Jiayin Zhi
Ph.D. student | Computer Science
University of Chicago
jzhi@uchicago.edu
I am a CS PhD student at the University of Chicago, where I am fortunate to be advised by Mina Lee. Previously, I was a research associate at Carnegie Mellon University. Broadly, my research sits at the intersection of HCI, AI and CSS, exploring human-AI collaboration and evaluating human-AI systems.
My current research studies how AI changes people’ cognition, learning, and judgment (e.g., critical thinking).
Concretely, I build AI systems by manipulating design choices (e.g., interaction, language, training), and evaluate how AI shapes the way people think in fundamental activities through which we engage with information (e.g., close reading, information seeking, writing), informing design that augments human capacities.
In parallel, my research explores and practices better evaluation for AI systems as well as measurement of AI’s impact (e.g., cognitive pathways and outcomes).
News
05/2026 [Workshop] Workshop proposal “Broader Impacts of GenAI in Communication: Building Agendas for Research, Design, and Policymaking” accepted at CSCW 2026.
04/2026 [Media] Work on AI’s impact on critical thinking featured in TIME.
04/2026 [Media] Work on AI’s impact on critical thinking covered in Science News, and UChicago CS News.
04/2026 [Conference] Presenting “Effects of AI Use on Critical Thinking Under Time Constraints: AI Access Timing and Time Availability” and “What Does AI Do for Cultural Interpretation? A Randomized Experiment on Close Reading Poems with Exposure to AI Interpretation” at CHI 2026.
02/2026 [Paper] Synthesis “Combining Structured Tasks and Behavioral Logs for Measuring AI’s Impact on Cognition” featured at CHI 2026 Workshop on Tools for Thought.
01/2026 [Paper] Paper “What Does AI Do for Cultural Interpretation? A Randomized Experiment on Close Reading Poems with Exposure to AI Interpretation” accepted at CHI 2026.
01/2026 [Paper] Paper “Effects of AI Use on Critical Thinking Under Time Constraints: AI Access Timing and Time Availability” accepted at CHI 2026.
01/2026 [Paper] Paper “Content Creation with Generative AI: How Do Content Creators Responsibly Use Generative AI Tools?” accepted at CSCW 2026.
07/2025 [Workshop] SIG proposal “The Work of AI Red Teaming: Automation and the Human Infrastructure” accepted at CSCW 2025.
01/2025 [Paper] Paper “'You’re in a Ferrari. I’m Waiting for the Bus': Confronting Tensions in Community-University Partnerships for Publicly Deployed Technologies” accepted at CSCW 2025.
10/2024 [Award] Paper “Investigating What Factors Influence Users’ Rating of Harmful Algorithmic Bias and Discrimination” received Best Paper Award at HCOMP 2024.
08/2024 [Paper] Paper “Investigating What Factors Influence Users’ Rating of Harmful Algorithmic Bias and Discrimination” accepted at HCOMP 2024.
07/2024 [Paper] Paper “PATIENT-Ψ: Using Large Language Models to Simulate Patients for Training Mental Health Professionals” accepted at EMNLP 2024.
03/2024 [Paper] Paper “AI Failure Cards: Understanding and Supporting Grassroots Efforts to Mitigate AI Failures in Homeless Services” accepted at FAccT 2024.
02/2024 [Paper] Paper “Predicting and Presenting Task Difficulty for Crowdsourcing Food Rescue Platforms” accepted at WWW 2024.
Selected Works
Investigating What Factors Influence Users’ Rating of Harmful Algorithmic Bias and Discrimination
Sara Kingsley*, Jiayin Zhi*, Wesley Hanwen Deng, Jaimie Lee, Sizhe Zhang, Motahhare Eslami†, Ken Holstein†, Jason I. Hong†, Tianshi Li†, Hong Shen†. (* equal contribution, † equal contribution)
AAAI HCOMP 2024 [Best Paper Award 🏆]
"You’re in a Ferrari. I’m Waiting for the Bus": Confronting Tensions in Community-University Partnerships for Publicly Deployed Technologies
Cella M Sum, Jiayin Zhi, Amil N.T. Cook, Patrick James Cooper, Arturo Lozano, TJ Johnson, Jason Perez, Rayid Ghani, Michael Skirpan, Motahhare Eslami, Hong Shen, Sarah E Fox.
CSCW 2025
© 2023 by Jiayin.