Who I Am

I am a Research Scientist of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. At NC State, I work closely with Tiffany Barnes and faculty at Digital Transformation of Education (DTE) cluster. I earned my Ph.D. degree in Human-Centered Computing at University of Florida, advised by Kristy Boyer. I earned my Master’s degree in Information Science at University of Pittsburgh, where I worked closely with Erin Walker and Amy Ogan (Carnegie Mellon University). I received my Bachelor’s degree in Management Science from Anhui University.

Recent Updates

• Presentation (April 2025): I’m presenting two papers at American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting 2025, April 23-27! One focuses on our classroom implementation on integrating AI in middle school science [slides], the other one about using LLMs to automatically evaluate student chatbot projects [slides].

• Publication (April 2025): Two papers accepted to the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) 2025 — one long paper (acceptance rate: 19%) “Investigating the impact of confusion and agency on motivation in a game-based learning environment” led by Dmitri Droujkov and one short paper (acceptance rate: <16%) “Determining problem type using deep reinforcement learning in an intelligent tutor” led by Nazia Alam.

• Publication (Feb 2025): One paper “What Does It Take to Support Problem Solving in Programming Classrooms? A New Framework from the K-12 Teacher Perspective” is accepted to the ACM conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2025 - Lake-breaking work. This work was led by Ally Limke and co-authored with Saminur Islam, Bahare Riahi, Xiaoyi Tian, Marnie Hill, Veronica Catete and Tiffany Barnes.

• Upcoming Position (July 2024): This Fall, I will be joining NC State University, Department of Computer Science as a research scientist working with Tiffany Barnes.

• PhD Dissertation Defense (May 2024): I passed my PhD dissertation defense on May 28th. Huge thanks to my advisor, Kristy Boyer, and my committee members, Maya Israel, Jaime Ruiz, and Eric Ragan for their time invested and incredible support!

What I Do

My research intersects the domains of Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, Collaborative Learning, and Computing Education. My overarching goal is to build AI-powered applications that empower all learners to become critical thinkers, effective collaborators, and confident navigators of our digital world.

I pursue this through three core, synergistic directions: first, designing human-AI interactions that make AI systems transparent, build AI literacy, and support learning; second, developing intelligent learner modeling techniques to provide adaptive, personalized support and feedback at scale; and third, investigating and fostering productive collaborative learning among young learners through the analysis of their multimodal interactions.

You can find my research projects here.