Dr. James Rong Chen, a research computer scientist in Computational Sciences Division for eight years, has been working in the area of personalized information retrieval and published two highly quoted papers in UMUAI. He died May 1st, 2001 in an automobile accident on his way home from work. He is survived by his wife, Lily Chang, his sisters Yiko, Ida, Eva, Gina and Nina, and his mother and father, Grace and Y.K. Jim was 45.
Jim was born on September 11th, 1955, in Taipei, Taiwan. He received a B.S. in Physics from the National Tsing Hua University, 1977, a M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1981 and a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of California at San Diego in 1993. He had received awards for both his teaching and research in Computer Science.
Jim worked at Signetics, FMC Ordnance, Apple Computer and IBM before joining NASA in 1993. At Ames, he conducted research on machine learning, digital libraries, and information management, most recently as part of the ScienceDesk Project. He was also the principal investigator for the DIAMS system, an agent-based collaborative information management system. Outside of work, Jim was an active member of the Bay Area Yan Xin Qigong Society.
The Chen family has donated funds to establish two awards in commemoration of James R. Chen:
- The James Chen Award for the best annual UMUAI journal article. The prize carries a cash reward of $1000.
- The James Chen Award for for the best student paper at the UMAP conference. It carries a cash reward of $1000.
The UMUAI James Chen Award is given to the best annual UMUAI journal article. Below the list of award winners thus far.
2019
A cognition-centered personalization-framework for cultural-heritage content
George E. Raptis, Christos Fidas, Christina Katsini, Nikolaos Avouris
UMUAI 29(1): 9–65
2018
Wen Wu, Li Chen, Yu Zhao
Personalizing recommendation diversity based on user personality
UMUAI 28 (3), pp 237-276
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11257-018-9205-x
2017
Mor Peleg, Yuval Shahar, Silvana Quaglini, Adi Fux, Gema García-Sáez, Ayelet Goldstein, M. Elena Hernando, Denis Klimov, Iñaki Martínez-Sarriegui, Carlo Napolitano, Enea Parimbelli, Mercedes Rigla, Lucia Sacchi, Erez Shalom, Pnina Soffer.
MobiGuide: a personalized and patient-centric decision-support system and its evaluation in the atrial fibrillation and gestational diabetes domains
UMUAI 27(2), 159–213
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11257-017-9190-5
2016
Bruno Lepri, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy
Jacopo Staiano, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, CNRS, LIP6, Paris, France
Erez Shmueli, Dep. of Industrial Engineering, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel
Fabio Pianesi, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy
Alex Pentland, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, USA
The role of personality in shaping social networks and mediating behavioral change
UMUAI 26(2-3), 143–175
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-016-9173-y
2015
Dietmar Jannach, Lukas Lerche, Iman Kamehkhosh, Michael Jugovac
What recommenders recommend: an analysis of recommendation biases and possible countermeasures
UMUAI Vol. 25, issue 5, pp. 427–491
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-015-9165-3
2014
Rita Orji, Julita Vassileva, and Regan L. Mandryk
Modeling the Efficacy of Persuasive Strategies for Different Gamer Types in Serious Games for Health
UMUAI Vol. 24, issue 5, pp. 453–98.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-014-9149-8
2013
Peter Pirolli and Sanjay Kairam:
A knowledge-tracing model of learning from a social tagging system
UMUAI Vol. 23, Issue 2-3, pp. 139–168.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-012-9132-1
2012
Joseph A. Konstan and John Riedl
Recommender Systems: from Algorithms to User Experience
UMUAI 22 (1-2), 2012, 101–123
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11257-011-9112-x?LI=true
2011
Kasia Muldner, Winslow Burleson, Brett Van de Sande and Kurt VanLehn
An analysis of students’ gaming behaviors in an intelligent tutoring system: predictors and impacts
UMUAI 21:1-2, 2011, 99-135, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-010-9086-0
Brent Martin, Antonija Mitrovic, Kenneth R. Koedinger and Santosh Mathan
Evaluating and improving adaptive educational systems with learning curves
UMUAI 21:3, 2011, 249–28, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-010-9084-2
2009
Mingyu Feng, Neil Hefferman, and Kenneth Koedinger
Addressing the assessment challenge with an online system that tutors as it assesses
Volume 19, Number 3, pp. 243-266, 2009
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-009-9063-7
2008
H. Cramer, V. Evers, S. Ramlal, M. van Someren, L. Rutledge, N. Stash, L. Aroyo and B. Wielinga
The Effects of Transparency on Trust in and Acceptance of a Content-based Art Recommender
Volume 18, Number 5, 2008
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-008-9051-3
2007
O. Stock, M. Zancanaro, P. Busetta, C. Callaway, A. Krüger, M. Kruppa, T. Kuflik, E. Not, C. Rocchi
Adaptive, Intelligent Presentation of Information for the Museum Visitor in PEACH
Volume 17, Number 3, 2007
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-007-9029-6
2006
Stephanie Elzer, Nancy Green, Sandra Carberry and James Hoffman
A Model of Perceptual Task Effort for Bar Charts and its Role in Recognizing Intention
Volume 16, Number 1 / March, 2006
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-006-9002-9
2004
Anton Leuski and James Allan
Interactive Information Retrieval Using Clustering and Spatial Proximity
Volume 14(2-3), pp. 259-288, June 2004
2003
Justine Cassell and Timothy Bickmore
Negotiated Collusion: Modeling Social Language and its Relationship Effects in Intelligent Agents
Vol. 13(1+2), 2003, pp. 89-132
2002
Cristina Conati, Abigail Gertner, Kurt VanLehn
Using Bayesian Networks to Manage Uncertainty in Student Modeling
UMUAI 12(4), 2002
The James Chen Best Student Paper Award is given to the best student paper at the UMAP conference. Below the winners of the award thus far.
2025
Legal but Unfair: Auditing the Impact of Data Minimization on Fairness and Accuracy Trade-off in Recommender Systems
Salvatore Bufi, Vincenzo Paparella, Vito Walter Anelli, and Tommaso Di Noia
2024
User Perceptions of Diversity in Recommender Systems
Patrik Dokoupil, Ludovico Boratto, Ladislav Peska
2023
Combining Graph Neural Networks and Sentence Encoders for Knowledge-aware Recommendations
Giuseppe Spillo, Cataldo Musto, Marco Polignano, Pasquale Lops, Marco de Gemmis, Giovanni Semeraro
2022
How to Ask for Donations? Learning User-Specific Persuasive Dialogue Policies through Online Interactions
Nhat Tran, Malihe Alikhani and Diane Litman
2021
Generating Interesting Song-to-Song Segues With Dave
Giovanni Gabbolini and Derek Bridge (Insight Centre for Data Analytics, University College Cork, Ireland)
2020
Predicting User Intents and Satisfaction with Dialogue-based Conversational Recommendations
Wanling Cai and Li Chen, Hong Kong Baptist University, China
https://doi.org/10.1145/3340631.3394856
2019
The 27th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, ACM UMAP 2019, in Larnaca, Cyprus, awarded the following paper:
One size does not fit all: Badge Behavior in Q&A sites
Stav Yanovsky, Nicholas Hoernle, Omer Lev and Kobi Gal
2018
The 26th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, ACM UMAP 2018, in Singapore, awarded the following papers:
Predict Demographic Information Using Word2vec on Spatial Trajectories
Adir Solomon, Ariel Bar, Chen Yanai, Bracha Shapira and Lior Rokach
Intent-aware Item-based Collaborative Filtering for Personalised Diversification
Jacek Wasilewski and Neil Hurley.
2017
The 25th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2016, in Bratislava, Slovakia, awarded the following papers:
Out of the Fr-“Eye”-ing Pan: Towards Gaze-Based Models of Attention during Learning with Technology in the Classroom
Stephen Hutt, Caitlin Mills, Nigel Bosch, Kristina Krasich, James Brockmole and Sidney D’Mello
Fine-Grained Open Learner Models: Complexity Versus Support
Julio Guerra-Hollstein, Jordan Barria-Pineda, Christian D. Schunn, Susan Bull and Peter Brusilovsky
2016
The 24th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2016, in Halifax, Canada, awarded the following papers:
On the Value of Reminders within E-Commerce Recommendations
Lukas Lerche, Dietmar Jannach and Malte Ludewig
Analyzing and Predicting Task Reminders
David Graus, Paul Bennett, Ryen White and Eric Horvitz
2015
The 23rd International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2015, in Dublin, Ireland, awarded the following papers:
Counteracting Anchoring Effects in Group Decision Making
Martin Stettinger, Alexander Felfernig, Gerhard Leitner, Stefan Reiterer
Implicit Acquisition of User Personality for Augmenting Movie Recommendations
Wen Wu, Li Chen
2014
The 22nd International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2014, in Aalborg, Denmark, awarded the following papers:
Toward Fully Automated Person-Independent Detection of Mind Wandering
Robert Bixler and Sidney D'Mello
Adaptive support versus alternating worked examples and tutored problems: Which leads to better learning?
Amir Shareghi Najar, Tanja Mitrovic and Bruce M. McLaren
2013
2013
The 21th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2013, in Rome, Italy, awarded the following paper:
Utilizing Dynamic Bayes Nets to Improve Early Prediction Models of Self-Regulated Learning
Jennifer Sabourin, Bradford Mott and James Lester
2012
The 20th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2012, in Montreal, Canada, awarded the following papers:
A Comparative Study of Users' Microblogging Behavior on Sina Weibo and Twitter
Qi Gao, Fabian Abel, Geert-Jan Houben and Yong Yu
Improving Construct Validity Yields Better Models of Systematic Inquiry, Even with Less Information
Michael Sao Pedro, Ryan S.J.D. Baker and Janice Gobert
2011
The 19th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2011, in Girona, Spain, awarded the following papers:
Early Detection of Potential Experts in Question Answering Communities
Aditya Pal, Rosta Farzan, Joseph A. Konstan and Robert E. Kraut
Walk the Talk
Denis Parra and Xavier Amatriain
2010
The 18th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2010, in Kona, Hawaii, USA, awarded the following paper:
Inducing Effective Pedagogical Strategies Using Learning Context Features
Min Chi, Kurt Van Lehn, Diane Litman and Pamela Jordan, CMU and University of Pittsburg, USA
2009
The 17th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2009, in Trento, Italy awarded the following papers:
Social Navigation Support for Information Seeking: If You Build It, Will They Come?
Rosta Farzan and Peter Brusilovsky, University of Pittsburg, USA
Non-Intrusive Personalisation of the Museum Experience
Fabian Bohnert and Ingrid Zukerman, Monash University, Australia
2008
The Adaptive Hypermedia Conference AH'2008 in Hannover, Germany awarded the following papers:
The Effectiveness of Personalized Movie Explanations: An Experiment Using Commercial Meta-data
Nava Tintarev and Judith Masthoff, University of Aberdeen, Scotland
User-Centric Profiling on the Basis of Cognitive and Emotional Characteristics: An Empirical Study
Nikos Tsianos, Zacharias Lekkas, Panagiotis Germanakos, Costas Mourlas, and George Samaras
2007
The 11th International Conference on User Modelling, UM07, in Corfu, Greece awarded the following papers:
Preference-based Organization Interfaces: Aiding User Critiques in Recommender Systems
Li Chen, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
A User Modeling Server for Contemporary Adaptive Hypermedia: an Evaluation of Push Approach to Evidence Propagation
Michael Yudelson, University of Pittsburg, USA
2006
The Adaptive Hypertext and Hypermedia 2006 Conference awarded the following two papers:
Social navigation support in a course recommendation system
Rosta Farzan and Peter Brusilovsky, University of Pittsburgh
A Comparative Study of Compound Critique Generation in Conversational Recommender Systems
Jiyong Zhang and Pearl Pu, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
2005
The 10th International Conference on User Modelling, UM05, Edinburgh, Scotland, July 24-29, 2005 awarded the following two papers:
Assessing Cognitive Load in Adaptive Hypermedia Systems: Physiological and Behavioral Methods
Holger Schultheis and Anthony Jameson (DFKI, Germany)
Using SiteRank for Decentralized Computation of Web Document Ranking
Jie Wu and Karl Aberer (EPFL, Switzerland)
2004
The Adaptive Hypertext and Hypermedia 2004 Conference awarded two awards:
Exploiting Probabilistic Latent Information for the Construction of Community Web Directories
Dimitrios Pierrakos and Georgios Paliouras, Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications, NCSR "Demokritos”
The impact of link suggestion on user navigation and user perception
Ion Juvina (University of Utrecht, the Netherlands) and Eelco Herder (University of Twente, the Netherlands)
The Best Paper Award, sponsored by Springer, is given to the best paper at the UMAP conference. Below the list of award winners thus far.
2025
Synthetic Voices: Evaluating the Fidelity of LLM-Generated Personas in Representing People’s Financial Wellbeing
Arshnoor Kaur, Amanda Aird, Harris Borman, Andrea Nicastro, Anna Leontjeva, Luiz Pizzato, and Dan Jermyn
2024
Explaining the Unexplainable: The Impact of Misleading Explanations on Trust in Unreliable Predictions for Hardly Assessable Tasks
Mersedeh Sadeghi, Daniel Pöttgen, Patrick Ebel, Andreas Vogelsang
2023
Combining Reinforcement Learning and Spatial Proximity Exploration for New User and New POI Recommendations
David Massimo, Francesco Ricci
2022
Walking with PACE – Personalized and Automated Coaching Engine
Madhurima Vardhan, Narayan Hegde, Srujana Merugu, Shantanu Prabhat, Deepak Nathani, Martin Seneviratne, Nur Muhammad, Pranay Reddy, Sriram Lakshminarasimhan, Rahul Singh, Karina Lorenzana, Eshan Motwani, Partha Talukdar and Aravindan Raghuveer
2021
Data-Driven Modeling of Learners' Individual Differences for Predicting Engagement and Success in Online Learning
Kamil Akhuseyinoglu and Peter Brusilovsky (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
2020
Personalized Recommendation of PoIs to People with Autism
Noemi Mauro, Liliana Ardissono and Federica Cena, University of Turin, Italy
https://doi.org/10.1145/3340631.3394845
2019
The 27th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, ACM UMAP 2019, in Larnaca, Cyprus, awarded the following paper:
Effect of Values and Technology Use on Exercise: Implications for Personalized Behavior Change Interventions
Yelena Mejova and Kyriaki Kalimeri
2018
The 26th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, ACM UMAP 2018, in Singapore, awarded the following paper:
Easy to Please: Separating User Experience from Choice Satisfaction
James Schaffer, John O'Donovan and Tobias Höllerer.
2017
The 25th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, ACM UMAP 2017, in Bratislava, Slovakia, awarded the following paper:
Experimental Analysis of Mastery Learning Criteria
Radek Pelánek and Jiří Řihák
2016
The 24th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, ACM UMAP 2016, in Halifax, Canada, awarded the following paper:
Predicting Individual Differences for Learner Modeling in Intelligent Tutors from Previous Learner Activities
Michael Eagle, Albert Corbett, John Stamper, Bruce Mclaren and Ryan Baker
2015
The 23rd International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2015, in Dublin, Ireland, awarded the following paper:
The Mars and Venus Effect: The Influence of User Gender on the Effectiveness of Adaptive Task Support
Alexandria Katarina Vail, Kristy Elizabeth Boyer, Eric N. Wiebe, James C. Lester
2014
The 22nd International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2014, in Aalborg, Denmark, awarded the following paper:
Te,Te,Hi,Hi: Eye Gaze Sequence Analysis for Informing User-Adaptive Information Visualizations
Ben Steichen, Michael M.A. Wu, Dereck Toker, Cristina Conati and Giuseppe Carenini.
2013
The 21th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2013, in Rome, Italy, awarded the following paper:
Comparing and Combining Eye Gaze and Interface Actions for Determining User Learning with an Interactive Simulation
Samad Kardan and Cristina Conati
2012
The 20th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP 2012, in Montreal, Canada, awarded the following paper:
Users and Noise: Estimating the Magic Barrier of Recommendation Systems
Alan Said, Brijnesh Jain, Sascha Narr and Till Plumbaum
2011
The 19th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP2011, in Girona, Spain, awarded the following paper:
Analyzing User Modeling on Twitter for Personalized News Recommendations
Fabian Abel, Qi Gao, Geert-Jan Houben and Ke Tao
2010
The 18th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP2010, in Kona, Hawaii, USA awarded the following paper:
Analysis of Strategies for Building Group Profiles
Christophe Senot, Dimitre Kostadinov, Makram Bouzid, Jerome Picault, Armen Aghasaryan, and Cedric Bernier, Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent France.
2009
The 17th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, UMAP2009, in Trento, Italy awarded the following paper:
Tell Me Where You've Lived, And I'll Tell You What You Like: Adapting Interfaces to Cultural Preferences
Katharina Reinecke, Abraham Bernstein, University of Zurich, Switzerland
2008
Social Information Access for the Rest of Us: An Exploration of Social YouTube
Maurice Coyle, Jill Freyne, Peter Brusilovsky, and Barry Smyth
2007
Exploiting Evidence Analysis in Plan Recognition
Stephanie Elzer, University of Millersville, U.S.A. and Sandra Carberry, University of Delaware, U.S.A.
Each year, User Modeling Inc. recognizes outstanding papers in the field of user modeling, adaptation and personalization with three awards:
The Springer Best Paper Award is given to the best paper at the UMAP conference. The Award is sponsored by Springer Publishers.
The James Chen Best Student Paper Award is given to the best student paper at the UMAP conference.
The UMUAI James Chen Award is given to the best annual UMUAI journal article.
Both James Chen Awards are sponsored by the Chen family in commemoration of James R. Chen.
The winners of all awards are listed on this website. Check out the corresponding items in the menu.