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

• Publication (Jan 2026): Three full papers accepted at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2026! (1) a paper led by me on how children detect and mitigate AI hallucinations during chatbot development; (2) a paper led by Sutapa Dey Tithi on the design and impact of interactive worked examples in intelligent tutoring systems; and (3) a paper led by Bahare Riahi on teacher–chatbot interaction and affect in block-based programming.

• Publication (Nov 2025): One paper accepted at the The 16th Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence (EAAI) 2026. This paper, led by me, presents an experience report implementing the AI Scholars Program. [paper]

• 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.

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.