Kiri L. Wagstaff
Ph.D. in Computer Science, Cornell University, 2002
Intelligent Clustering with Instance-Level Constraints
M.S. in Computer Science, Cornell University, 2000
B.S. in Computer Science, University of Utah, 1997
M.S. in Geological Sciences, University of Southern California, 2008
Biogenicity Analysis of Stromatolite Structures
Master of Library and Information Science, San Jose State University, 2017
Automated Classification to Improve the Efficiency of Weeding Library Collections
Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2023
Airplane pilot (single-engine land) since 2016, with
instrument
rating since 2023
Oregon Master
Naturalist, 2025
Human-Wildlife Interactions at the Corvallis Airport
Dr. Kiri Wagstaff is an artificial
intelligence researcher and
educator with a focus on the real-world
impact of machine learning and AI. As a principal researcher at
the NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, she developed machine learning systems to help us
explore, understand, and learn about the universe. She also
served as a tactical planner and uplink lead for the Opportunity
Mars Exploration Rover and as the
PDS Imaging Node
Technologist.
From 2023-2024,
she served as an AI subject matter expert in the U.S. Senate through
the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship program.
She now serves as a Special Advisor on Artificial Intelligence for
the Oregon State
University Libraries and teaches a graduate course
on "Machine Learning Challenges in the Real World."
She is passionate about empowering people to make informed decisions
about when and how to use AI in their daily lives.
Dr. Wagstaff earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University,
followed by an M.S. in Geological Sciences (University of Southern
California) and an MLIS in Library and Information Science (San Jose
State University).
She is
a Fellow
of AAAI, and her other honors include
the Lew
Allen Award for Excellence in Research and two
NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medals.
Current activities and news:
- Service and consulting:
- Recent and upcoming talks:
- Scholarships:
- Recommended:
- AI legislation and policy:
- Recently published or posted:
-
New Impacts on Mars: Systematic Identification and
Association With InSight Seismic Events.
Valentin T. Bickel, Ingridd J. Daubar, Géraldine
Zenhäusern, Gary Doran, Constantinos Charalambous, Ben
Fernando, Aleksandra Sokolowska, Kiri L. Wagstaff, Tom Pike,
Simon C. Stähler, John Clinton, and Domenico
Giardini.
Geophysical Research Letters, 52(3), e2024GL109133, 2025.
- We used machine learning to find visually fresh impact
craters on Mars and localize them in space, plus data from
the InSight lander's seismometer to pinpoint impacts in
time. Correlating the two helps us estimate typical
impact rates in this area. So far, we have found 49
seismic events that match a visual impact feature.
- JPL press release: NASA's InSight Finds Marsquakes From Meteoroids Go Deeper Than Expected
- All publications
Library science papers:
- Automated Classification to Improve the Efficiency of Weeding Library Collections.
Kiri L. Wagstaff and Geoffrey Z. Liu.
Journal of Academic Librarianship, 44(2), p. 238-247, 2018.
- We evaluated several machine learning classifiers in terms of their ability to predict which books are most likely to be weeded from a collection. We applied this method to a collection of more than 80,000 items from an academic library and found statistically significant agreement (p = 0.001) between classifier and librarian decisions.
-
Marginalia in the digital age: Are digital reading devices meeting the needs of today's readers?
Melanie Ramdarshan Bold and Kiri L. Wagstaff.
Library & Information Science Research, 39(1), 16-22, 2017.
- We surveyed readers to find out about their attitudes toward marginalia, and whether and how often they indulged in it themselves. We also investigated whether marginalia translates into electronic books and which features are most desired by users of e-readers.
- The Early History of the Monrovia Library, my term paper for LIBR 280 (pdf, 16 pages, 1.0M)
- The Evolution of Marginalia, my term paper for LIBR 200 (pdf, 14 pages, 1.1M)
Selected awards and honors:
Extracurricular activities: