Jiaen Yu

I am a first year PhD student in the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI) at University of California San Diego, advised by Dr. Soohyun Nam Liao. My research interest lies in Computing Education, including educational data mining and development of interactive systems or tools with human-centered design to support students.

Before I join HDSI, I obtained an M.S. in Computer Science from CSE department of UCSD, and B.S. in Electronic Information Science & Technology from Jiangsu University of Science and Technology.

GitHub  /  LinkedIn  /  X (Twitter)  /  Email  /  CV

🎓 Education

• Ph.D. in Data Science,
  University of California San Diego, 2024 -
• M.S. in Computer Science,
  University of California San Diego, 2021 - 2023
• B.Sc. in Electronic Information Sci & Tech,
  Jiangsu University of Sci & Tech, 2017 - 2021

🎉 News

• Jan. 2025 - I will serve as a Student Volunteer for SIGCSE TS 2025! See you in Pittsburgh!
• Nov. 2024 - Our work CompassX has been accepted as a poster at SIGCSE 2025!

📖 Publications

Engagement with Metacognition-promoting Web-based Interventions and its Relationship with Learning Outcomes

Jiaen Yu, Anshul Shah, John Driscoll, Yandong Xiang, Xingyin Xu, Sophia Krause-Levy, Soohyun Nam Liao

[In Submission], 2025

Exploring Student Use of an ACT-based Mobile Application and its Impact on Reducing Procrastination

Yiqing (Brenda) Li, Jiaen Yu, U Lam Lou, Dingyi Yu, Soohyun Nam Liao

[In Submission], 2025

Student Usage of Metacognition-Promoting Tool in a CS2 Course and its Relationship with Performance [link]

Jiaen Yu, Anshul Shah, John Driscoll, Yandong Xiang, Xingyin Xu, Sophia Krause-Levy, Soohyun Nam Liao

ACM SIGCSE TS [Poster], 2025

Design of robot object detection based on deep learning

YU Jiaen, MA Guojun, REN Yongheng, WANG Yajun

Electronic Design Engineering (China), 2021

🌟 Research Projects

CompassX: Promoting Metacognition with Web-based Learning Application

CompassX is a web-based learning application designed to promote metacognitive study behaviors among students in computing courses. CompassX helps students engage in all three key phases of metacognition: planning, monitoring, and reflection. We applied this tool to explore how students interact with these features and examines the relationship between metacognitive engagement and academic performance, offering insights into the potential of metacognitive tools for enhancing learning outcomes​.

ClearMind: A Human-Centered Application for Addressing Academic Procrastination

We developed ClearMind, a mobile application to help students overcome academic procrastination by integrating Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) principles and human-centered design. The app offers interactive, evidence-based exercises that support self-regulation and goal-directed behaviors, ensuring an engaging and personalized user experience. Our study examines the perceiveness of digital interventions in shaping student engagement and the effectiveness of these interventions in reducing academic procrastination through user studies and qualitative analysis.

Crowd Counting Based on Deep Learning (Bachelor's Thesis, 2021)

Developed and deployed deep learning models for accurate crowd density estimation, achieving high precision with an error rate significantly lower than the industry average.

Teaching

• COSMOS Cluster Assistant - UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering - 2024

Academic Service

• PC Reviewer for ACM SIGCSE TS 2025

Design and source code from Jon Barron's website