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I'm a METEOR postdoc at MIT, working with Manish Raghavan. I'm a member of the AI for Society working group. Starting in summer 2026, I will be an assistant professor of computer science at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). I work on algorithmic problems relating to the societal impact of AI such as fairness, human/AI collaboration and game-theoretic models of federated/collaborative learning.
I'm also recruiting undergrad/MS students to work with me in at MIT- reach out if you're interested in my work! I'll be recruiting PhDs at UIUC starting in the '25-'26 cycle.
I did my PhD in computer Science at Cornell, where I was extremely fortunate to be advised by Jon Kleinberg. During my PhD, I interned at Google (with Kostas Kollias and Sreenivas Gollapudi), at Amazon (with Krishnaram Kenthapadi and Alexandra Chouldechova) and at Microsoft Research (with Solon Barocas, in the NYC FATE group, and with Nicole Immorlica and Brendan Lucier in the NE EconCS group).
My CV is available here. My pronouns are she/her/hers. My real world interests include hiking in gorges, baking desserts, and hosting murder mystery parties.
The best email is kpd@illinois.edu or kpd46@cornell.edu.
Recent news:
Recent news:
Summer 2025: I'm co-organizing these wonderful workshops: Workshop on Human Algorithm Collaboration (EC), 2nd Workshop on Reliable and Responsible Foundation Models (ICML), and Incentives for Collaborative Learning and Data Sharing (TTIC, August 13-15). Please come by!
Spring 2025: I'm giving a talk at Simons (2/6), presenting our "Private Blotto" paper at AAAI '25, giving a talk AWS in the Themis Science series (3/10), Meta AI & Society seminar (3/20), BEACH workshop on Behavioral Models in EconCS (4/4), and at the Harvard EconCS seminar (4/18).
I'm co-organizing the new AI for Society seminar at MIT.
Fall 2024: I'll be giving invited talks at the CMU FEAT reading group (9/25), CMU workshop on Human-AI Teaming (9/26), INFORMS (10/20), UMass Amherst Theory Seminar (10/24), Boston College department seminar (11/1). I'm visiting Simons this fall for the semesters on Generalization and LLMs (the weeks of 9/24 and 10/14).
September 2024: I've moved to Boston! Come say hi if you're in the area.
Summer 2024 travel: I'll be at: FORC (presenting our "When are two lists better than one?" paper), WALE (co-organizing the Trustworthy AI day), MPI-Tübingen (giving a talk in Moritz Hardt's group meeting), EC (co-organizing the Gender Inclusion workshop), ICML (co-presenting our "Impact of Decentralized Learning on Player Utilities in Stackelberg Games" work and co-organizing a Data and Learning Economics social), (virtually) giving a talk the workshop on Tech for Good!, ESIF (co-presenting the "Decentralized Stackelberg" paper), and EEA-ESESM (presenting the "When are two lists better than one?" paper).
Our paper (joint with Nicole Immorlica, Meena Jagadeesan, Brendan Lucier, Aleksandrs Slivkins) on the "Impact of Decentralized Learning on Player Utilities in Stackelberg Games" was accepted at ICML 2024!
New paper accepted at the prestigious SIGBOVIK conference, with joint authors Katy, Katie, Kate, Katherine, Katie, Cathy, & Katie!
Selected Publications and Honors
Selected Publications and Honors
In Fall 2021, I was selected as a "Rising Star in EECS" for MIT Rising Stars EECS 2021 workshop. My PhD research has been supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
When to Ask a Question: Understanding Communication Strategies in Generative AI Tools
Charlotte Park, Kate Donahue, Manish Raghavan. In preparation.
AI-Assisted Decision Making with Human Learning
Gali Noti, Kate Donahue, Jon Kleinberg, Sigal Oren. Under review (2025).
AI as a Resource: Strategy, Uncertainty, and Societal Welfare
Kate Donahue (PhD dissertation). August '24.
Optimal Selection Using Algorithmic Rankings with Side Information
Kate Donahue, Nicole Immorlica, Brendan Lucier (alphabetical order). Preliminary versions to appear at Neurips '24 workshops on Regulatable ML and Algorithmic Fairness through the Lens of Time. Working version here, final version in preparation.
Private Blotto: Viewpoint Competition with Polarized Agents
Kate Donahue and Jon Kleinberg. Preliminary version accepted at EAAMO 2023. Full version accepted at AAAI 2025.
Impact of Decentralized Learning on Player Utilities in Stackelberg Games
Kate Donahue, Nicole Immorlica, Meena Jagadeesan, Brendan Lucier, Aleksandrs Slivkins (alphabetical order). Accepted at ICML 2024. Presented at ESIF '24 (oral) and EC '24 (contributed poster).
An Abundance of Katherines: The Game Theory of Baby Naming
Katy Blumer, Kate Donahue, Katie Fritz, Kate Ivanovich, Katherine Lee, Katie Luo, Cathy Meng, Katie Van Koevering (alphabetical order). SIGBOVIK 2024. [Note: this is an April Fool's day paper]
When Are Two Lists Better than One?: Benefits and Harms in Joint Decision-making
Kate Donahue, Sreenivas Gollapudi, Kostas Kollias. AAAI 2024 (oral presentation). Summary in the Montreal AI Ethics blog.
Models of fairness in federated learning (Model-Sharing Games III)
Kate Donahue and Jon Kleinberg, 2022. Oral presentation at Neurips workshop on Learning and Decision-making with Strategic Feedback and poster at EAAMO 2022. Accepted at The Web Conference 2023.
Human-Algorithm Collaboration: Achieving Complementarity and Avoiding Unfairness
Kate Donahue, Alexandra Chouldechova, Krishnaram Kenthapadi, 2021. Panel presentation at Neurips workshop on Human-Centered AI. Full version accepted at FAccT 2022. Summary in the Montreal AI Ethics blog.
Optimality and Stability in Federated Learning: A Game-theoretic Approach (Model-Sharing Games II)
Kate Donahue and Jon Kleinberg, 2021. Accepted at Neurips 2021.
Kate Donahue and Jon Kleinberg, 2021. Github repository here. Accepted at AAAI 2021.
Better Together? How Externalities of Size Complicate Notions of Solidarity and Actuarial Fairness
Kate Donahue and Solon Barocas, 2021. NeurIPS Workshop on Consequential Decision Making in Dynamic Environments, contributed talk. Accepted at FAccT 2021.
Fairness and Utilization In Allocating Resources With Uncertain Demand
Kate Donahue and Jon Kleinberg, 2020. Mechanism Design for Social Good, 2019, FAccT 2020, where it won Best Paper in the CS category.
Evolving cooperation in multichannel games
Kate Donahue, Oliver P. Hauser, Martin A. Nowak, Christian Hilbe. Published in Nature Communications, August 2020.
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