He “Albert” Zhang
Ph.D. candidate in Informatics
College of Information Sciences and Technology
Human-centered AI · Human–computer interaction
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About
I design and study human-centered AI systems, with a focus on qualitative research, accessibility, and everyday interactions.
I am a Ph.D. candidate at Penn State, advised by Distinguished Prof. John M. Carroll, and a student member of the Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence.
My work explores how people use and make sense of AI, and how these systems can support human agency, privacy, and trust.
Background & collaborations +
I work closely with Prof. Syed M. Billah, Prof. ChanMin Kim, and Prof. Xinyi Fu. In 2025, I received the IST Ph.D. Student Award for Research Excellence.
Before Penn State I spent a year as a full-time research assistant at The Future Laboratory, an interdisciplinary HCI lab at Tsinghua University, building the multimodal affect and smart-home testbeds that much of my systems work still draws on. I hold an M.Sc. in Computer and Mathematical Sciences with first-class honours from Auckland University of Technology (2021) and a B.Sc. with a double major in Computer Science and Data Science from Massey University (2019), both in New Zealand.
Selected publications
PromptShield Home: Ambient Multimodal Prompt Injection Defense for Smart-Home Agents
ACM UbiComp 2026 Companion · led a five-student team across five institutions
When the Interviewer Is a Bot: Behavior, Breakdowns, and Trust in MLLM-Led Interviews
HCOMP 2026
Harnessing the Power of AI in Qualitative Research: Exploring, Using and Redesigning ChatGPT
Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 2025
Browse the complete publication list 40 works +
2026
Wolfborn: Silent Emotional Catharsis and Empathy via Pseudo-Vocalized Embodiment
DIS 2026 Companion · first author is an undergraduate mentee
PromptShield Home: Ambient Multimodal Prompt Injection Defense for Smart-Home Agents
ACM UbiComp 2026 Companion · led a five-student team across five institutions
AI4Qual: A Comprehensive Field Guide to LLM-Supported Qualitative Research
Tutorial, IUI 2026, Limassol · lead organizer and instructor
When the Interviewer Is a Bot: Behavior, Breakdowns, and Trust in MLLM-Led Interviews
HCOMP 2026
Communicating AI Uncertainty in Assistive Navigation for People with Visual Impairments
ASPIRE · 69th HFES Annual Meeting, 2026
2025
Augmenting Image Annotation: A Human–LMM Collaborative Framework for Efficient Object Selection and Label Generation
ICLR 2025 Workshop on Bidirectional Human–AI Alignment · Oral at CHI ’25
VR Calm+: Furry Stress Ball as a Haptic Modality for Relaxation in Virtual Reality
IEEE ISMAR-Adjunct 2025
Exploring Inductive and Deductive Qualitative Coding with AI: Investigating Inter-Rater Reliability between Large Language Model and Human Coders
AHFE 2025
Harnessing the Power of AI in Qualitative Research: Exploring, Using and Redesigning ChatGPT
Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 2025
2024
Third-Party Developers and Tool Development for Community Management on Live Streaming Platform Twitch
CHI 2024 Best Paper Honorable Mention
Best Paper Honorable MentionUnderstanding Fear Responses and Coping Mechanisms in VR Horror Gaming: Insights from Semi-Structured Interviews
IEEE Transactions on Games, 2024
Exploring Virtual Reality through Ihde’s Instrumental Realism
iConference 2024
AI Governance in Higher Education: Case Studies of Guidance at Big Ten Universities
Future Internet, 16(10), 2024
2023
QualiGPT: GPT as an Easy-to-Use Tool for Qualitative Coding
arXiv:2310.07061
A Human-Machine Interaction System for Smart Home Environments, and Its Application Method
Patent, China, CN115291718A
A Review of the Frontier Research on Future Smart Home
Science & Technology Review, 41(8), 2023
2022
Design Research and Application Practice of Integrated Experimental Platform for Smart Home
Packaging Engineering, 43(16), 2022
Smart Home Comprehensive Experiment System and Data Processing Method
Patent, China, 2022-09
News
I’ll serve as Associate Chair for the CHI 2027 Full Paper Track.
I designed and taught AI4Qual, a full tutorial on LLM-supported qualitative research, at IUI 2026 in Limassol, and presented our AIoT home-agent architecture in the companion track.
PromptShield Home was accepted to UbiComp 2026; I’ll present it in Shanghai in October. I led the five-student team across five institutions.
Our demo Wolfborn was presented at DIS 2026 in Singapore — first-authored by an undergraduate I mentored from the ground up. [demo.1]
I presented our comparison of human versus AI-powered support in VRChat communities at IMX 2026 in Athlone.
Earlier updates +
I presented VR Calm Plus at CHI 2026 in Barcelona — the third iteration of a tangible-plus-VR system built with two undergraduate mentees.
Two more acceptances: HCOMP on MLLM-led interviews and CSCW on Twitch developers, both presenting this autumn.
I was named runner-up for the IST Award for Excellence in Teaching Support.
I chaired a paper session at CSCW 2025 in Bergen, and presented two pieces of the affect work — VR Calm+ at ISMAR and our zero-shot facial emotion benchmark at MRAC.
AI Trust Reshaping Administrative Burdens appeared at FAccT 2025.
I received the Ph.D. Student Award for Research Excellence and the Alumni Association Graduate Fellowship.
Two at CHI 2025 in Yokohama — smartphone interaction of blind users with LMMs, and generative AI in the VRChat Discord community — plus an oral on our human–LMM annotation framework.
NaviGPT was presented at GROUP 2025 — real-time multimodal navigation for people with visual impairments.
Our Twitch third-party developer study received a Best Paper Honorable Mention at CHI 2024, in the top 3.7% of 4,028 submissions.
VRMN-bD, our multimodal fear-response dataset, was presented at IEEE VR 2024.
I joined a Big Ideas Grant seed award at Penn State as co-principal investigator.
Teaching & community
Mentoring & teaching
Since 2021 I have recruited and mentored 31 students — 18 undergraduate, 12 master’s, and 1 research assistant — across 14 institutions in China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong.
They contributed to 12 projects I initiated and led. I set the research questions, directed study and system design, supervised data collection and analysis, and mentored manuscript preparation. 21 mentees have co-authored peer-reviewed papers with me — several as second author, one as co-first author, and one I mentored through first authorship. Five have stayed with me across multiple projects.
AI4Qual, IUI 2026
Lead organizer and instructor, full tutorial, Limassol, Cyprus · July 2026
Invited guest lecturer
5 lectures at 4 institutions across 3 countries — Penn State, San José State, Tsinghua, FGV EBAPE (Brazil)
DS 435: Data Ethics
Teaching assistant — Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Fall 2026
IST 302 · IST 402
IT Project Management; Data, Environment, and Society
Runner-up, IST Award for Excellence in Teaching Support
Academic service +
ACM CHI
Associate Chair, Full Paper Track
ACM CHI · ACM CSCW
Associate Chair, Poster Tracks
ACM CHI · ACM CSCW
AC for User Experience and Usability and for Late-Breaking Work; Ninja AC, Paper Track, and AC, Poster Track
Program committee
ICHEC · ICLR Workshop on Bidirectional Human–AI Alignment · LAW at NeurIPS
Program committee
ACM Learning at Scale
Program committee
ChCHI · ACII · DG.O
Session chair
CSCW 2025, Bergen — Making Work Meetings Better. CHI 2025, Yokohama — Co-ideation; Creativity Support
Conference reviewer
ACM CHI, CSCW, UIST, DIS, HCOMP, L@S, SIGGRAPH, Multimedia, MobileHCI, UbiComp/IMWUT, VRST, CHI PLAY, ASSETS · AAAI, COLM, ICLR and NeurIPS workshops · IEEE VR, ISMAR, ISWC · AIS ICIS
Journal reviewer
IJHCI · Computers in Human Behavior and CHB Reports · Sociological Methods and Research · International Journal of Qualitative Methods · Policy Studies Journal · Journal of Learning Analytics · Multimedia Tools and Applications · Cogent Arts & Humanities
Special Recognition for Outstanding Reviews
CHI ’24, ’25, ’26 · CSCW ’24, ’25
Student volunteer
ACM IMX 2026 · CHI 2025 · UIST 2024
Board member, ICACHI
International Chinese Association of Computer Human Interaction
Background
Education
Ph.D. in Informatics
The Pennsylvania State University · Advisor: John M. Carroll
M.S. in Computer and Mathematical Sciences
Auckland University of Technology · First-Class Honors
B.S. in Computer Science and Data Science
Massey University · Double major
Awards & funding +
Ph.D. Student Award for Research Excellence
Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology
CHI Best Paper Honorable Mention
Third-Party Developers and Tool Development for Community Management on Twitch · Top 3.7% of submissions
Big Ideas Grant · Co-Principal Investigator
Penn State · $49,935 seed funding
Alumni Association Graduate Fellowship
$5,000
Callaghan Innovation R&D Fellowship
NZD $7,625
IST Award for Excellence in Teaching Support
Runner-up · Penn State