Diane J. Litman

Diane J. Litman is a Professor of Computer Science and Senior Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh. She serves as the Associate Dean for Mentoring and Development in the School of Computing and Information (SCI). Her academic roles include faculty positions in the Department of Computer Science and the Intelligent Systems Program (ISP). Previously, she held roles at AT&T Labs and Columbia University.

Education: Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Rochester; A.B. in Mathematics and Computer Science from the College of William and Mary.

Research Interests: Focuses on artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, spoken language processing, and AI applications in education. Current projects include TeachTalk, CourseMIRROR, eRevise, and Emma, exploring NLP for educational tools, classroom discussion analysis, and fairness in AI.

Awards & Recognition: ACL Fellow (2017), AAAI Senior Member (2011), NAAI Distinguished AI Scholar (2025), Member of National Academy of AI (2025), and numerous best paper awards. Recognized for contributions to AI in education and mentoring.

Grants & Funding: NSF grants for projects like FAI (fairness in justice via AI), Discussion Tracker (argumentation education), and Pitt Cyber Accelerator initiatives. Active in interdisciplinary research collaborations, including with Duolingo and the Learning Agency.

Labs & Teams: Leads research groups in NLP and educational technology at LRDC and SCI. Collaborates with teams on multimodal argument mining, chatbot development, and socially responsible AI systems.