Qian Yang
Assistant Professor in Computing and Information Science at Cornell
Co-Director of the Cornell Digital and AI Literacy Initiative (DALI)
Schmidt Futures AI 2050 Fellow
Hi there 👋! This is Qian (pronounced chi-en). I am a designer and design researcher. I design novel AI applications and services that enhance people’s thinking. From these hands-on design experiences, I develop new design methods and tools to make such design innovations easier.
AI-Generated Texts as Design Material
Recently, I have been interested in harnessing AI-generated texts as material for user experience design. Together with students, I design generative AI writing assistants that enhance the constructive learning and mental health benefits of reflective writing. We also create interactive social media simulations and conversational agents that teach young people how to be responsible online citizens through collaborative, experiential learning.
You can read about this work here:
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How Problematic Writer-AI Interactions (Rather than Problematic AI) Hinder Writers’ Idea Generation, Khonzoda Umarova, Talia Wise, Zhuoer Lyu, Mina Lee, Qian Yang.
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Coauthor: Designing a Human-AI Collaborative Writing Dataset for Exploring Language Model Capabilities, Mina Lee, Percy Liang, Qian Yang, CHI 2022 🏅;
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Sketching NLP: A Case Study of Exploring the Right Things To Design with Language Intelligence, Qian Yang, Justin Cranshaw, Saleema Amershi, Shamsi T Iqbal, Jaime Teevan, CHI 2019 🏅;
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Re-examining Whether, Why, and How Human-AI Interaction Is Uniquely Difficult to Design, Qian Yang, Aaron Steinfeld, Carolyn Rosé, John Zimmerman, CHI 2020 🏅.
This research produced some hopefully useful design tools.
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CoAuthor
A thousand-session human-AI collaborative writing dataset
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The Thought Toolkit
COMING SOON
A platform for prototyping and evaluating genAI writing assistants that enhance, rather than automate, writers' thinking.
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Truman World
COMING SOON
A social media simulation platform that teaches young people navigate and stand up against toxic behaviors online.
Towards Designing Tech and Policy Simultaneously
Another passion of mine is to explore the new practices of designing new tech and its policy guardrails simultaneously. Design innovation often involves developing new products and services that don't fit into existing categories and, therefore, occupy blind spots in current regulatory frameworks. For example, gig platforms started blurring the line between workers and users a decade ago; and AI therapy bots and journaling apps today straddle the line between wellness and clinical technology. I explore how we, as tech designers, can more proactively consider the regulatory needs and responsibilities of our innovations.
- The Future of HCI-Policy Collaboration, Qian Yang, Richmond Y Wong, Steven Jackson, Sabine Junginger, Margaret D Hagan, Thomas Gilbert, John Zimmerman, CHI 2024
- Designing Technology and Policy Simultaneously: Towards A Research Agenda and New Practice, Qian Yang, Richmond Y Wong, Steven Jackson, Sabine Junginger, Margaret D Hagan, Thomas Gilbert, John Zimmerman, CHI 2023 Workshop
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Design Tech & Policy Simultaneously
CHI 2023 Workshop, Hamburg, Germany
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Everyday AI & Mental Health
2025 Thought Summit, Ithaca, NY
Miscellaneous
I received my Ph.D. in HCI from Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and got a SIGCHI outstanding Ph.D. dissertation award along the way. I also have a Master's Degree in Design, a Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial Design (and I was once upon a time a concept car designer), and a Bachelor of Business Administration, all from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. A bit of a degree haul, but it was fun!
I was born and raised in Shanghai, China. Yang's Dumplings is my spiritual dumpling, and I have strong opinions about which is the best soup dumpling spot in Shanghai.