Ryan Louie

I am a postdoc in Stanford's Computer Science department, affiliated with the Stanford NLP and HCI groups and advised by Diyi Yang and Emma Brunskill. I received my PhD from Northwestern's Technology and Social Behavior program, where I worked closely with Prof. Haoqi Zhang and Darren Gergle on Human-AI Interaction and Social Computing research topics. Prior to that, I received my B.S. in Robotics from Olin College of Engineering.

My research advances human-centered AI approaches to create systems that assist in activities that promote personal well-being. I have built human-AI systems help train novice counselors to effectively support patients (mental health), empower novice composers to create music that expressively communicates their ideas or emotions (creativity), and enable friends to connect via collective experiences across distance (social connection). Motivated by these application domains, I invent technical methods for improving how humans can customize and collaborate with AI. This involves making it easier for humans to communicate their goals (eliciting intentions, tasks, feedback) and for AI systems to meaningfully align with them (steering, fine-tuning, adapting). I then conduct experimental studies and real-world deployments to understand how design choices in a human-AI system impact human behavior and user experience.

I am on the job market in Fall 2025! Please contact me about any full-time opportunities in the academic and industry market in the areas of Human-Centered AI and LLMs for Mental Health.