Kristen is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her main research focuses on designing algorithmic systems for user agency and control. Using mixed-methods approaches, she has studied existing control settings — finding
that control settings can function as placebos, increasing user satisfaction even when they do not work. An ongoing thread of work addresses how to design contestability into algorithmic decision making. Before her graduate studies, she worked as a researcher
at the MITRE Corporation.