AI systems · evaluation · HCI

Zilin Ma, Ph.D.

I build and evaluate AI systems for negotiation, mental health, and organizational research.

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Harvard Business School AI Institute (formerly the D³ Institute), working with Jacqueline N. Lane, Shai Bernstein, and Karim R. Lakhani. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard SEAS in 2025, advised by Prof. Krzysztof Gajos.

My research covers LLM measurement, human-AI decision making, and research infrastructure. Recent projects include tools used by humanitarian negotiators from the UN, ICRC, and MSF; studies of mental-health chatbots with LGBTQ+ participants; and a longitudinal taxonomy of the problems addressed by U.S. startups.

Postdoc · HBS AI Institute
Ph.D. CS · Harvard '25
Cambridge, MA
zilinma@g.harvard.edu
Portrait of Zilin Ma

Selected Publications

Working papers and peer-reviewed work

Beyond a Technology Lens: Characterizing the Problems Entrepreneurs Solve

Shai Bernstein, Mimi Chen, Jacqueline N. Lane, Zilin Ma

Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 27-016, 2026

SSRN

"ChatGPT, Don't Tell Me What to Do": Designing AI for Context Analysis in Humanitarian Frontline Negotiations

Zilin Ma, Yiyang Mei, Claude Bruderlein, Krzysztof Z. Gajos, Weiwei Pan

Proceedings of the 4th Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work (CHIWORK), 2025

DOI arXiv

Evaluating the Experience of LGBTQ+ People Using Large Language Model Based Chatbots for Mental Health Support

Zilin Ma, Yiyang Mei, Yinru Long, Zhaoyuan Su, Krzysztof Z. Gajos

Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24)

DOI arXiv
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