Projects

The Grand Palace is a Chinese history simulation game exploring an educational strategy of representing a complex political system in a specific historical period. In this game, interactors play as an emperor in the imperial age of China, who needs to seek supporters in the court to prepare for war. The simulation represents the bureaucratic structure of the imperial court and the political threats an emperor might face. The goal is to educate the interactors about the strategies an emperor can use to maintain his power.
With nearly four billion people still lacking access to the internet, efforts to expand internet access are growing rapidly across the world. Cuba remains one of few emerging nations where this access is still affected by historical trade embargoes and restrictions. Since the 2014 announcement of the normalization of relations between Cuba and the U.S., however, internet access in Cuba is increasing. This work is situated during this time of transition to explore the impacts of increasing internet access on individuals and communities living in Havana.
Family and friends connect and bond through food, during mealtimes or just by simply sharing a photo of their meal. This strengthens the bond between people. However, modern life has required us to travel for work, for education, or to temporarily relocate, causing us to be apart from loved ones. As a result, this has made it hard to maintain in-person mealtimes. This project focuses on exploring ways that people can connect to loved ones when they are apart through food.
While previous work has addressed the direct effects of misinformation, we propose to study the phenomenon of misinformation about misinformation, or politicians ``crying wolf'' over fake news. We argue that strategic and false allegations that stories are fake news or deepfakes benefit politicians by helping them maintain support in the face of information damaging to their reputation. We posit that this concept, known as the ``liar's dividend'', works through two theoretical channels: by injecting informational uncertainty into the media environment, or by providing rhetorical cover.
In collections of scientific and cultural history that are too big to see, metadata act as virtual handles for rare and delicate artifacts from the past. At the Arnold Arboretum, a collection of long-lived trees, vines, and shrubs managed by Harvard University, landscapes from around the world and across time are stitched together by metadata. However, metadata are worthy of study themselves. Created in varied social and technological eras, they register the organizational structures and values of their time.
The Light Orchard is an interactive installation that invites people to walk into a grove of futuristic trees, lit with color. The trees are aware of the presence of people in their space, and can respond in many different ways. User can play different games, watch animations, and work together with different simulations, that allow them to easily collaborate, learn, and play together.
The Augmented Reality experience, The Lights of St. Etienne, uses the AR-browser Argon as a platform for an embodied, location-based experience in St Etienne Cathedral in Metz. The experience takes into account the cultural heritage and ‚"hidden" stories embedded in its architecture, windows, and ornamentations. Lights focuses on five separate sites (geo-spots) in and around the cathedral to explore various dimensions of the cathedral, its history, and its place in Metz.
Usually, objects are considered to be discrete instantiations of something unique and unitary, comprising one individual thing and not another. Some technological developments are making that assumption murkier. Ubiquitous computing and mobile devices have begun to shift how objects operate. As examples, clothing is being instrumented with computational capabilities, creating the fields of "wearables". Networked appliances in the home become members of the Internet of Things.
Can virtual characters improvise open-ended, physically-embodied, interactions with people in real-time using objects within their environment? Find out on the main stage of the Robot Improv Circus, where you can play the Props game with your robot partner. Dazzle the robot audience and mime hilarious actions by pretending that each abstract mystery prop is a recognizable, real-world object. This research project investigates real-time decision-making in open-ended (very large) decision-spaces without a single clear goal using knowledge learned from observing and interacting with people.
Social movement organizing is becoming increasingly dependent on communication technologies. How can CSCW systems support grassroots organizations in facilitating collective action through democratic participation? In this project, we studied Science for the People-Atlanta, a social movement organization dedicated to building a grassroots movement around science activism. We used action research, both participating in the organization and studying it. Further, we interviewed ten active members of the organization.
The Shape of Story is an interactive story circle experience in which participants collectively create a story line-by-line. Artificial intelligence in narrative understanding is used in conjunction with a symbolic visual language in order to visualize this story in real-time. The result is a communally created narrative art piece.
An augmented reality fraction learning experience with storytelling and tangible artifacts.
This project is a narrative video game exploring what are the effective emotional agencies, an experiment on combining traditional Chinese philosophy and contemporary one together, and a biography of my grandmother conveying the unforgettable piece of the history of the new China. In this game, which is the first episode, interactors need to play a role of my grandma in her childhood. They need to collect food, get along with people, and manage their mental health to survive in the cruel world.
A video game adaptation of the Haruki Murakami story built in Unreal Engine.

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