PAWS Lab - User contributions [en]

Investigating and Evaluating Exploratory Recommender Systems

2026-03-04T18:48:45Z

Rah225:

== Overview ==
This project is focused on a popular category of interactive Recommender Systems (RecSys) known as user-controlled RecSys. The idea of user-controlled RecSys is to engage the user in controlling some aspects of the recommendation process such as choosing peers for collaborative filtering, fusing several recommender algorithms, or deducing user current preferences. While the traditional data-driven approaches estimate these parameters from data trying to optimize the results across many users and contexts, in many cases user data is not sufficient to make a reliable “guess”. As demonstrated by many existing examples, leaving control over some aspects of the recommendation process to the user avoids guessing and leads to a better user experience in each specific case. A good example of simple user control is the carousel-based interface in some industrial recommenders. This approach leaves it to the user to choose which category of items they are currently interested in instead of the traditional attempt to “guess” it with too little information and offer users a single ranked list.

The target of this proposal is algorithms for user-controlled recommendation. While recent work on user-controlled RecSys demonstrated the value of this approach, this stream of research predominantly used simple recommer algorithms. In other words, the focus was on the user at the expense of the AI. In this project, we want to restore the balance by developing a better generation of recommender algorithms that can benefit from user control.

== Funding ==

The project is supported by Amazon Research Award to Peter Brusilovsky

== Systems ==

* [[Grapevine]] - an interactive recommender system to help students in finding research advisors
* [[Grapevine2]] - explaining concepts/ topics to support students in understanding expertise and connections
* [[HELPeR_-_Health_e-Librarian_with_Personalized_Recommender|HELPeR]] - Health e-Librarian with Personalized Recommender
* [[ArtEx]] - visual art exploration systems with controllable popularity and diversity

== Publications ==
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Sabet, A. J. (2021) Controlling Personalized Recommendations in Two Dimensions with a Carousel-Based Interface. In: Proceedings of Joint Workshop on Interfaces and Human Decision Making for Recommender Systems (IntRS’21) at 2021 ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys’21), September 25, 2021, CEUR, pp. 112-122.
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Sabet, A. J. (2021) Connecting Students with Research Advisors Through User-Controlled Recommendation. In: Proceedings of Fifteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 27 September 2021 - 1 October 2021, ACM, pp. 745-748.
* Rahdari, B. and Brusilovsky, P. (2022) Simulation-Based Evaluation of Interactive Recommender Systems. In: Proceedings of 9th Joint Workshop on Interfaces and Human Decision Making for Recommender Systems co-located with the 16th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2022), Seattle, WA, September 22, 2022, CEUR, pp. 122-136.
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., He, D., Thaker, K., Luo, Z., and Lee, Y. J. (2022) Helper: an interactive recommender system for ovarian cancer patients and caregivers. In: Proceedings of 16th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, Seattle, WA, ACM, pp. 644-647.
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Kveton, B. (2022) Towards Increasing the Coverage of Interactive Recommendations. In: Proceedings of The Thirty-Fifth International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference (FLAIRS-35), Jensen Beach, FL, May 15-18, 2022, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
* Rahdari, B., Kveton, B., and Brusilovsky, P. (2022) The Magic of Carousels: Single vs. Multi-List Recommender Systems. In: Proceedings of Proceedings of the 33rd ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, Barcelona, Spain, June 28-July 1, 2022, ACM, pp. 166-174.
* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Arun Balajiee Lekshmi Narayanan, and Jordan Barria-Pineda. 2024. Explanations in Open User Models for Personalized Information Exploration. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 32nd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP Adjunct '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 256–263. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3631700.3665188 paper])
* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Luis A. Leiva, and Bereket A. Yilma. 2025. ArtEx: A User-Controllable Web Interface for Visual Art Recommendations. In Proceedings of the Nineteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1328–1330. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3705328.3759343 paper])
* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Bereket A. Yilma, and Luis A. Leiva. 2025. Recommending Paintings in Web Art Gallery with Adjustable Popularity and Diversity. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 33rd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP Adjunct '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 449–458. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3708319.3733649 paper])

People

2026-03-04T18:42:58Z

Rah225: /* Doctoral Students */

== Faculty ==
<gallery>
Image:Peter.jpg|'''[[User:Peterb | Peter Brusilovsky]]''' Director
</gallery>

== Doctoral Students ==
<gallery perrow="4">

Image:rully.jpeg|[https://ruhendrawan.com/ Rully Hendrawan] Projects: [[The_Pitt_Grapevine|Grapevine]], [[Investigating_and_Evaluating_Exploratory_Recommender_Systems|ArtEx]]

Image:moh70.jpg|[https://themhassany.github.io/ Mohammad Hassany]

Image:arun.jpeg|[https://a2un.github.io/ Arun Lekshmi-Narayanan]

Image:Rafaella.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaella-sampaio-de-alencar/ Rafaella Sampaio de Alencar]

Image:Quinn.jpg|[https://quinnkwolter.com/#page-top Quinn Wolter]

</gallery>

== Incoming Doctoral Students ==
<gallery perrow="4">

Image:Marzieh.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/marzieh-alidadi/ Marzieh]

</gallery>

== Past Doctoral Students ==
<gallery perrow="4">

Image:Jordan.jpeg|[http://pitt.edu/~jab464 Jordan Barria-Pineda] Assistant Professor, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile
Image:Kamil.jpg|[http://pitt.edu/~kaa108 Kamil Akhuseyinoglu] PostDoc, Carnegie Mellon
Image:behnam.jpg|[http://pitt.edu/~ber58 Behnam Rahdari] Projects: [[The_Pitt_Grapevine|Grapevine]], [[HELPeR_-_Health_e-Librarian_with_Personalized_Recommender|HELPeR]] PostDoc, Stanford
Image:k.thaker.png|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/khushsi/ Khushboo Thaker] PAWS + [https://sites.pitt.edu/~dah44/iris.html IRIS Lab] Projects: [[HELPeR_-_Health_e-Librarian_with_Personalized_Recommender|HELPeR]]
Image:Arezou.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/arezou-farzaneh/ Arezou Farzaneh] PAWS + [https://sites.pitt.edu/~mrfrank/resilientEconomy.html Resilient Economy Lab]
Image:Avatar.jpg|[http://pitt.edu/~hkc6 Hung Chau] Applied Scientist, Zillow
Image:zrisha.png|[https://zakrisha.com Zak Risha] PAWS + [https://facetlab.pitt.edu/ FACETLab]
Image:Tsai.jpg|[http://www.cht77.com/ Chun-Hua Tsai] Assistant Professor, College of Information Science and Technology, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Image:Roya.jpg|[[User:R.hosseini | Roya Hosseini]] Senior Applied Scientist, Microsoft
Image:yunhuang.png|[http://columbus.exp.sis.pitt.edu/yunhuang/index.htm Yun Huang] Assistant professor, Universidad Austral de Chile
Image:Julio.jpg|[[User:Julio | Julio Daniel Guerra]] Projects: [[Mastery Grids Interface|Mastery Grids]] Professor of Computer Science, Universidad Austral de Chile
Image:xidao.jpg|[[User:Xidao| Xidao Wen]] PAWS + [https://picsolab.github.io/ PISCO Lab] Postdoctoral Researcher, Tsinghua University
Image:Shaghayeghsahebi.jpg|[[User:Sherry | Shaghayegh Sahebi (Sherry)]] Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, University at Albany - State University of New York
Image:Clau.JPG|[[User:Clau | Claudia López]] Associate Professor, Departamento de Informática, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile
Image:Kong.png|[[User:Chirayu | Chirayu Wongchokprasitti]] Projects: [[CN3]], [[CoMeT]] Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh
Image:Tomek.jpeg| [https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomekloboda/ Tomek Loboda] Projects: [[WADEIn]], [[Mastery Grids Interface|Mastery Grids]] Data Scientist
Image:jennifer.jpg|[[User:Jennifer | Jennifer (Yiling) Lin]] PAWS + [https://sites.pitt.edu/~dah44/iris.html IRIS Lab] Associate Professor, Department of Information Management, National Sun Yat-Sen University.
Image:Denis_PAWS_blog.jpg|[[User:Dparra | Denis Parra]] Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, School of Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Image:Sergey.jpg|[[User:Sergey | Sergey Sosnovsky]] Associate Professor, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Image:Hsiao.jpg|[[User:Shoha99 | Sharon (I-Han) Hsiao]] Projects: [[AnnotEx]], [[QuizJET]], [[Progressor]], [[ProgressorPlus]] Assistant Professor and David Packard endowed junior fellow, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Santa Clara University
Image:Danielle.gif|[[User:Suleehs | Danielle H. Lee]] Projects: [[Eventur]], [[Proactive]] Professor, Management Information Systems, Chung-Ang University, Korea
Image:Michael_V_Yudelson.gif|'''[[User:Myudelson | Michael V. Yudelson]]''' Projects: [[Knowledge Tree]], [[CUMULATE]], [[PERSEUS]], [[NavEx]], [[CoPE]], [[WebEx]] Staff Data Scientist, Chegg
Image:jaewook-1.jpg|[[User:Jahn | Jae-wook Ahn]] Projects: [[ADVISE]], [[Adaptive VIBE]], [[YourNews]], [[TaskSieve]], [[NameSieve]] Research Staff Member, Distributed AI, IBM Research
Image:RostaFarzan.jpg|[[User:Rostaf | Rosta Farzan]] Professor, School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh.
</gallery>

== Past Master Students ==
<gallery perrow="4">
Image:ZaraBlum.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/zarajblum/ Zara Blum] Projects: [[The_Pitt_Grapevine|Grapevine]]
Image:Gangeshwari_Rajavelu.png|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/gangeshwari-rajavelu-94991137/ Gangeshwari Rajavelu]
Image:ShrutiSabusuresh.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/shrutisabusuresh/ Shruti Sabusuresh] Projects: [[Smart Content]]
Image:WeiJeng.jpeg|[https://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~wjeng/ Wei Jeng] Projects: [[CN3]]
Image:ShaopengZhang.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaopengzhang/ Shaopeng Zhang] Projects: [[CN3]]
Image:Gayathri.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/gayathrikrishnamoorthy/ Gayathri Krishnamoorthy]
Image:Dhruba.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbaishya/ Dhruba Baishya]
Image:VikKhenat.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/vik-khenat/ Vik Khenat]
Image:Chavan_girish.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishchavan Girish Chavan] CTO Astrata Inc
Image:Tibor Dumitriu.gif|[http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~dumitriu/ Tibor Dumitriu] Projects: [http://ir.exp.sis.pitt.edu/advise/ AdVisE]
</gallery>

== Past Visiting Faculty ==
<gallery perrow="4">

Image:dr_bereket_yilma.jpg |[https://bekyilma.github.io/ Dr. Bereket Yilma]
Image:Jaakko peltonen 215x296.jpg|[http://users.ics.aalto.fi/jtpelto// Jaakko Peltonen]
Image:IMG_0611.JPG|[http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~acristea/ Alexandra I. Cristea]
Image:Sibel.jpg|[http://sibelsomyurek.com/ Sibel Somyürek]
Image:Susan_bull.png|[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Susan_Bull2 Susan Bull]
Image:KatrienVerbert.jpg|[http://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~katrien.verbert/KatrienVerbert/Katrien_Verbert.html Katrien Verbert]
Image:Roman bednarik.png|[http://cs.uef.fi/~rbednari/ Roman Bednarik]
Image:TanjaMitrovic.jpg|[http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/tanja.mitrovic/ Tanja Mitrovic]
Image:Eva millan.gif|[http://www.lcc.uma.es/~eva/ Eva Millán Valldeperas]
Image:Julita vasilleva.gif|[http://www.cs.usask.ca/faculty/julita/ Julita Vassileva]
Image:NicolaHenze.gif|[http://www.kbs.uni-hannover.de/~henze/ Nicola Henze]

</gallery>

== Past Visiting Scholars ==
<gallery perrow="4">
Image:Henrik.jpg | [https://www.uia.no/om-uia/ansatte/henrbr16/ Henrik Bradland]
Image:alice.jpg |[https://research-portal.uu.nl/en/persons/alice-micheli Alice Micheli] Utrecht University, Netherlands
Image:1648208030273.jpg | [https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellszymanski/ Maxwell Szymanski] KU Leuven, Belgium
Image:Francesco.jpeg | [https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/zest/team/francesco_sovrano.html Francesco Sovrano] Universita Degli Studi Bologna, Italy
Image:boet_hubert.jpg |[https://www.linkedin.com/in/hubertboet/ Hubert Boët] Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
Image:Laia_alb%C3%B3.png|[https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=G8XglngAAAAJ&hl=ca Laia Albó] Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
Image:huhtamaki-jukka-300.jpg|[http://www.linkedin.com/in/jukkahuhtamaki Jukka Huhtamäki] University of Tampere, Finland
Image:CECILIA.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-di-sciascio/ Cecilia di Sciascio] Know Center, Graz, Austria
Image:Andrew.jpg|[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shuchen-Li Shuchen Li] Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Image:Rafael.png|[https://rafaelrda.wordpress.com Rafael Dias Araújo] Assistant Professor Federal University of Uberlandia, Brazil
Image:Ayca cebi.jpg|[https://ktu.academia.edu/aycacebi Ayça ÇEBİ] Trabzon University
Image:File crop1 1183908 y 384.jpg|[https://people.aalto.fi/index.html?profilepage=isfor#!teemu_sirkia Teemu Sirkiä] Aalto University, Finland
Image:Chris_face.jpg|[https://www.christophtrattner.info/ Christof Trattner] Professor University of Bergen
Image:Michelle_liang.JPG|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmichelleliang/ Michelle Liang]
Image:Yetunde.JPG|[https://wit.edu/directory/yetunde-folajimi Yetunde Folajimi] Associate Professor Wentworth Institute of Technology
Image:Pkraker.jpg|[http://science20.wordpress.com Peter Kraker] Open Knowledge Maps
Image:Kim.jpg|Jaekyung Kim
Image:Jbravo.gif|[http://www.eps.uam.es/esp/personal/ficha.php?empid=367 Javier Bravo Agapito]
Image:MarkusKetterl1.jpg|[http://studip.serv.uni-osnabrueck.de/extern.php?username=mketterl&page_url=http://www.virtuos.uni-osnabrueck.de/VirtUOS/TemplStudipMitarbDetails&global_id=4c8fb9ddd4dde83366119b2031d39ab3 Markus Ketterl]
Image:Jillfreyne.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfreyne/ Jill Freyne] Deputy Chief Scientist CSIRO
Image:Robert.jpg|[https://bhh.hamburg.de/prof-dr-robert-mertens/ Robert Mertens] Professor Berufliche Hochschule Hamburg
Image:Roman bednarik.png|[https://cs.joensuu.fi/~rbednari/ Roman Bednarik] Professor University of Eastern Finland
Image:Ewald ramp.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/ewaldramp/ Ewald W. A. Ramp] Strategic Systems & Technology Corporation
Image:Jacopo.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacopoarmani/ Jacopo Armani] Director/Producer Fireflies
Image:Liping_wang.jpg|Liping Wang JiLin University

</gallery>

People

2026-03-04T18:42:29Z

Rah225: /* Doctoral Students */

== Faculty ==
<gallery>
Image:Peter.jpg|'''[[User:Peterb | Peter Brusilovsky]]''' Director
</gallery>

== Doctoral Students ==
<gallery perrow="4">

Image:rully.jpeg|[https://ruhendrawan.com/ Rully Hendrawan] Projects: [[The_Pitt_Grapevine|Grapevine]], [[Investigating_and_Evaluating_Exploratory_Recommender_Systems|Artex]]

Image:moh70.jpg|[https://themhassany.github.io/ Mohammad Hassany]

Image:arun.jpeg|[https://a2un.github.io/ Arun Lekshmi-Narayanan]

Image:Rafaella.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaella-sampaio-de-alencar/ Rafaella Sampaio de Alencar]

Image:Quinn.jpg|[https://quinnkwolter.com/#page-top Quinn Wolter]

</gallery>

== Incoming Doctoral Students ==
<gallery perrow="4">

Image:Marzieh.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/marzieh-alidadi/ Marzieh]

</gallery>

== Past Doctoral Students ==
<gallery perrow="4">

Image:Jordan.jpeg|[http://pitt.edu/~jab464 Jordan Barria-Pineda] Assistant Professor, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile
Image:Kamil.jpg|[http://pitt.edu/~kaa108 Kamil Akhuseyinoglu] PostDoc, Carnegie Mellon
Image:behnam.jpg|[http://pitt.edu/~ber58 Behnam Rahdari] Projects: [[The_Pitt_Grapevine|Grapevine]], [[HELPeR_-_Health_e-Librarian_with_Personalized_Recommender|HELPeR]] PostDoc, Stanford
Image:k.thaker.png|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/khushsi/ Khushboo Thaker] PAWS + [https://sites.pitt.edu/~dah44/iris.html IRIS Lab] Projects: [[HELPeR_-_Health_e-Librarian_with_Personalized_Recommender|HELPeR]]
Image:Arezou.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/arezou-farzaneh/ Arezou Farzaneh] PAWS + [https://sites.pitt.edu/~mrfrank/resilientEconomy.html Resilient Economy Lab]
Image:Avatar.jpg|[http://pitt.edu/~hkc6 Hung Chau] Applied Scientist, Zillow
Image:zrisha.png|[https://zakrisha.com Zak Risha] PAWS + [https://facetlab.pitt.edu/ FACETLab]
Image:Tsai.jpg|[http://www.cht77.com/ Chun-Hua Tsai] Assistant Professor, College of Information Science and Technology, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Image:Roya.jpg|[[User:R.hosseini | Roya Hosseini]] Senior Applied Scientist, Microsoft
Image:yunhuang.png|[http://columbus.exp.sis.pitt.edu/yunhuang/index.htm Yun Huang] Assistant professor, Universidad Austral de Chile
Image:Julio.jpg|[[User:Julio | Julio Daniel Guerra]] Projects: [[Mastery Grids Interface|Mastery Grids]] Professor of Computer Science, Universidad Austral de Chile
Image:xidao.jpg|[[User:Xidao| Xidao Wen]] PAWS + [https://picsolab.github.io/ PISCO Lab] Postdoctoral Researcher, Tsinghua University
Image:Shaghayeghsahebi.jpg|[[User:Sherry | Shaghayegh Sahebi (Sherry)]] Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, University at Albany - State University of New York
Image:Clau.JPG|[[User:Clau | Claudia López]] Associate Professor, Departamento de Informática, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile
Image:Kong.png|[[User:Chirayu | Chirayu Wongchokprasitti]] Projects: [[CN3]], [[CoMeT]] Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh
Image:Tomek.jpeg| [https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomekloboda/ Tomek Loboda] Projects: [[WADEIn]], [[Mastery Grids Interface|Mastery Grids]] Data Scientist
Image:jennifer.jpg|[[User:Jennifer | Jennifer (Yiling) Lin]] PAWS + [https://sites.pitt.edu/~dah44/iris.html IRIS Lab] Associate Professor, Department of Information Management, National Sun Yat-Sen University.
Image:Denis_PAWS_blog.jpg|[[User:Dparra | Denis Parra]] Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, School of Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Image:Sergey.jpg|[[User:Sergey | Sergey Sosnovsky]] Associate Professor, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Image:Hsiao.jpg|[[User:Shoha99 | Sharon (I-Han) Hsiao]] Projects: [[AnnotEx]], [[QuizJET]], [[Progressor]], [[ProgressorPlus]] Assistant Professor and David Packard endowed junior fellow, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Santa Clara University
Image:Danielle.gif|[[User:Suleehs | Danielle H. Lee]] Projects: [[Eventur]], [[Proactive]] Professor, Management Information Systems, Chung-Ang University, Korea
Image:Michael_V_Yudelson.gif|'''[[User:Myudelson | Michael V. Yudelson]]''' Projects: [[Knowledge Tree]], [[CUMULATE]], [[PERSEUS]], [[NavEx]], [[CoPE]], [[WebEx]] Staff Data Scientist, Chegg
Image:jaewook-1.jpg|[[User:Jahn | Jae-wook Ahn]] Projects: [[ADVISE]], [[Adaptive VIBE]], [[YourNews]], [[TaskSieve]], [[NameSieve]] Research Staff Member, Distributed AI, IBM Research
Image:RostaFarzan.jpg|[[User:Rostaf | Rosta Farzan]] Professor, School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh.
</gallery>

== Past Master Students ==
<gallery perrow="4">
Image:ZaraBlum.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/zarajblum/ Zara Blum] Projects: [[The_Pitt_Grapevine|Grapevine]]
Image:Gangeshwari_Rajavelu.png|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/gangeshwari-rajavelu-94991137/ Gangeshwari Rajavelu]
Image:ShrutiSabusuresh.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/shrutisabusuresh/ Shruti Sabusuresh] Projects: [[Smart Content]]
Image:WeiJeng.jpeg|[https://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~wjeng/ Wei Jeng] Projects: [[CN3]]
Image:ShaopengZhang.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaopengzhang/ Shaopeng Zhang] Projects: [[CN3]]
Image:Gayathri.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/gayathrikrishnamoorthy/ Gayathri Krishnamoorthy]
Image:Dhruba.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbaishya/ Dhruba Baishya]
Image:VikKhenat.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/vik-khenat/ Vik Khenat]
Image:Chavan_girish.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishchavan Girish Chavan] CTO Astrata Inc
Image:Tibor Dumitriu.gif|[http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~dumitriu/ Tibor Dumitriu] Projects: [http://ir.exp.sis.pitt.edu/advise/ AdVisE]
</gallery>

== Past Visiting Faculty ==
<gallery perrow="4">

Image:dr_bereket_yilma.jpg |[https://bekyilma.github.io/ Dr. Bereket Yilma]
Image:Jaakko peltonen 215x296.jpg|[http://users.ics.aalto.fi/jtpelto// Jaakko Peltonen]
Image:IMG_0611.JPG|[http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~acristea/ Alexandra I. Cristea]
Image:Sibel.jpg|[http://sibelsomyurek.com/ Sibel Somyürek]
Image:Susan_bull.png|[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Susan_Bull2 Susan Bull]
Image:KatrienVerbert.jpg|[http://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~katrien.verbert/KatrienVerbert/Katrien_Verbert.html Katrien Verbert]
Image:Roman bednarik.png|[http://cs.uef.fi/~rbednari/ Roman Bednarik]
Image:TanjaMitrovic.jpg|[http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/tanja.mitrovic/ Tanja Mitrovic]
Image:Eva millan.gif|[http://www.lcc.uma.es/~eva/ Eva Millán Valldeperas]
Image:Julita vasilleva.gif|[http://www.cs.usask.ca/faculty/julita/ Julita Vassileva]
Image:NicolaHenze.gif|[http://www.kbs.uni-hannover.de/~henze/ Nicola Henze]

</gallery>

== Past Visiting Scholars ==
<gallery perrow="4">
Image:Henrik.jpg | [https://www.uia.no/om-uia/ansatte/henrbr16/ Henrik Bradland]
Image:alice.jpg |[https://research-portal.uu.nl/en/persons/alice-micheli Alice Micheli] Utrecht University, Netherlands
Image:1648208030273.jpg | [https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellszymanski/ Maxwell Szymanski] KU Leuven, Belgium
Image:Francesco.jpeg | [https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/zest/team/francesco_sovrano.html Francesco Sovrano] Universita Degli Studi Bologna, Italy
Image:boet_hubert.jpg |[https://www.linkedin.com/in/hubertboet/ Hubert Boët] Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
Image:Laia_alb%C3%B3.png|[https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=G8XglngAAAAJ&hl=ca Laia Albó] Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
Image:huhtamaki-jukka-300.jpg|[http://www.linkedin.com/in/jukkahuhtamaki Jukka Huhtamäki] University of Tampere, Finland
Image:CECILIA.jpeg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-di-sciascio/ Cecilia di Sciascio] Know Center, Graz, Austria
Image:Andrew.jpg|[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shuchen-Li Shuchen Li] Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Image:Rafael.png|[https://rafaelrda.wordpress.com Rafael Dias Araújo] Assistant Professor Federal University of Uberlandia, Brazil
Image:Ayca cebi.jpg|[https://ktu.academia.edu/aycacebi Ayça ÇEBİ] Trabzon University
Image:File crop1 1183908 y 384.jpg|[https://people.aalto.fi/index.html?profilepage=isfor#!teemu_sirkia Teemu Sirkiä] Aalto University, Finland
Image:Chris_face.jpg|[https://www.christophtrattner.info/ Christof Trattner] Professor University of Bergen
Image:Michelle_liang.JPG|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmichelleliang/ Michelle Liang]
Image:Yetunde.JPG|[https://wit.edu/directory/yetunde-folajimi Yetunde Folajimi] Associate Professor Wentworth Institute of Technology
Image:Pkraker.jpg|[http://science20.wordpress.com Peter Kraker] Open Knowledge Maps
Image:Kim.jpg|Jaekyung Kim
Image:Jbravo.gif|[http://www.eps.uam.es/esp/personal/ficha.php?empid=367 Javier Bravo Agapito]
Image:MarkusKetterl1.jpg|[http://studip.serv.uni-osnabrueck.de/extern.php?username=mketterl&page_url=http://www.virtuos.uni-osnabrueck.de/VirtUOS/TemplStudipMitarbDetails&global_id=4c8fb9ddd4dde83366119b2031d39ab3 Markus Ketterl]
Image:Jillfreyne.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfreyne/ Jill Freyne] Deputy Chief Scientist CSIRO
Image:Robert.jpg|[https://bhh.hamburg.de/prof-dr-robert-mertens/ Robert Mertens] Professor Berufliche Hochschule Hamburg
Image:Roman bednarik.png|[https://cs.joensuu.fi/~rbednari/ Roman Bednarik] Professor University of Eastern Finland
Image:Ewald ramp.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/ewaldramp/ Ewald W. A. Ramp] Strategic Systems & Technology Corporation
Image:Jacopo.jpg|[https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacopoarmani/ Jacopo Armani] Director/Producer Fireflies
Image:Liping_wang.jpg|Liping Wang JiLin University

</gallery>

Investigating and Evaluating Exploratory Recommender Systems

2026-03-04T18:40:23Z

Rah225: /* Fundning */

The Pitt Grapevine

2026-03-04T18:38:31Z

Rah225:

== About the project ==
The goal of the project is to connect students with research advisors at the University of Pittsburgh through an interactive recommender system.

The project was originally funded by the University of Pittsburgh through the [https://www.provost.pitt.edu/priorities/personalizing-education Personalized Education] program (2018-2020), however, it is still going on, several years after the end of the two original rounds of funding. In the course of the project, we developed and evaluated several versions of the interactive recommender system Grapevine.

== Motivation ==

== Systems ==

* [[Grapevine]] - an interactive recommender system to help students in finding research advisors
* [[Grapevine2]] - explaining concepts/ topics to support students in understanding expertise and connections

== Team ==

* '''PIs:''' [[User:Peterb|Peter Brusilovsky]], Eliza Beth Littleton, Dmitriy Babichenko

* Behnam Rahdari: The main developer of Grapevine system
* Rully Agus Hendrawan

== Publications ==
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Babichenko, D. (2020) Personalizing Information Exploration with an Open User Model. In: Proceedings of 31st ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, July 13-15, 2020, ACM, pp. 167-176 ([https://doi.org/10.1145%2F3372923.3404797 paper])
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., Babichenko, D., Littleton, E. B., Patel, R., Fawsett, J., and Blum, Z. (2020) Grapevine: A profile‐based exploratory search and recommendation system for finding research advisors. In: Proceedings of 83rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology, October 25-29, 2020 ([https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.271 paper])
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Sabet, A. J. (2021) Controlling Personalized Recommendations in Two Dimensions with a Carousel-Based Interface. In: Proceedings of Joint Workshop on Interfaces and Human Decision Making for Recommender Systems (IntRS’21) at 2021 ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys’21), September 25, 2021, CEUR, pp. 112-122. ([https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2948/short3.pdf paper])
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Sabet, A. J. (2021) Connecting Students with Research Advisors Through User-Controlled Recommendation. In: Proceedings of Fifteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 27 September 2021 - 1 October 2021, ACM, pp. 745-748. ([https://doi.org/10.1145%2F3460231.3478879 paper])
* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Arun Balajiee Lekshmi Narayanan, and Jordan Barria-Pineda. 2024. Explanations in Open User Models for Personalized Information Exploration. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 32nd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP Adjunct '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 256–263. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3631700.3665188 paper])

The Pitt Grapevine

2026-03-04T18:37:07Z

Rah225: /* Systems */

== About the project ==
The goal of the project is to connect students with research advisors at the University of Pittsburgh through an interactive recommender system.

The project was originally funded by the University of Pittsburgh through the [https://www.provost.pitt.edu/priorities/personalizing-education Personalized Education] program (2018-2020), however, it is still going on, several years after the end of the two original rounds of funding. In the course of the project, we developed and evaluated several versions of the interactive recommender system Grapevine.

== Motivation ==

== Systems ==

* [[Grapevine]] - an interactive recommender system to help students in finding research advisors
* [[Grapevine2]] - explaining concepts/ topics to support students in understanding expertise and connections

== Team ==

* '''PIs:''' [[User:Peterb|Peter Brusilovsky]], Eliza Beth Littleton, Dmitriy Babichenko

* Behnam Rahdari: The main developer of Grapevine system

== Publications ==
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Babichenko, D. (2020) Personalizing Information Exploration with an Open User Model. In: Proceedings of 31st ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, July 13-15, 2020, ACM, pp. 167-176 ([https://doi.org/10.1145%2F3372923.3404797 paper])
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., Babichenko, D., Littleton, E. B., Patel, R., Fawsett, J., and Blum, Z. (2020) Grapevine: A profile‐based exploratory search and recommendation system for finding research advisors. In: Proceedings of 83rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology, October 25-29, 2020 ([https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.271 paper])
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Sabet, A. J. (2021) Controlling Personalized Recommendations in Two Dimensions with a Carousel-Based Interface. In: Proceedings of Joint Workshop on Interfaces and Human Decision Making for Recommender Systems (IntRS’21) at 2021 ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys’21), September 25, 2021, CEUR, pp. 112-122. ([https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2948/short3.pdf paper])
* Rahdari, B., Brusilovsky, P., and Sabet, A. J. (2021) Connecting Students with Research Advisors Through User-Controlled Recommendation. In: Proceedings of Fifteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 27 September 2021 - 1 October 2021, ACM, pp. 745-748. ([https://doi.org/10.1145%2F3460231.3478879 paper])

ArtEx

2026-03-04T18:34:37Z

Rah225:

Modern recommender systems (RecSys), particularly those using deep learning, often lack transparency and user control, functioning as black boxes that may create filter bubbles or prioritize revenue over user preferences. In visual art recommendation systems (VA RecSys), where diversity and exploration are critical, this opacity can hinder user engagement. ArtEx addresses these challenges by providing a web-based platform that empowers users to control recommendation attributes like popularity and diversity through adjustable sliders.

ArtEx is an interactive interface designed to showcase user-driven personalization. Built on the SemArt dataset and leveraging BLIP’s multimodal features as a backbone, ArtEx enables users to explore a rich collection of artworks by solving joint optimization problems to facilitate the control of popularity and diversity of items allowing users to fine-tune recommendations to align with their preferences.

[[File:recsys25-241-fig3.jpg]]

[[File:umapadjunct25-20-fig2.jpg]]

== Publications ==

* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Luis A. Leiva, and Bereket A. Yilma. 2025. ArtEx: A User-Controllable Web Interface for Visual Art Recommendations. In Proceedings of the Nineteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1328–1330. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3705328.3759343 paper])
* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Bereket A. Yilma, and Luis A. Leiva. 2025. Recommending Paintings in Web Art Gallery with Adjustable Popularity and Diversity. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 33rd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP Adjunct '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 449–458. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3708319.3733649 paper])

File:Umapadjunct25-20-fig2.jpg

2026-03-04T18:33:40Z

Rah225: ArtEx UI: Investigate a Painting

== Summary ==
ArtEx UI: Investigate a Painting

ArtEx

2026-03-04T18:31:46Z

Rah225:

Modern recommender systems (RecSys), particularly those using deep learning, often lack transparency and user control, functioning as black boxes that may create filter bubbles or prioritize revenue over user preferences. In visual art recommendation systems (VA RecSys), where diversity and exploration are critical, this opacity can hinder user engagement. ArtEx addresses these challenges by providing a web-based platform that empowers users to control recommendation attributes like popularity and diversity through adjustable sliders.

ArtEx is an interactive interface designed to showcase user-driven personalization. Built on the SemArt dataset and leveraging BLIP’s multimodal features as a backbone, ArtEx enables users to explore a rich collection of artworks by solving joint optimization problems to facilitate the control of popularity and diversity of items allowing users to fine-tune recommendations to align with their preferences.

[[File:recsys25-241-fig3.jpg]]

== Publications ==

* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Luis A. Leiva, and Bereket A. Yilma. 2025. ArtEx: A User-Controllable Web Interface for Visual Art Recommendations. In Proceedings of the Nineteenth ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1328–1330. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3705328.3759343 paper])
* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Bereket A. Yilma, and Luis A. Leiva. 2025. Recommending Paintings in Web Art Gallery with Adjustable Popularity and Diversity. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 33rd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP Adjunct '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 449–458. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3708319.3733649 paper])

File:Recsys25-241-fig3.jpg

2026-03-04T18:30:24Z

Rah225: ArtEx Web Interface

== Summary ==
ArtEx Web Interface

Grapevine2

2026-03-04T18:26:04Z

Rah225:

Open user models provide affordance for a transparent user control over recommendations based on shared symbolic representation within the system. Users must build their user profile by adding these symbols and tuning their importance to get meaningful recommendations. Since the link between these symbols and the reference explanation is often unavailable, it can be difficult for users to understand them. These symbols are often referred to as concepts, tags, areas, topics, labels, features, or keyphrases.

This study showcases an information exploration system that helps students identify potential faculty members to collaborate with. The system works by matching user and faculty profiles that contain keywords or phrases representing topics/areas of interest. Students must develop their understanding of research topics while building their profiles, which can become challenging as they add more keywords.

To support students in controlling the recommendation, we introduce post hoc explanations with three levels of detail: no explanations, individual explanation for topics, and explanation of the relationships between topics.

[[File:umapadjunct24-81-fig2.jpg]]

[[File:umapadjunct24-81-fig3.jpg]]

== Publications ==

* Rully Agus Hendrawan, Peter Brusilovsky, Arun Balajiee Lekshmi Narayanan, and Jordan Barria-Pineda. 2024. Explanations in Open User Models for Personalized Information Exploration. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 32nd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP Adjunct '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 256–263. ([https://doi.org/10.1145/3631700.3665188 paper])

File:Umapadjunct24-81-fig3.jpg

2026-03-04T18:25:13Z

Rah225: Semantic Support: Post-hoc Explanation

== Summary ==
Semantic Support: Post-hoc Explanation

File:Umapadjunct24-81-fig2.jpg

2026-03-04T18:24:48Z

Rah225: Explanation Access Points

== Summary ==
Explanation Access Points

User:Rah225

2026-03-04T18:12:23Z

Rah225:

Rully Agus Hendrawan

2022-now

User:Rah225

2026-03-04T18:12:13Z

Rah225:

Rully Agus Hendrawan
2022-now