Join Us

As my postdoc journey at Princeton goes by quickly, I am starting as an assistant professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Jan 2025. Here, I’d like to share some early thoughts on advising students and the future direction of my research lab.

Advising Philosophy

I have been lucky to have two great advisors during my PhD at the University of Michigan: Prof. Steve Oney and Prof. Anhong Guo. I have also learned a ton from my internship mentors during my time at Snap Research: Dr. Andrés Monroy-Hernández (now my postdoc advisor at Princeton), Dr. Fannie Liu (now at JP Morgan Research), and Dr. Rajan Vaish (now CEO at Easel AI). These great minds shaped the way I approach research, work with people, and engage with the research community. I hope to pass their wisdom on to my future students.

The overarching goal for my Ph.D. advising is to prepare my student, potentially you, to be an independent researcher by graduation. This means upon graduation you’ll be able to independently evaluate and publish research papers in top venues (e.g., CHI/UIST/CSCW in human-computer interaction). Beyond research skills, I strive to cultivate a lab culture grounded in these core values:

  • Genuine Curiosity: Many of my past projects were motivated by the question: how can our systems or techniques benefit those we design for? This kind of curiosity and passion will keep you motivated as you look for inspirations, build your awesome systems, and push your research forward.
  • Open-mindedness: Cultivate your research taste, while staying open to and respectful of others’ work across fields like computer science, social science, psychology, and art. Be a supportive ally to those whose journeys and struggles you may not share - they can be your labmates or friends.
  • Creative Outlets: Creativity is a central theme in our lab. Creativity comes in many forms - mine is through research, music, photography, and more. I value creativity and encourage you to bring yours to the lab. Let’s enjoy creating something awesome.

Research Focus

Our lab explores the future of interfaces that push computing beyond smartphones, with a focus on spatial computing technologies like AR and VR. I will work with each Ph.D. student to develop project ideas that align their passions and interests with the lab’s focus areas, such as AR/VR, human-AI interaction, end-user programming, social computing, and education. Broadly, our core research areas are:

  • Content Creation: We aim to explore new paradigms in AR/VR content creation (e.g., redefining workflows from 3D modeling and spatial interface design to programming and collaboration). These paradigms should be scalable, supporting increasingly complex experiences and larger communities. That means that students will work with me on building and evaluating interactive systems that explore these paradigms.

  • Human-AI Interaction: The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a new lens for us to examine human creativity. We aim to explore intuitive interactions and interface design for content creation where AI augments, rather than replaces, human. This involves applying machine learning models in different contexts and exploring the balance between human creativity, user agency, and machine automation.

  • Immersive Social Interactions: Immersive technologies like AR and VR hold unique potential to deepen human connections — whether in work settings or personal relationships. In this line of research, we design and build social AR/VR systems and study how they could positively impact people’s communication and social interactions in different settings.

How to join?

Ph.D. applicants: I am planning to recruit 1-2 Ph.D. students at NJIT starting Fall 2025. Ph.D. students at NJIT are typically fully funded with full tuition, health insurance, travel funding opportunities, and a generous stipend. Ideal candidates should resonate with the values and research goals above, have significant experiences with AR/VR technologies, and demonstrate strong programming skills. You should put my name in your research statement while applying for our Ph.D. program. Feel free to drop me any questions via email.

Masters/Undergraduate students: We welcome masters and undergraduate students with strong technical skills who are enthusiastic about participating in research. Please email me your CV, transcripts, specific research interests, and what you hope to gain from the research experience in our lab. Please note that priority will be given to NJIT students over those from external institutions.

Postdocs: I have a limited capacity for hosting postdoc scholars. Please email me directly with your CV, representative publications, and specific research topics that you would like to work on.

About NJIT

NJIT is a leading R1 research university with significant growth in HCI research prominence. Our HCI faculty spans diverse sub-areas, including AR/VR, AI, education, accessibility, computer music, and more. Overall, NJIT’s rising trajectory is highlighted by its 19-spot climb in the U.S. News & World Report rankings since 2022, now positioned at No. 84.

Located in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, NJIT is only a 20-minute train ride from Manhattan, the heart of NYC. You’ll have access to world-class creative inspirations, such as renowned exhibitions, concerts, and premier tech and industry opportunities.

This note is inspired by Prof. Michael Bernstein, Prof. Eric Gilbert, and Prof. Ziang Xiao.