News

2026
📄 Paper
Poster on student self-assessments of programming ability when using LLMs accepted at ICER 2026 in Uppsala, Sweden. Paper on siding in CS1 classrooms and poster on self-assessments in pair programming, both led by Kristin Fasiang, also accepted.
📅 Conference
Co-organizing Workshop on Advancing Theory, Research, and Practice for Generative AI in University-Level Computing Education at Northwestern University on July 20! This in-person, interactive workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss what we must consider to support just, inclusive, and caring learning environments for all students.
📅 Conference
Attending HCIC 2026 in Estes Park, Colorado, where I will be presenting a poster on my dissertation work
🏆 Award
Won the CS PhD Student Leadership award alongside three of my amazing colleagues! The CS PhD Advisory Council also won the Student Organization of the Year. I'm very grateful for the four years I have spent with the organization.
📅 Conference
Attending the CHI 2026 Workshop in Barcelona on Understanding and Engaging in Critical Resistance to AI in Education! Co-first author Kristin Fasiang and I have a position paper at the workshop on using sociocultural learning theories to define productive boundaries for GenAI in education and co-design as a method for working within them.
📄 Paper
Poster led by Yinmiao Li on designing to support metacognition accepted to CHI 2026
🎉 Milestone
Passed my prospectus (dissertation proposal), and officially ABD ("all but dissertation")! Thank you to my amazing committee for their generative and thoughtful feedback!
📅 Conference
Attending the 2026 CRA-WP Grad Cohort Workshop in Seattle
📄 Paper
Paper led by Brett Wortzman and Miya Natsuhara on the CSE 12X self-placement tool accepted to SIGCSE TS 2026
🧑‍🏫 Teaching
Co-leading Computing Everywhere workshop "Show and Tell: Build Your Digital Portfolio" with Yinmiao Li
2025
🎤 Talk
Presented "Practical insights into supporting novice programmers' self-assessments of programming ability in the LLM era" at the Student Seminar Series in the CS department on recent and ongoing work about how students think about their abilities and practices with and without LLM tools
📄 Paper
Paper led by Stephanie Yang on LLMs and motivational constructs accepted to Koli Calling 2025
📅 Conference
Participated in the doctoral consortium at ICER 2025 in Charlottesville
📄 Paper
Paper led by Yinmiao Li on contextualized computing and poster led by Kristin Fasiang on belonging accepted to ISLS 2025
🏆 Award
Members of the CS PhD Advisory Council won the Ambassador Award from the CS department for our service to the PhD student community
📅 Conference
Presented on designing an intervention to support student self-assessments as a poster at the Northwestern Symposium on AI, Education, and the Learning Sciences
🧑‍🏫 Teaching
Volunteer teaching in a fifth grade CS class in Evanston-Skokie School District 65
2024
🎉 Milestone
Passed my qualifying exam and admitted to candidacy! Thank you to my committee for their thoughtful feedback and encouragement.
🎥 Media
Featured in a PhD student spotlight: reflections on two years at Northwestern + advice for prospective students
🧑‍🏫 Teaching
TA-ing for the Introduction to Graduate Studies course in the CS department
🏆 Award
Won the best paper award at ICER 2024 for first-author paper on students' reasons for their self-assessments of ability
📄 Paper
First-author paper on students' reasons for their self-assessments of ability and paper led by Yinmiao Li on metacognition accepted to ICER 2024 in Melbourne
🔬 Research
Ran co-design workshop on self-assessments in intro computing with CS instructors
🏆 Award
Awarded the CS Student Hero Award alongside two of my awesome peers
🏆 Award
Received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP)
🌱 Life
Started a practicum in the Northwestern / ETHS Partnership Office through the Graduate Engagement Opportunities program
2023
🏆 Award
Awarded the Design Cluster Research Fellowship at Northwestern
📄 Paper
Presented a poster and lightning talk on designing a real-time intervention for self-assessments at ICER 2023 in Chicago
📅 Conference
Attended the 2023 CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women in San Francisco
🏆 Award
Received the ACM-W Research Conference Scholarship to attend SIGCSE TS 2023 in Toronto
2022
📅 Conference
Presented a poster at the 2022 Lambert Conference on the Future of Human-Computer Interaction + Design
🎉 Milestone
Started my PhD at Northwestern University
🎉 Milestone
Graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
🏆 Award
Completed an year in the inaugural class of CS Student Ambassadors and Research Scholars (CS STARS) at UIUC, a joint research and outreach program for women in computing
📄 Paper
Presenting on Disparities by Gender in Self and Peer Evaluation at the Undergraduate Research Symposium
🎥 Media
Reflections on my most meaningful experiences in the Siebel Center for Computer Science at UIUC