Diego Zapata-Rivera is distinguished presidential appointee and director of the Learning and Assessment Foundations and Innovations (LAFI) research center at ETS in Princeton, NJ. He earned a Ph.D. in computer science (with a focus on artificial intelligence in education) from the University of Saskatchewan in 2003. His research at ETS has focused on the areas of innovations in score reporting and technology-enhanced assessment including work on adaptive learning and assessment environments, conversation-based assessment, caring assessment, and game-based assessment. His research interests also include Bayesian student modeling, open student models, conversation-based tasks, virtual environments, authoring tools, and program evaluation. Zapata-Rivera has produced more than 140 publications including edited volumes, journal articles, book chapters, and technical papers. He has served as a reviewer for several international conferences and journals. He has been a committee member and organizer of international conferences and workshops in his research areas. He was elected as a member of the International AI in Education Society Executive Committee (2022–2027). He is a member of the editorial board for User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, an associate editor for AI for Human Learning and Behavior Change, and a former associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies. Zapata-Rivera has been invited to contribute his expertise to projects sponsored by the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.
