Paola R. Peña
Researcher in human-AI collaboration with a focus on language

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at University College Dublin and the Research Ireland ADAPT Centre, supervised by Prof. Benjamin Cowan. My research explores human–AI collaboration through the lenses of psycholinguistics, cognitive science and HCI.

I study the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms people use when interacting with conversational AI agents, and how the presence or absence of these mechanisms in such agents shapes users’ own cognitive and linguistic processes. 

My research aims to:

• Build a more nuanced theoretical understanding of human-AI collaboration through language and, 

• Inform the development of  conversational AI-agents that can truly  communicate and collaborate with humans.