Han Zhang

Thesis: Towards Human-Centered Behavioral Sensing for Student Support

Committee: Jennifer Mankoff (co-chair), Anind K. Dey (co-chair), Yin Tat Lee, Gary Hsieh

Host advisor: Chaoping Xing

Thesis: Estimation of Exponential Sums in Number Theory and Applications to Coding Theory

Advisor: Wenpeng Zhang

Designing and evaluating a data exploration tool that gives college students access to peer wellbeing data from a six-year longitudinal dataset, supporting self-directed exploration and reflection through three modes tailored to psychologically distinct motivations for engaging with peer data.

Designed, built, and evaluated a sign-language generation prototype to bridge communication barriers between Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing and hearing communities, leveraging large language models and motion-matching approaches, evaluated through both technical benchmarks and user assessments.

Co-led a six-year longitudinal study on college student academic life and wellbeing. Conducted mixed-methods research on educational concerns for students with disabilities during COVID-19, developed human-centered predictive models for academic performance, and examined responsible sensing technologies for wellbeing.

Qualitatively studied rising mental-health concerns among college students before COVID-19, and the impact of COVID-19 on students with disabilities and mental-health concerns.

Coding theory: connected the Berlekamp-Massey and Euclidean algorithms to create a list-decoding method for Reed-Solomon codes, and extended binary linear cyclic code concepts and bounds to q-ary linear cyclic codes.