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Research Publications

The Centers and Margins of Modeling Humans in Well-being Technologies

The Centers and Margins of Modeling Humans in Well-being Technologies

2025
Zhu, Jichen, Sanches, Pedro, Tsaknaki, Vasiliki, van der Maden, Willem, Kaklopoulou, Irene
CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

This paper critically examines how machine learning models humans in three case studies of well-being technologies, surfaces the assumptions that center normative bodies and marginalize complexities, and uses agential realism to propose more inclusive, posthuman-centered ML modeling approaches.

When Discourse Stalls: Moving Past Five Semantic Stopsigns about Generative AI in Design Research

When Discourse Stalls: Moving Past Five Semantic Stopsigns about Generative AI in Design Research

2025
van der Maden, Willem, van der Burg, Vera, Halperin, Brett A., Jääskeläinen, Petra, Lindley, Joseph, Lomas, Derek, Merritt, Timothy
arXiv

This essay analyzes how Generative AI is reshaping design practice and identifies five common “semantic stopsigns” — reductive framings that stall deeper inquiry. Drawing on two expert ACM‑conference workshops and interviews with design practitioners, it reframes these stopsigns into nuanced perspectives that help researchers and designers engage more productively with emerging GenAI tools.

Evaluating the Alignment of AI with Human Emotions

Evaluating the Alignment of AI with Human Emotions

2024
J. Derek Lomas, Willem van der Maden, Sohhom Bandyopadhyay, Giovanni Lion, Nirmal Patel, Gyanesh Jain, Yanna Litowsky, Haian Xue, Pieter Desmet
Advanced Design Research, Volume 2, Issue 2

This study benchmarks the emotional alignment of generative AI models by assessing their ability to express human emotions through imagery. Findings highlight variations in alignment by model, emotion type, and context, informing the design of emotionally expressive AI systems for wellbeing and reducing the risks of emotionally manipulative AI.