Hi! I am a second-year PhD student in Information Science at Cornell University, advised by Susan Fussell in the Communication and Collaborative Technologies Lab.

My research lies at the intersection of human-AI interaction, social computing, and accessible computing. I study AI as a social actor, exploring how AI takes on social roles in communication, creative work, and online information ecosystems. I also design AI systems that better support accessibility and human cognition.

Before Cornell, I studied Quantitative Social Analysis at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, with a minor in Psychological and Behavioral Science.

News

August 2026

The Impact of Personalized AI Response Suggestions on Content Creators' Direct Messaging was conditionally accepted to ACM GROUP 2027 🎉

August 2026

Two collaborative papers on AI-supported claim verification were accepted to EMNLP 2026 Main and ICWSM 2027: CoVer: Conflict-Aware Claim Verification and Commenotes: Synthesizing Organic Comments to Support Community-Based Fact-Checking. 🔍

July 2026

To Understand Changes of Emotion and Cognitive Efforts in VR was accepted to ISMAR 2026 and conditionally accepted to IEEE TVCG journal 🌟

June 2026

Balancing Safety and Autonomy: Accessibility-Oriented Interventions in Generative AI for Cognitive Impairment was accepted to ASSETS 2026 ✴️

May 2026

I was accepted to the 2026 DLI Conscientious Tech Design Workshop, and will be participating this summer! 💡

April 2026

Selected for the 2026 Siegel PiTech PhD Impact Fellowship and working in New York City this summer 🗽

March 2026

Not Just Me and My To-Do List: Understanding Challenges of Task Management for Adults with ADHD and the Need for AI-Augmented Social Scaffolds was accepted to CSCW 2026 🎉

February 2026

Estimating Mental Effort in Virtual Reality Using Multimodal Biosignals was accepted to IEEE VR 2026 🥽

January 2026

Characterizing Unintended Consequences of GUI Agents For Web Browsing was accepted to CHI 2026 🇪🇸

January 2026

SituFont: A Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention Interface for Enhancing Mobile Readability in Situational Visual Impairments was accepted to CHI 2026 🇪🇸

November 2025

Examining the Impact of Label Detail and Content Stakes on User Perceptions of AI-Generated Images on Social Media was accepted as a CSCW 2025 poster and presented in Bergen ❄️

August 2025

Started my PhD in Information Science at Cornell 🍂

Publications

System diagram for personalized AI response suggestions in content creators' direct messaging

GROUP 2027 · To appear

The Impact of Personalized AI Response Suggestions on Content Creators' Direct Messaging

Kang, E. J., Chen, J., Fussell, S. R.

This work examines how personalized AI response suggestions shape content creators' communication through direct messages.

Publication link forthcoming

CoVer pipeline for conflict-aware claim verification

EMNLP 2026 Main · To appear

CoVer: Conflict-Aware Claim Verification

Zhang, S., Shi, D., Chu, B., Wang, H., Chuai, Y., Wang, Y., Chen, J., Li, S., Yi, X., Li, H.

CoVer supports claim verification when evidence sources conflict, prioritizing factual consensus over misleading signals.

Timeline showing organic comments preceding a community note

ICWSM 2027 · To appear

Commenotes: Synthesizing Organic Comments to Support Community-Based Fact-Checking

Zhang, S., Wang, L., Shi, D., Chuai, Y., Chen, J., Chen, Y., Wang, Y., Wang, Y., Yi, X., Li, H.

Commenotes synthesizes organic social-media comments into timely, community-grounded fact-checking notes.

Enablement and protective accessibility mechanisms for generative AI

ASSETS 2026 · To appear

Balancing Safety and Autonomy: Accessibility-Oriented Interventions in Generative AI for Cognitive Impairment

Meng, Y.*, Chen, J.*, Ye, L., Liu, B., Lu, Z.

This work examines how generative AI interventions can protect users with cognitive impairment without unnecessarily restricting their autonomy.

Figure for ADHD task management paper

CSCW 2026 · To appear

"Not Just Me and My To-Do List": Understanding Challenges of Task Management for Adults with ADHD and the Need for AI-Augmented Social Scaffolds

Chen, J.*, Meng, Y.*, Nie, K.

This paper shows how task management among adults with ADHD is relational and co-constructed, motivating socially aware AI systems for co-regulation and nonlinear attention rhythms.

Figure for Characterizing Unintended Consequences of GUI Agents For Web Browsing

CHI 2026

Characterizing Unintended Consequences of GUI Agents For Web Browsing

Zhang, S.*, Chen, J.*, Gao, Z., Gao, J., Yi, X., Li, H.

This paper characterizes user-reported issues in GUI-agent web browsing across phenomena, influences, and user-centric mitigation.

Figure for SituFont

CHI 2026

SituFont: A Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention Interface for Enhancing Mobile Readability in Situational Visual Impairments

Chen, J.*, Nie, K.*, Zhang, M.*, Yu, C., Gao, Z., Yue, K., Shi, Y., Liang, C.

SituFont uses LLM-enabled, context-aware, human-in-the-loop typography adjustment to improve smartphone readability under changing real-world conditions.

Virtual reality environments used to evaluate multimodal mental-effort estimation

IEEE VR 2026 Poster

Estimating Mental Effort in Virtual Reality Using Multimodal Biosignals

Otono, R., Chen, J., Karai, Z., Gupta, K., Murphy, P., Nunnerley, J., Billinghurst, M.

This pilot study evaluates real-time mental-effort estimation in VR using EEG, ECG, and electrodermal activity.

Figure for privacy preferences paper

HAIPS @ CCS 2025

Towards Aligning Personalized AI Agents with Users' Privacy Preference

Zhang, S., Ma, Y., Chen, J., Li, S., Yi, X., Li, H.

🏆 Distinguished Paper Award

This paper frames privacy management for personalized AI agents as an alignment problem that balances privacy and utility.

Framework for how content creators interpret received messages and write direct-message responses

CHI 2025 Extended Abstracts

Understanding Content Creators' Struggles and Expectations of AI in Direct Messaging

Kang, E. J., Chen, J., Fussell, S. R.

This study identifies creators' challenges in managing direct messages and their expectations and concerns around AI-mediated communication.

Figure for AI-generated images perception paper

CSCW 2025 Companion

Examining the Impact of Label Detail and Content Stakes on User Perceptions of AI-Generated Images on Social Media

Chen, J., Wang, T.-Y., Williams, M., Jordan, N. A., Shao, M., Zhang, L., Fussell, S. R.

This paper examines how label detail and content stakes shape user perceptions of AI-generated images on social media.

Experience

Research Experience

Cornell University (2024-Present) - Communication and Collaborative Technologies Lab - Advisor: Susan Fussell

Cornell University (2024-Present) - Creators and Platform Labor Working Group - Advisor: Brooke Duffy

University of Auckland (2025-2026) - Empathic Computing Lab - Advisor: Mark Billinghurst

HKUST(GZ) (2024-2025) - Spatial Intelligence and Immersive Experience Lab - Advisor: Chen Liang

Industry Experience

NYC Department for the Aging (Summer 2026) - PiTech Fellow

TikTok (Summer 2023) - User Research Intern

Industry Projects

IBM (Spring 2024) - User Researcher (Capstone Project)

Google (Fall 2023) - User Researcher (Capstone Project)

Off the Clock

In my free time, you will usually find me lifting/working out, gaming (though I do not really have time for Civilization anymore), getting absorbed in historical novels, cooking, and exploring restaurants.

Contact

I am always happy to connect about research, collaboration, and related opportunities. Let's chat!