Hi there!
Thanks for your interest in joining our group. We work with students from many disciplinary backgrounds, at any level from undergraduate to postdoc. Here are a few things you’d find useful to know about us before reaching out:
- We are a small design research group based in Ithaca, NY.
- We design, build, and evaluate interactive systems that improve how people interact with AI. This means our orientation is toward improving AI’s impact in the messy real world, not just describing or theorizing it.
- Our projects involve real ambiguity: you discover the problem (How exactly is AI influencing the real world? In what ways is it not ideal, and why? What exactly does a better AI-infused future look like?) while exploring ways to address it. That ambiguity excites us, though working through it can be stressful at times.
- We bring the attitude of a craftsman to the AI systems we build and the papers we write: We genuinely want them to impart knowledge and inspire others for years, if not decades, to come. To that end, my mentorship is close; my feedback is direct; our quality standards are high.
- To prospective Ph.D. students: Ph.D. students in this group share a professional identity as design researchers: Despite our diverse backgrounds and skillsets, we are held together by our interest in human understanding, design thinking, system design and building, and knowledge creation.
If this sounds like the kind of work you want to do, I’d love to hear from you!
Undergraduate students: The best time to reach out is 1-2 months before the spring or fall semester begins. Please include in your email your CV, unofficial transcript, a short description of the skills you already have and those you hope to gain from doing research with us, and optionally any interactive systems you’ve built. Many of our undergraduate Research Assistants first joined us via BURE, whose application deadline is typically in February.
Prospective Ph.D. students: Please feel free to mention my name in your application directly (I do carefully read all of them), and email me if you have questions.
Warmly,
Qian
(qian yang at cornell dot edu)