Joseph A. Konstan

Joseph A. Konstan is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Distinguished University Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota's Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He serves as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Science and Engineering and is a Fellow of ACM, AAAS, and IEEE. His work focuses on Recommender Systems, Social Computing, and Human-Computer Interaction issues including personalization, online community ethics, and health technology.

Education:

• Ph.D., Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley (1993)
• M.S., Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley (1990)
• A.B., Computer Science, Harvard College (1987)

His research explores collaborative filtering (GroupLens project), organizational communication systems (bulk email optimization), and ethical frameworks for online community research. Current projects include a live news reader community infrastructure funded by NSF Award #CNS-2016397 and mobile health applications for diabetes management in collaboration with UMN School of Nursing.

Recent publications analyze user interaction patterns in recommender systems, algorithmic trade-offs, and privacy mechanisms. Articles examine content diversity, novelty preferences, and multi-stakeholder personalization challenges.

Scientific Recognition:

• Distinguished ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award (2013)
• IEEE Fellow (2013), AAAS Fellow (2011), ACM Fellow (2008)
• Multiple test of time awards from SIGIR, WWW, and AAAI conferences

As advisor, Konstan has mentored over 40 graduate students including current Ph.D. candidates Ruoyan Kong and Ruixuan Sun, with alumni now at institutions like University of Illinois, IBM Research, Amazon, and Google. He leads the GroupLens Research Group, which recently received the ACM Software Systems Award for its 30-year contributions to recommender systems.