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Benjamin Xie he|they

Assistant Professor

University of Denver

I design equitable and educational human-data interactions.

I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Denver Department of Computer Science and Affiliate Faculty with the Scrivner Institute of Public Policy. My research interest is in designing critical and equitable human-data interactions to foster learning opportunities and inform policy. I engage with computing education, human-computer interaction, and AI ethics research communities.

I was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow with Stanford University’s Human-Computer Interaction Group and Graduate School of Education and an Embedded Ethics Fellow with Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI and McCoy Center for Ethics in Society. I completed my PhD at the University of Washington Information School with Prof. Amy Ko, where I was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow and also a research intern at non-profit Code.org. Prior to my PhD, I was an MIT EECS-Google Research and Innovation Scholar as an undergraduate and Master’s student at MIT researching with Prof. Hal Abelson and MIT App Inventor.

For more information, see about me, projects, or CV.

If you are a student interested in working with me, please read this page for more information.

Interests

  • Computing Education
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Critical Data Studies
  • Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society
  • Participatory Design

Education

  • PhD in Information Science, 2022

    University of Washington

  • MEng in Computer Science, 2016

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • BS in Computer Science, 2015

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

News

Nov 2025: WE’RE HIRING. Join me at DU CS! 🌄

We’re hiring multiple tenure-track faculty in computer science. Be part of a ‘unicorn’ department! job posting

Nov 2025: Presenting at DU Ignite on Jan 14, 2026

Presenting on my interdisciplinary research efforts to embed critical AI education into K-12. about event

Nov 2025: Faculty Affiliate with Scrivner Institute of Public Policy

Working to inform evidence-based AI policy making in Colorado. about institute

Oct 2025: Founded DU Human-Computer Interaction Group

With Profs. Alannah Oleson and Kerstin Hering, I founded a research group to design technologies that augment people and communities. more info

Jun 2025: Article accepted to ACM Inroads Magazine

Murtaza Ali and I published an article advocating for the broader use of AI benchmarking infrastructure. see paper

Projects

Addressing Environmental Data Inequities

Partnering with community organizations to build youth capacity to use data for environmental justice

AI and Computing Education

Research on teaching with and about AI

Critical Interpretations of Data

Designing opportunities for people to use data to identify and address structural inequities.

Equitable & Ethical Computing Education

Designing theory, strategies, and tools to make computing education more equitable and ethical.

Recent Papers

Using Benchmarking Infrastructure to Evaluate LLM Performance on CS Concept Inventories: Challenges, Opportunities, and Critiques

Used automated benchmarking infrastructure and expert review to understand differences in LLM and student performance on CS assessments with validity evidence.

Teaching Ethics in Computing: A Systematic Literature Review of ACM Computer Science Education Publications

Synthesized findings from 40 years of ACM CS Education research on ethics instruction in higher education computing courses.

Recent Posts

Info for Students Interested in Having Me as an Advisor

Info on whether I am accepting new students and how I prefer students contact me.

Job Calls for Research in CS & STEM Edu, HCI

Sharing a spreadsheet of job calls related to computing edu, STEM edu, HCI & edu research

Contact

Please reach out to me by email! If you are a Stanford or University of Denver CS affiliate, please send me a direct message. I’m better at responding on Slack.