Michael D. Ekstrand, Ph.D
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Science at Drexel University, where I lead the INERTIA Laboratory to study AI-powered information access systems (recommender systems, search engines, etc.). My particular goal is to make sure these systems promote an equitable, inclusive, and well-informed society. Previously, I co-led the People and Information Research Team (PIReT) at Boise State University and earned my Ph.D at the University of Minnesota.
Links
News
Aug 25 — Papers at RecSys Beyond
We have two papers accepted to the BEYOND workshop at RecSys 2025: one on lessons learned building news recommenders and another on challenges holding the field back.
Aug 5 — New paper in TORS
Our paper on participatory design for recommendation is forthcoming in Transactions on Recommender Systems. Preprint now available!
Jul 16 — RecSys Summer School 2025
I am lecturing on fairness and social impact of recommender systems at the Summer School on Recommender Systems.
May 15 — Fair LLMs at ACL
Our paper on the challenges of addressing fairness at the LLM level (led by Jacy Reese Anthis) has been accepted to ACL 2025. Preprint now available.
Apr 29 — Paper at FairUMAP 2025
Our paper, “User and Recommender Behavior Over Time” (led by Samira Vaez Barenji) has been accepted to FairUMAP 2025.