Hi! I am a first-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

June 2026

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

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 in human-gui agent collaboration for web browsing was accepted to CHI 2026 🇪🇸

January 2026

SituFont: A Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention System 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 🍂

Selected Research

Figure for Characterizing unintended consequences in human-gui agent collaboration for web browsing

CHI 2026

Characterizing unintended consequences in human-gui agent collaboration 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 System for Enhancing Mobile Readability in Situational Visual Impairments

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

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

Figure for ADHD task management paper

CSCW 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

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 privacy preferences paper

CCS 2025 Workshop

Towards Aligning Personalized Conversational Recommendation Agents with Users' Privacy Preferences

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

🏆 Distinguished Paper Award

We propose a conceptual framework for conversational recommendation agents that align user preferences while balancing privacy and utility.

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!