Research
I research and design technologies that support human agency: people’s sense of control over their actions and outcomes. My work spans digital wellbeing, community-engaged augmented reality, and generative AI. I study how apps capture attention and build ways to support intentional use; co-design AR stories with the local Ohlone Native American community; and examine how AI represents people and how people retain judgment and authorship when working with AI.
Supporting intentional technology use, from individual interfaces to the wider app ecosystem.
From adaptable YouTube interfaces to digital attention heuristics and student workshops, I study how design can help people use technology on their own terms.
This work connects attention-capturing design patterns with alternatives that support a sense of control. Recent work also investigates gradual interventions for infinite scrolling on short-form video platforms.
SMAR
Tools and guidelines for collecting and analyzing app-store data at scale—helping researchers understand the digital environments people use every day.
SMAR is supported by an NSF CRII award and undergraduate research funding. The team presented a poster and live demo at TETHICON 2026.
Co-creating stories with communities and the places they call home.
Co-designing augmented reality with the local Ohlone community to bring Indigenous histories and presence into view on the Santa Clara University campus.
The collaboration brings together community storytelling, place-based AR, and co-design methods. Continued work is supported by an ACLS Digital Justice Development Grant.
Understanding how AI represents people, and how people retain agency when working with AI.
Race and gender in AI-generated personas
Our cross-model audit examines how generative AI represents race and gender when it invents people for different occupations.
Personas can shape decisions in design and other fields. This project investigates representational bias in the people that language models generate.
User-editable web experiences
Exploring how people can shape the interfaces they use, through user-editable web experiences and research on agency in malleable software.
Jacaranda: Grafting User-Editable Web Experiences Across Sites is a UIST 2026 poster, to appear. Related CHI workshop work examines user agency under change aversion.
SwitchTube: Figure 1, Lukoff et al., CHI 2023. SMAR: public tool screenshot. Modal Worker: Figure 4, van der Linden et al., FAccT 2026, CC BY 4.0, unchanged. Ohlone co-design photo: Santa Clara University, School of Engineering. Jacaranda: screenshot of the project team’s public design prototype, displaying saved example results. AI Kitchen: Santa Clara University / SCU News & Ideas. Student portraits: SCU HCI Lab’s public roster and SICSS Stanford.
My work on hands-on AI learning brings this research into teaching and community. Explore teaching and AI Kitchen →