The MIT has been awarded the 2025 ACM Sigchi Lifetime Research Award to the head of the Media Arts and Sciences, Professor Patty Mess and the head of the fluid interface research group within the MIT Media Lab. She will accept the prize in Chi 2025 in Yokohama, Japan in April this April.
The Lifetime Research Award is given to individuals whose research in human-computer interaction (HCI) is considered both fundamental and influential for the field. The recipients are chosen based on their cumulative contribution, impact on others’ work, new research development, and computer-human interactions (ACM sign) is chosen based on being an active partner in the association for a special interest group of computing machinery on the computer-human interaction (ACM sign) community.
His enrollment recognizes his advocacy to keep the human agency at the center of HCI and Artificial Intelligence Research. Instead of AI in place of human abilities, MAES has advocated methods in which human abilities can be supported or extended by integration of AI.
In the 1990s, carrying forward the concept of software agents, Maes work has always been located at the intersection of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence and has helped to lay the foundation for today’s online experience. His article “Social Information Filting: Algorithm for Automating ‘Word of Mouth’ is from CHI 95, co-writer with graduate student Upendra Shardanand, the second most quoted paper from ACM Sigchi.
Beyond his contribution to a desktop-based interaction, he has a comprehensive body of work in the field of novel wearing equipment that enhances human experience, for example by supporting memory, learning, decision making or health. Through an interdisciplinary approach, Maes has detected accessible and moral designs, emphasizing the need for a human-focused approach.
“As a senior faculty member, Patty is an integral member of the Media Lab, MIT and large HCI communities,” says Dawan, Director of Media Lab. “His contribution in many different fields, with his unwavering commitment to enhance human experience in his work, is exemplary not only for the interdisciplinary spirit of the media lab, but also to our main mission: to create transformational technologies and systems that enable people to redefine their lives.
Maes is the second MIT professor to receive this honor, who Hiroshi Ishi, his media lab’s associates Hiroshi Ishi, Jerome B. Visner is headed by MIT and tangible media research group at Professor of Media Arts and Sciences.
“I am honored for being recognized by the ACM community, especially given the researchers doing highly interdisciplinary researchers to researchers, even though some of the most influential innovations often come out of that style of research,” said that “said.
