Judy Kay

Judy Kay is Professor of Computer Science in the School of Computer Science within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney. She leads the multi-disciplinary Human Centred Technology Research Cluster. Her research specializes in artificial intelligence in education, human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, personal informatics, and scrutable user modeling, enabling people to inspect, control, and understand their personal data and its use in adaptive systems. She introduced the concept of 'scrutable' user modeling in her 1998 PhD thesis on user modeling shells for user-adapted interaction. Key areas include interfaces and infrastructure for life-wide and lifelong learning from long-term data, open learner models, technology-enhanced learning systems such as e-textbooks and the TRIO system for oncology communication, wearable data interfaces for health goals, clinical dashboards, and tools to address misinformation in online science news. Additional focuses encompass pervasive computing for education and equity in AIED, human-centered AI for health including VR games for physical activity and mobile food logging via the EaT app, and analysis of step data from public health campaigns.

Kay has made significant contributions through leadership roles, serving as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education from 2012 to 2024 and President of the Artificial Intelligence in Education Society from 2009 to 2011. She has held advisory and editorial positions for journals including ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, and conferences such as Ubicomp/ISWC, with roles like General Chair in 2024 and Technical Program Chair in 2023. Awards include the 2018 ACM Distinguished Member for outstanding scientific contributions to computing and the Distinguished Paper Award for IMWUT Volume 3 in 2019 for work analyzing step data from 140,000 individuals. Notable publications feature the chapter on scrutability in AIED in the Handbook of Artificial Intelligence in Education (2023), 'Pervasive Computing Grand Challenges for Smart Learning Environments' in IEEE Pervasive Computing (2022), the EaT app paper and VR game studio study in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (2020), 'Personal User Models for Life-long Learners' in British Journal of Educational Technology (2019), and a summary of 15 years of personalized systems work with Bob Kummerfeld in ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems (2013). Her work has garnered over 16,900 citations on Google Scholar. She has delivered invited keynotes on personalization, open learner models, and learning with uncertainty at venues including AIED 2021 and CHI Down Under 2020. Kay teaches courses such as Human-in-the-loop Data Analytics (DATA3506), Usability Engineering (COMP5427), and advanced research methods for HCI.

Professional Email: judy.kay@sydney.edu.au