As a Human-Computer Interaction researcher, I design and build social computing systems (e.g., social media, workplace software) that are grounded in affirmative consent, an idea that a person or a system must ask for, and earn, enthusiastic approval before interacting with an individual.
Existing social platforms enable or exacerbate two classes of problems that negatively impact society: 1) interpersonal harm people cause one another, such as online harassment, and 2) institutional exploitation of users, such as companies’ invasive data tracking of users. Both are closely related to people’s consent (e.g., "Do I decide to interact with this person online?", "Do I opt into tracking for targeted ads?"). Thus, consent is an important concept to define for software design.
My research defines theoretical properties of affirmative consent (affirmative consent is voluntary, informed, revertible, specific, and unburdensome) and provides design ideas on how to encode them into software (CHI 2021). Based on the ideas, I build systems to ensure people's consent boundaries are protected during interactions—especially in contexts where individuals need to make high-risk decisions, such as navigating abuse of power in workplace settings (CHI 2024 LBW, ongoing work). And because there is a power imbalance between tech companies and users, I design interfaces to help users make less burdensome data-related consent decisions (CHI 2023). I am also interested in studying how users perceive social media’s business models, which are a basis for companies’ power (ongoing work). I have also led or collaborated on other research that are mostly about improving social media from various angles or finding better ways to build software—please check out my CV for other publications.
I am a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information and the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, where I am advised by Professor Kentaro Toyama. I am a Meta Research PhD Fellow (selected on my fourth try) and a University of Michigan Barbour Scholar, and was also named an EECS Rising Star. My PhD research gave practical help to founders of new social media, and my internship research impacted Meta's privacy strategy. Recently, I co-wrote a grant proposal with Professor Florian Schaub (grant PI) that led to winning an unrestricted gift from Google.