Welcome!
Welcome to the echolab website at Virginia Tech. Our mission is to explore and develop methods to foster empathic interactions among individuals using computational systems. Our research is grounded in the empathy framework depicted below. It focuses on three key themes: computational tools for perspective sharing by empathizers, computers as an expressive medium for targets, and the facilitation of empathic communication for both groups. Additionally, we are committed to studying how to create safe environments where targets can be safely vulnerable.
To Prospective Students
echolab is always looking for Ph.D. students who are interested in creating novel interactive systems. We are also looking for exceptional undergraduate students and master’s students to work with. Please apply to CS@VT.
In particular echolab will be seeking one or two Ph.D. students for Fall 2027.
If you are at Virginia Tech already and would like to do research in echolab, please fill out the following survey, and I will respond. https://forms.gle/gfsvheq8U6YNrGby7
We envision that echolab is…
- A platform where members develop into independent researchers and achieve their career goals.
- An opportunity for individuals to discover that giving—through teaching, helping, sharing, and collaborating—enhances their own growth and success.
- A source of social capital that enables learning from each other.
- A community where inclusion is prioritized, and members feel connected.
- A group that contributes to society and the world by producing and disseminating new knowledge.
- An environment where individuals can be more productive than in any other setting.
- A socio-technical system designed to scale the above visions.
Recent News
- (2026/10) We received a new NSF grant, “HCC: AI-Assisted Classroom Orchestration for Collaborative Programming Learning at Scale,” with Yan Chen (PI), Cliff Shaffer, and Gary Kirk.
- (2026/8) Sang Won is serving as an Associate Chair for ACM CHI 2027.
- (2026/10) Our paper was accepted to ACM UIST 2026.
- MAESTRO: Adapting GUIs and Guiding Navigation with User Preferences in Conversational Agents with GUIs
- (2026/10) Our paper and poster were presented at ACM CSCW 2026.
- (2026/8) Sang Won received the Student Mentoring Award from the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech.
- (2026) Three journal papers were published.
- The Precarity of Trust: Understanding Tensions in Information Systems for Humanitarian De-Mining in Rural Colombia (TOCHI)
- Toward Context-Aware and Personalized Sit-Stand Desk Interventions: Insights from a Field Observational Study (IJHCS)
- Explore Together: Enhancing Learner Engagement with Handheld Virtual Reality in Informal Science Education (PRESENCE)
- (2026/8) Congratulations to Yuhang Zhang for successfully defending Master’s thesis.
- (2026/8) We presented a paper at the ICER conference.
- (2026/6) Congratulations to Andrew Jelson for successfully defending the dissertation. He will start his post-doc position at the University of Iowa! (PI: Gahyun Callie Sung)
- (2026/6) Congratulations to Daniel Manesh for successfully defending the dissertation. He will start his post-doc position at ETH Zürich (PI: April Wang)
- (2026/5) Congratulations to Carlos Augusto Bautista Isaza for successfully defending the dissertation.
- (2026/4) Our CHOIR Paper received the Best Paper Honorable Mention Award at CHI 2026!
- (2026/4) We presented seven papers at the ACM CHI conference
- CHOIR: A Chatbot-mediated Organizational Memory Leveraging Communication in University Research Labs
- “Having Lunch Now”: Understanding How Users Engage with a Proactive Agent for Daily Planning and Self-Reflection
- An Empirical Study to Understand How Students Use ChatGPT for Writing Essays
- When Less Can Be More: Evaluating the Impact of Animated and Interactive Demonstrations in Voice-Assisted Counting Games for Young Children
- “Are we writing an advice column for Spock here?” Understanding Stereotypes in AI Advice for Autistic Users
- LingoQ: Bridging the Gap between ESL Learning and Work through AI-Generated Work-Related Quizzes
- From Vulnerable to Resilient: Examining How Teens and Parents Respond to Protect Adolescents from Cybergrooming Advances
- (2026/4) We presented one paper at the ICSE conference.
- (2025/11) We presented a paper at the ACM CSCW conference
News (roughly) older than a year will be available here.
Research Highlights
(ongoing) Facilitating socially constructed learning through a shared, mobile-based virtual reality platform in informal learning settings
TBD
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