Hello!

I am a PhD candidate in MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, where I work with Prof. Thomas Malone.

My research focuses on human-AI interaction and investigates how people and AI should—and should not—work together in organizations. To this end, I concentrate on:

  1. Identifying the conditions for human-AI synergy, when the human-AI combination performs better than both humans and AI alone.

  2. Testing and extending established theories about human behavior to AI and human-AI contexts.

  3. Developing human-AI safety evaluations that ask not just whether a model can emit dangerous content, but how much it magnifies a user’s capacity to carry out harmful actions.

Before coming to MIT, I worked at Goldman Sachs in foreign exchange strategy and structuring. I earned my Bachelor’s degree in computer science from Harvard College, where I graduated Summa Cum Laude with highest departmental honors in computer science and received the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for my undergraduate thesis.

Michelle Vaccaro | Headshot