News | Melissa Chen

I passed my qualifying exam and have been admitted to candidacy. Thank you to my committee members for their support and feedback!
I share some reflections on my first two years at NU and some advice for prospective students! [Northwestern CS article]
My first-author paper, co-written with Yinmiao Li and our advisor, Eleanor O’Rourke, won the best paper award at ICER 2024! It was a great experience to present my first paper at ICER in Melbourne, and we look forward to continuing conversations around self-efficacy and self-assessments. [Northwestern CS article] [Link to the paper]

My advisor, Dr. Eleanor O’Rourke, and I ran a co-design workshop with introductory computing instructors on August 7 and 8. If you teach intro computing and programming courses, we’d love to have you attend a future iteration! Learn more on the workshop website and email me if you are interested.
Alongside two of my peers, I was awarded the CS Student Hero Award. [Northwestern CS article]
I am excited to share that I received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) starting in fall 2024! [Northwestern CS article]
In the spring quarter, I was a practicum student in the Northwestern / ETHS Partnership Office through the Graduate Engagement Opportunities program.
I was awarded the Design Cluster Research Fellowship at Northwestern and was very lucky to receive mentorship from my project co-advisors, Dr. Eleanor O’Rourke and Dr. Duri Long, as well as feedback from the other cluster fellows and faculty. [Center for Human-Computer Interaction and Design article]

I presented some preliminary results on our work “Designing a Real-time Intervention to Address Negative Self-assessments While Programming” at ICER 2023 in Chicago as a poster and lightning talk.
I attended the 2023 CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women. I got to learn more about different aspects of grad school, network, and present a poster on my work so far. [Northwestern CS article]
I received the ACM-W Research Conference Scholarship to attend SIGCSE TS 2023. [ACM-W Reflection] [Northwestern CS article]
I presented my plans for my research this quarter as a poster at the 2022 Lambert Conference on the Future of Human-Computer Interaction + Design at Northwestern in October!

I graduated from the University of Illinois in May! Next up: I will be interning on the Lyft Pink & Memberships team as a software engineer intern before starting a PhD at Northwestern.
I participated in the inaugural class of CS STARS! The program is a new initiative by the CS department to jointly encourage research and mentorship/outreach for women in computing. This program was a great way to close out my college career and prepared me for my upcoming adventures. [Illinois CS article]
I presented my senior year research work, advised by Professor Brian Bailey and Wendy Shi, on Disparities by Gender in Self and Peer Evaluation at the Undergraduate Research Symposium!
I was featured in a video by the Grainger College of Engineering! I got a chance to talk about the Siebel Center for Computer Science and my most meaningful experiences at UIUC: serving as a course assistant for computer architecture, an officer for Women in Computer Science, and a co-director of HackIllinois

Melissa Chen