My long-term (non-academic) career goal is to open a coffee shop that transitions into an intimate bistro serving Chinese-fusion cuision and cocktails in the night.

[ Curriculum Vitae ● Google Scholar ● Full Publications Page ● LinkedIn ● Twitter ● BlueSky]

News

01/2025: ✨ Exctied to be selected as the K&L Gates Presidential Fellowship for 2025-2026! I plan to work on improving participatory AI auditing and red-teaming through this support.

01/2025: 💰 The proposal I served as Co-PI on “Generative AI Meets Responsible AI: Supporting Participatory AI Auditing of Generative AI Systems” is awarded for $65,000 through CMU Block Center Seed Fund!

12/2024: 📣 Gave a talk at Zhejiang University on WeAudit: Supporting End Users and AI Practitioners in Auditing Generative AI!

11/2024: 🦥 Attended CSCW 2024 in Costa Rica and organized a Special Interest Group on Collaboratively Designing and Evaluating Responsible AI Interventions.

11/2024: 🍎 Gave a talk at the Human-Centered Machine Learning team at Apple on WeAudit: Supporting End Users and AI Practitioners in Auditing Generative AI !

10/2024: 🏆 Our paper: Red-Teaming for Generative AI: Silver Bullet or Security Theater? won the Best Paper Award at AIES 2024!

10/2024: 🏆 Our paper: Investigating What Factors Influence Users’ Rating of Harmful Algorithmic Bias and Discrimination won the Best Paper Award at HCOMP 2024!

09/2024: 🏝️ Attended the CERES Back to the Bay Retreat at the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach, California, USA. As a CERES fellow, I presented my work on engaging students in learning about Responsible AI through classroom activities.

05/2024: 🌊 Attended CHI 2024 in Honolulu and organized the first Human-centered Evaluation and Auditing of Language Models (HEAL) Workshop.

04/2024: 💰 The proposal I served as a student contributor with my advisors Motahhare and Ken received a Google Scholar Award! Read the CMU News about this award and our work.

02/2024: 🎉 Excited to receive a Microsoft AI & Society Fellowship with my mentors, Ken, Motahhare, and Jason! With Solon, Jenn, and Hanna from MSR, as well as Andrew from UCLA, we plan to explore how to better regulate AI in light of doing Responsible AI on the ground.

01/2024: 🌳 Attended a NSF & Amazon Fair AI workshop the at Amazon HQ2, Crtystal City, Virgina with Jason to present our work on supporting crowd auditing.

10/2023: 🙌 Attended CSCW 2023 at Minneapolis, MN to organize a workshop on Supporting User Engagement in Testing, Auditing, and Contesting AI!

10/2023: 🌏 Attended the first IAPP AI Governance Global Conference at Boston, MA to share our group's work on industry RAI! Excited to connect with the broad AI practitioners working on and interested in RAI and AI governance.

07/2023: 🏙️ Attended FAccT 2023 at Chicago, Illinois to present my work on Investigating Practices and Opportunities for Cross-functional Collaboration around AI Fairness in Industry Practice!

06/2023: 🚀 Started my internship at Microsoft Research NYC FATE: Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics in AI team. Extremely fortunate to start working with Jenn Wortman Vaughan and Solon Barocas on societal impact assessment in industry research labs!

05/2023: 🍔 Attended CHI 2023 at Hamburg, German to present my work on Understanding Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities for User-Engaged Algorithm Auditing in Industry Practice!

07/2022: 🎙️ Attended FAccT 2023 virtually to present my very first first-author paper on Exploring How Machine Learning Practitioners (Try To) Use Fairness Toolkits!

09/2021: 🚀 Started my PhD journey at CMU HCII!

Selected Papers

See the full list of papers here

*: These authors contributed equally to the work.

WeAudit: Scaffolding User Auditors and AI Practitioners in Auditing Generative AI.
Wesley H. Deng, Claire Wang, Howard Ziyu Han, Jason I. Hong*, Kenneth Holstein*, Motahhare Eslami*
arXiv ● PRE-PRINT

* Invited talks at Apple Human-Centered Machine Learning team; Big Design Seminar at Zhejiang University.
Featured as educational materials for more than 600 students across 10 classes at CMU.

Supporting Industry Computing Researchers in Assessing, Articulating, and Addressing the Potential Negative Societal Impact of Their Work
Wesley H. Deng, Solon Barocas*, Jennifer Wortman Vaughan*
CSCW 2025 ● PAPER ● TEMPLATE ● PROJECT PAGE (coming soon)

Red-Teaming for Generative AI: Silver Bullet or Security Theater?
Michael Feffer, Anusha Sinha, Wesley H. Deng, Zachary C. Lipton, Hoda Heidari
AIES 2024 ● Best Paper Award ● PAPER

Investigating What Factors Influence Users’ Detection of Harmful Algorithmic Bias and Discrimination.
Sara Kingsley*, Jiayin Zhi*, Wesley H. Deng, Jaimie Lee, Sizhe Zhang, Motahhare Eslami*, Kenneth Holstein*, Joson I. Hong*, Tianshi Li*, Hong Shen*
HCOMP 2024 ● Best Paper Award ● PAPER

Understanding Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities for User-Engaged Algorithm Auditing in Industry Practice
Wesley H. Deng, Boyuan Guo, Alicia DeVrio, Hong Shen, Motahhare Eslami*, Kenneth Holstein*
CHI 2023 ● PAPER ● VIDEO

* Invited talks at Faculty of EEMCS and Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft, Algorithmic Fairness and Opacity (AFOG) Group at UC Berkeley, Tecent Shanghai, Google Shanghai, Salesforce, and Capital One.

Investigating Practices and Opportunities for Cross-functional Collaboration around AI Fairness in Industry Practice
Wesley H. Deng, Nur Yildrim, Monica Chang, Motahhare Eslami, Kenneth Holstein, Michael Madaio
FAccT 2023 ● PAPER ● VIDEO

Exploring How Machine Learning Practitioners (Try To) Use Fairness Toolkits
Wesley H. Deng, Manish Nagireddy, Michelle Seng Ah Lee, Jatinder Singh, Zhiwei Steven Wu, Kenneth Holstein, Haiyi Zhu
FAccT 2022 ● PAPER ● VIDEO

* Invited talks at FairLearn developer teams at Microsoft Research, AIF360 developer monthly meeting at IBM, People+AI Research team at Google, and AI Governance group at PwC.

Organized Workshops

The 2nd HEAL (Human-centered Evaluation and Auditing of Language Models) Workshop
Yu Lu Liu, Wesley H. Deng, Michelle S. Lam, Motahhare Eslami, Juho Kim, Q. Vera Liao, Wei Xu, Jekaterina Novikova, Ziang Xiao.
CHI 2025 Workshop ● WEBSITE

CoDE RAI (Collaboratively Designing and Evaluating Responsible AI Interventions) Special Interest Group
Wesley H. Deng, Glen Berman, Harmanpreet Kaur, Reva Schwartz, Memunat A. Ibrahim Motahhare Eslami, Kenneth Holstein, Michale Madaio.
CSCW 2024 Special Interest Group ● WEBSITE

RAI-CrowdAudit: Responsible Crowdsourcing for Responsible Generative AI:
Engaging Crowds in AI Auditing and Evaluation
Wesley H. Deng, Mireia Yurrita, Mark Díaz, Jina Suh, Nick Judd, Lara Groves, Hong Shen*, Motahhare Eslami*, Kenneth Holstein*.
HCOMP 2024 Workshop ● WEBSITE

The 1st HEAL (Human-centered Evaluation and Auditing of Language Models) Workshop
Ziang Xiao, Wesley H. Deng, Michelle S. Lam, Motahhare Eslami, Juho Kim, Mina Lee, Q. Vera Liao.
CHI 2024 ● WEBSITE

Supporting NIST’s Development of Guidelines on Red-teaming for Generative AI
Hoda Heidari. Student contributors: Wesley H. Deng, Michale Feffer, Anusha Sinha.
CMU 2024 Workshop ● WEBSITE ● REPORT

CoDE RAI (Collaboratively Designing and Evaluating Responsible AI Interventions) Special Interest Group
Wesley H. Deng, Michelle S. Lam, Ángel Alexander Cabrera, Danaë Metaxa, Motahhare Eslami*, Kenneth Holstein*.
>CSCW 2023 Workshop ● WEBSITE

User Engagement in Algorithm Testing and Auditing: Exploring Opportunities and Tensions between Practitioners and End Users.
Wesley H. Deng, Shivani Kapania, Ken Holstein, Motahhare Eslami.
Panelist: Lauren Wilcox, Su Lin Blodgett, Danaë Metaxa, Nicholas Diakopoulos, Karrie Karahalios, Shubhanshu Mishra, Christo Wilson
FAccT 2023 CRAFT ● WEBSITE

Other Important Things

Academic Service
● PC/AC: FAccT (Area Chair, 2023; Social Chair, 2024), DIS (Area Chair. AI & Deisgn, 2024)
● Reviewers: CHI (2022 - now), FAccT (2021 - now), CSCW (2020 - now), DIS (2023 - now), AIES (2023), EAAMO (2023), SaTML (2022). (Outstanding Review x 4 @ CHI & CSCW)
● Workshop organizers: CHI, CSCW, FAccT, HCOMP (see Organized Workshops above)

Mentoring (with research projects that lead to publications)
● Matheus Kunzler Maldane, University of Florida.
CMU REU student & Research Assistant, Summer 2024 - now
● Claire Wang, University of California, Berkeley.
CMU REU student & Research Assistant, Summer 2024 - now
● Jordan Wheeler, Carthage College.
CMU REU student & Research Assistant, Summer 2024 - now
● Yanwei Huang, Zhejiang University.
Visiting Research Assistant, Summer 2024 - now
● Zhiyuan Cheng, Carnegie Mellon University.
Master student Research Assistant, Summer 2024 - now
● Howard Ziyu Han, Carnegie Mellon University. Now CMU HCII Ph.D student.
Master student Research Assistant, Spring 2023 - Spring 2024.
● Xiaofeng Yan, Carnegie Mellon University. Now Columbia University CS Ph.D. student
Master student Research Assistant, Fall 2022 - Spring 2023.
● Jieyu Zhou, Carnegie Mellon University. Now Georgia Tech Interactive Computing Ph.D. student
Master student Research Assistant, Spring 2022 - Spring 2023.
● Shixian Xie, Carnegie Mellon University. Now CMU HCII Ph.D. student
Master student Research Assistant, Spring 2022 - Spring 2023.
● Leijie Wang, Tsing-hua University. Now University of Washington CSE Ph.D. student
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Spring 2021 - Spring 2022.
● Bill Boyuan Guo, Carnegie Mellon University. Now Product Design Lead at PLUS
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Summer 2021 - Fall 2022.

Teaching
● Human-AI Interaction, Graduate TA, CMU, Fall 2024
● User Centered Research and Evaluation, Graduate TA, CMU, Fall 2023
● Data Science (Data100), Undergraduate TA, UC Berkeley, Spring 2020
● Discrete Mathematics and Probability Theory (CS70), Undergraduate TA, UC Berkeley, Fall 2019
● Data Structures (CS61B), Lab Assistant, UC Berkeley, Spring 2019
● Introduction of Computing (CS61A), Undergraduate TA, UC Berkeley, Fall 2018

Contact

hanwend [at] cs.cmu.edu
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linkedin
github
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