Research

Impact Areas

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Community of Research

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

This CoR brings together researchers at CSAIL working across a broad swath of application domains. Within these lie novel and challenging machine learning problems serving science, social science and computer science.

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Group

Center for Brains, Minds and Machines

Our main goal is developing a computationally based understanding of human intelligence and establishing an engineering practice based on that understanding.

Tomaso Poggio

Leads

Tomaso Poggio

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Tomaso Poggio

Research Center

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

The MIT Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML) works towards creating AI systems that are robust, reliable and safe for real-world deployment.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Robotics

Impact Areas

Lead

Aleksander Madry

Community of Research

Cognitive AI Community of Research

This CoR aims to develop AI technology that synthesizes symbolic reasoning, probabilistic reasoning for dealing with uncertainty in the world, and statistical methods for extracting and exploiting regularities in the world, into an integrated picture of intelligence that is informed by computational insights and by cognitive science.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Robotics

Impact Areas

Lead

Howard Shrobe

Research Group

Computation and Biology

Our lab focuses on designing algorithms to gain biological insights from advances in automated data collection and the subsequent large data sets drawn from them.

Bonnie Berger

Leads

Bonnie Berger

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Bonnie Berger

Research Group

Computational Biology Group

We seek to understand the mechanistic basis of human disease, using a combination of computational and experimental techniques.

Manolis Kellis

Leads

Manolis Kellis

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Manolis Kellis

Research Group

Computational Connectomics Group

Our group’s goal is to create, based on such microscopic connectivity and functional data, new mathematical models explaining how neural tissue computes.

Nir Shavit

Leads

Nir Shavit

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Nir Shavit

Research Group

Computational Perception & Cognition

We combine methods from computer science, neuroscience and cognitive science to explain and model how perception and cognition are realized in human and machine.

Aude Oliva

Leads

Aude Oliva

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Aude Oliva

Community of Research

Computing & Society Community of Research

This community is interested in understanding and affecting the interaction between computing systems and society through engineering, computer science and public policy research, education, and public engagement.

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Research Group

Geometric Data Processing Group

Our group studies geometric problems in computer graphics, computer vision, machine learning, optimization, and other disciplines.

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Justin Solomon

Community of Research

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

The focus of the HCI CoR is inventing new systems and technology that lie at the interface between people and computation, and understanding their design, implementation, and societal impact.

Stefanie Mueller

Leads

Stefanie Mueller

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Manufacturing

Lead

Stefanie Mueller

Research Center

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Our mission is to work with policy makers and cybersecurity technologists to increase the trustworthiness and effectiveness of interconnected digital systems.

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

Sensing, Learning and Inference

We develop scalable algorithms for analysis of complex, high-dimensional data.

John Fisher

Leads

John Fisher

Research Areas

Robotics

Impact Areas

Energy

Internet of Things

Lead

John Fisher

Research Group

Software Design Group

Our goal is to find better ways to make software, and ways to make software better.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Jackson

Community of Research

Systems Community of Research

The Systems CoR is focused on building and investigating large-scale software systems that power modern computers, phones, data centers, and networks, including operating systems, the Internet, wireless networks, databases, and other software infrastructure.

+21

Sam Madden

Leads

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Computer Architecture

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

+21

Sam Madden

Community of Research

Theory of Computation Community of Research

The goal of the Theory of Computation CoR is to study the fundamental strengths and limits of computation as well as how these interact with mathematics, computer science, and other disciplines.

+20

Costis Daskalakis

Leads

Costis Daskalakis

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Costis Daskalakis

+20

Costis Daskalakis

Community of Research

Vertical AI Community of Research

This CoR takes a unified approach to cover the full range of research areas required for success in artificial intelligence, including hardware, foundations, software systems, and applications.

Martin Rinard

Leads

Martin Rinard

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Martin Rinard

Research Group

Weiss Laboratory for Synthetic Biology

The Weiss Lab seeks to create integrated biological systems capable of autonomously performing useful tasks, and to elucidate the design principles underlying complex phenotypes.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Computational Cognitive Science Group

12 Project Results

Project

A Counterfactual Simulation Model of Causal Judgment

Cognitive AI Community of Research

We develop a computational model that explains how people make causal judgments in physical scenes by mentally simulating counterfactual outcomes and comparing those to what actually happened.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Imagination, Computation, and Expression Laboratory (ICE Lab)

Project

AIRvatar System: A Framework for Analyzing Virtual Identities

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

AIRvatar is a system that telemetrically collects and analyzes fine-grained data on users’ virtual identities and the process used to create them.

D. Fox Harrell

Leads

D. Fox Harrell

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

D. Fox Harrell

Project

Alloy

Software Design Group

Alloy is a language for describing structures and a tool for exploring them. It has been used in a wide range of applications from finding holes in security mechanisms to designing telephone switching networks. Hundreds of projects have used Alloy for design analysis, for verification, for simulation, and as a backend for many other kinds of analysis and synthesis tools, and Alloy is currently being taught in courses worldwide.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Computational Design and Fabrication Group

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Crowdsourcing in Graphics and Vision

Our goal is to develop new applications and algorithms that leverage the skills of distributed crowdworkers, notably for image and video processing applications.

Alexandre Kaspar

Leads

Alexandre Kaspar

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Alexandre Kaspar

Project

Data Civilizer

Data Systems Group

Data scientists universally report that they spend at least 80% of their time finding data sets of interest, accessing them, cleaning them and assembling them into a unified whole.

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Project

Database Design

Data Systems Group

The conventional wisdom described in all text books for performing database design is never followed in practice.

Michael Stonebraker

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Michael Stonebraker

Project

Geometry and topology for scientific computing and shape analysis

Computer Graphics Group

Developing state-of-the-art tools that process 3D surfaces and volumes

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Justin Solomon

Project

Geometry in Large-Scale Machine Learning

Machine Learning

Data often has geometric structure which can enable better inference; this project aims to scale up geometry-aware techniques for use in machine learning settings with lots of data, so that this structure may be utilized in practice.

Justin Solomon

Stefanie Jegelka

Leads

Justin Solomon

Stefanie Jegelka

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Internet of Things

Justin Solomon

Stefanie Jegelka

Project

Political Geometry: Establishing Fair Mathematical Standards for Political Redistricting

Gerrymandering is a direct threat to our democracy, undermining founding principles like equal protection under the law and eroding public confidence in elections.

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Decentralized Information Group

Justin Solomon

Project

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

Cognitive AI Community of Research

Computing & Society Community of Research

We are developing a general framework that enforces privacy transparently enabling different kinds of machine learning to be developed that are automatically privacy preserving.

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Project

Sensible Deep Learning for 3D Data

Machine Learning

Developing state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms for analyzing and modeling 3D geometry

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Manufacturing

Justin Solomon

Project

Where Are They Looking?

Our goal is to build a system that predicts where people are looking in images. Given an image and the location of a head, our approach follows the gaze of the person and identifies the object being looked at.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Natural Language Processing Group

27 People Results

PI
Core/Dual

Regina Barzilay

Professor

Natural language processing, machine learning

E regina@csail.mit.edu

T 258-5706

Lead

Aspect-Augmented Adversarial Networks for Domain Adaptation

Member

Vertical AI Community of Research

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

Natural language processing, machine learning

Yu-An Chung

Graduate Student

Speech and language processing, machine learning

E andyyuan@mit.edu

Lead

Unsupervised Speech Processing

Member

Spoken Language Systems Group

Speech and language processing, machine learning

Azim Dehghani Amirabad

Postdoctoral Associate

Machine learning, Bioinformatics

E azimd@csail.mit.edu

Machine learning, Bioinformatics

Mustafa Doga Dogan

Graduate Student

E doga@mit.edu

Member

HCI Engineering Group

PI
Core/Dual

Fredo Durand

Professor

Vision, graphics, computational photography

E fredo@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7223

Lead

Computer Graphics Group

Computational Understanding of Visualizations and Graphic Designs

Member

Computational Bounce Flash for Indoor Portraits

Halide

Vision, graphics, computational photography

R. David Edelman

Director, Project on Technology, Economy & National Security

Machine learning, cybersecurity, governance

E rde@mit.edu

T 258-6389

Machine learning, cybersecurity, governance

Barış Ekim

Graduate Student

E ekim@csail.mit.edu

Gregory Falco

Research Affiliate

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

E gfalco@mit.edu

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

PI
Core/Dual

John Fisher

Senior Research Scientist

Vision, machine learning, signal processing

E fisher@csail.mit.edu

T 253-0788

Lead

Sensing, Learning and Inference

Member

Data-Driven Inference Group

Vision, machine learning, signal processing

PI
Core/Dual

John Guttag

Professor

Machine learning, medicine, data-driven inference

E guttag@csail.mit.edu

T 253-6022

Lead

Hidden Influencers, Risk and Causes of Infection

Predicting Adverse Events Across Changing Electronic Health Record Systems

Machine Learning for Insights in Basketball Strategy

Detecting Voice Misuse to Diagnose Disorders

Member

Systems Community of Research

Machine learning, medicine, data-driven inference

Evan Hernandez

Graduate Student

Natural language processing, machine learning, interpretability

E dez@mit.edu

Natural language processing, machine learning, interpretability

PI
Core/Dual

Frans Kaashoek

Professor

Systems, networks, architectures

E kaashoek@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7149

Lead

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

Scaling Filesystems To Many Cores

Perennial

Member

Noria: a new data-flow system for web applications

Computation Structures Group

FSCQ: File-system verification

Systems Community of Research

Systems, networks, architectures

Fern Keniston

Senior Administrative Assistant

Research and Education Support

E fern@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5860

RM 32/ 32-250A/ 391

Member

Clinical Decision-Making Group

Research and Education Support

Konstantin Krismer

Graduate Student

E krismer@mit.edu

Member

Computational Genomics Group

PI
Core/Dual

John Leonard

Professor

Robotics, navigation/mapping, self-driving cars

E jleonard@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5305

Lead

Marine Robotics Group

Self-Driving Vehicles

Member

Embodied Intelligence Community of Research

Robotics, navigation/mapping, self-driving cars

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Graduate Student

Privacy and Big Data

E vaik@mit.edu

Lead

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

Member

Decentralized Information Group

Privacy and Big Data

PI
Core/Dual

Una-May O'Reilly

Principal Research Scientist

Applied AI and ML in cybersecurity, healthcare, education

E unamay@csail.mit.edu

T 253-6437

Lead

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

Adversarial Cyber Security

GIGABEATS: Data science for medical sensor data

MOOC Learner Project: Data science for e-learning

Member

Cognitive AI Community of Research

Applied AI and ML in cybersecurity, healthcare, education

PI
Core/Dual

Daniela Rus

Director

CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy

E rus@csail.mit.edu

T 258-7567

RM 32/ 32-368/ 374

Lead

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

Social Network Extraction from GPS Datasets with Coresets

Safety Standards for Autonomous Vehicles

Soft Contact Modeling

Practical Secure Computation

Self-Driving Vehicles

Robust Learning for Autonomous Vehicles

Brain-Controlled Robots

Planning in Congestion for Autonomous Vehicles

Socially-Compliant Behavior for Autonomous Driving

Coresets for Machine Learning Algorithms

M-Blocks Modular Robotics

Robot Compiler

Distributed Robot Garden

Route and Motion Planning for Mobility-on-Demand with Rules of the Road

Member

Social Network Extraction from GPS Datasets with Coresets

Task-Driven Co-Optimization Of Articulated Robots

Wearable Blind Navigation

Drones that Drive

Better Models for Ride-Sharing

SoFi - The Soft Robotic Fish

Controlling drones and other robots with gestures

Using Muscle Signals to Lift Objects with Robots

Embodied Intelligence Community of Research

Helping robots learn using demonstrations

CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy

Dmitriy Smirnov

Graduate Student

https://people.csail.mit.edu/smirnov/

E smirnov@mit.edu

RM 32-D475B

Member

Sensible Deep Learning for 3D Data

https://people.csail.mit.edu/smirnov/

PI
Core/Dual

Justin Solomon

Assistant Professor

Geometry, graphics, vision, machine learning, optimization.

E jsolomon@mit.edu

Lead

Computer Graphics Group

Geometry in Large-Scale Machine Learning

Political Geometry: Establishing Fair Mathematical Standards for Political Redistricting

Sensible Deep Learning for 3D Data

Optimal transport for statistics and machine learning

Geometry and topology for scientific computing and shape analysis

Member

Determining Wikipedia's Influence on Science

Geometry, graphics, vision, machine learning, optimization.

Neil Thompson

Research Scientist

I'm an innovation scholar studying computer science and economics.

E neil_t@mit.edu

Lead

Supertech Research Group

I'm an innovation scholar studying computer science and economics.

PI
Core/Dual

Antonio Torralba

Professor

Vision, graphics, perception, machine learning

E torralba@csail.mit.edu

T 324-0900

RM 32-386G

Lead

Understanding Light via Deep Neural Networks

Understandable Deep Networks

Understanding Food images

Member

Predictive Vision

Where Are They Looking?

Single-Image 3D Interpreter Network

VirtualHome: Representing Activities as Programs

Places Database for Scene Recognition

Semantic Scene Understanding through ADE20K dataset

Crossing the Vision-Language Boundary

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

Embodied Intelligence Community of Research

Vision, graphics, perception, machine learning

Dishita Turakhia

Graduate Student

PhD student in HCIE group at CSAIL

E dishita@mit.edu

Member

HCI Engineering Group

PhD student in HCIE group at CSAIL

Yu Wang

Graduate Student

E wangyu9@mit.edu

RM 32-D475A

Member