Conference Grant Reports: Connie Gu at CHI 2025

We are pleased to support our students sharing their work at the premiere conferences in their field. Connie Gu presented on Mobile Technology and Teens at the Association for Computing Machinery CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. From Connie:

From April 26 to May 1, I traveled to Yokohama, Japan, to attend the ACM CHI Conference. I participated in the workshop "Mobile Technology and Teens", where I shared my perspective on digital well-being interventions that go beyond screen time restrictions and parental control. I proposed using slow technology to foster healthier digital habits for kids and families. It was such a pleasure connecting with others in the HCI community and exchanging ideas in a space full of people passionate about this work.

During the conference, I also attended several paper sessions. A highlight for me was seeing the presentation by Yangyang Yang and my advisor Kimiko Ryokai on their paper, "Being the Creek: Mobile Augmented Reality Experience as an Invitation for Exploring More-Than-Human Perspectives". It was incredible to witness how much work, such as revisions, deep thinking, and practice, goes into bringing a paper from a draft to a main stage presentation. It reminded me how much patience and care go into good research, and it inspired me to keep refining my own work.

I also had the opportunity to present my own paper, When AI Tells Their Story: Researchers’ Reactions to AI-Generated Podcasts as a Tool for Communicating Research, co-authored with Dan Hickey and Kimiko Ryokai. In the paper, we examine paper authors' perspective on AI-generated podcasts of their academic papers in terms of accuracy, science communication, and image better AI podcasts for communicating academic research. I received thoughtful feedback on the study design, related research, and ideas for future directions.

I'm incredibly grateful for this opportunity to attend CHI during my first year of PhD, both seeing such inspiring work from around the world and getting the chance to share my own research with the community.