Kiran Tomlinson

Kiran Tomlinson

Senior Researcher

Microsoft Research

About

I’m a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research in the AI Interaction and Learning group, where I’m working on understanding and improving the interactions between people and their LLM-based assistants. More broadly, my research studies preferences and decision-making through algorithmic and machine learning methods.

I recently completed my PhD in Computer Science at Cornell University, where I was fortunate to be advised by Jon Kleinberg. My dissertation was on human decision-making at the individual and collective level. During my PhD, I interned at Microsoft Research with Jennifer Neville on recommendations in networks and at Microsoft’s Office of Applied Research with Longqi Yang and Mengting Wan on multi-organization recommendation. In Winter and Spring 2023, I was a visiting instructor at Carleton College teaching Data Structures and Mathematics of Computer Science.

When away from my desk, I spend my time playing guitar, building 8-bit computers, playing video games, biking, listening to music, flying quadcopters, bouldering, and playing pool. I have additional interests in spaceflight, Premier League football, and Formula 1.

Recent news

🗣 Jan ‘25 Gave a talk on instant runoff voting at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle, WA.

📝 Dec ‘24 Our paper on replicator dynamics for candidate positioning was accepted to AAAI ‘25!

🇨🇦 Dec ‘24 Attended NeurIPS ‘24 in Vancouver.

Sep ‘24 Started my new job at Microsoft Research in the AI Interaction and Learning group!

🚚 Aug ‘24 Moved from Ithaca, NY to Bellevue, WA!

All news

Collaboration Network

People are red, papers are blue.

Recent Papers

(2025). Replicating Electoral Success. Accepted to AAAI.

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(2024). The Moderating Effect of Instant Runoff Voting. AAAI.

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(2024). Bounding Consideration Probabilities in Consider-Then-Choose Ranking Models. arXiv.

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(2023). Graph-based Methods for Discrete Choice. Network Science.

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