Hi! I’m Sijia Xiao, a postdoctoral researcher at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Starting Nov 2026, I will join the University of Vienna as an Assistant Professor of HCI. I am recruiting PhD students and research assistants for Fall 2026 or Spring 2027. If you are interested in working together, please fill out this interest form .

I am a researcher in Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), Social Computing, and Responsible AI. My work examines how AI and sociotechnical systems can be designed and governed to better align with human values. My research focuses on two areas: (1) sensemaking and reparation of technological harm for affected communities, where I study how people make sense of and respond to harms such as online harassment, misinformation, and AI-related harms, and how computing systems can support remedy and sustainable change; (2) integrating responsible AI across the innovation pipeline, where I develop tools and frameworks that help organizations weigh risks and benefits from early-stage ideas through deployment.

My work uses methods including qualitative interviews, participatory design, experiments, and system building. My work been published at venues such as CHI, CSCW, TOCHI, and AIES, and featured in The Guardian, CNN, BBC, and The New York Times. I have received CHI Honorable Mention award and funding from the CMU–NIST Cooperative Research Center, the Berkeley AI Policy Hub, and the Center for Technology, Society and Policy.

I received my PhD from School of Information UC Berkeley. I completed my Master of Human-Computer Interaction at Georgia Tech, and my Bachelor of Computer Science at Peking University.

Selected Publications