Research Projects
My PhD thesis examines the accessibility and inclusivity of mental health technologies, with a focus on how stigma and non-Western cultural perspectives shape engagement. I began with a remote interview study exploring how East Asian university students perceive and use these tools, revealing barriers related to literacy and communication. Building on this, I conducted participatory co-design sessions with international students, UBC counselors, and administrators, guided by an ecological model. Our most recent work (CSCW 2025) implemented one of the brainstormed designs: a prototype that gently scaffolds help-seeking and uses self-efficacy as an evaluative lens. My current project investigates how large language models can support the writing of shareable mental health narratives.
As the UX design lead on this research project at UBC’s School of Nursing, I am prototyping a mobile-assisted tool to help older adults with cancer and co-morbidities better manage their symptoms. Our multidisciplinary team includes researchers from Nursing and Computer Science, as well as patient partners. We are currently implementing a high-fidelity prototype in preparation for real-world deployment.
In this academic research project, I collaborated with a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington to qualitatively examine how families track health and sleep, activities typically designed for individual use. This multi-year collaboration began with a formative study and culminated in the design, implementation, deployment, and evaluation of a family-centered sleep tracking probe.
For my master’s capstone in Human-Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington, I led end-to-end journey research to reimagine the self-check-in experience. Acting as research lead, I collaborated closely with business and design stakeholders to map customer journeys, identify critical pain points, and synthesize insights across multiple touchpoints and channels. Using cognitive walkthroughs, contextual observations, participatory workshops, and iterative prototyping, our team created Direct Pass—a streamlined, automated check-in flow that reduced stress and reinforced Alaska’s customer-service brand. The project demonstrated how journey-based insight synthesis can guide strategic decision-making.
