Alice Qian Zhang Earns Honorable Mention for CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award
Department of Computer Science & Engineering (CS&E) undergraduate student Alice Quian Zhang earned an honorable mention for the 2023-24 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award (URA) from the Computing Research Association (CRA). Zhang, along with Ryan Koo, Athreyi Badithela, and Jasmine Joyce DeGuzman, is one of four CS&E undergraduates to earn this recognition.
Zhang’s research examines content moderation and responsible AI, looking at how we can keep users of social media platforms and AI products safe.
“My research is on the domains of content moderation, well-being, and responsible AI,” said Zhang. “We look at how we can improve social media platforms or their mechanisms to keep end users or regular users safe. Now I’m moving into new spaces doing the same work but with other AI products. For example, a model like GPT4 which is the backend of ChatGPT may be safe when you are trying to use it to summarize concepts, but can be problematic when we apply it to more specified use cases. In those cases, we want to look at how we prevent it from suddenly saying something offensive or harming a user.”
After being encouraged by Zhang teaching professor Shana Watters and professor Maria Gini, she took the leap of faith and started looking into CS&E research labs at the University of Minnesota.
“My freshman year, I took this research course on how to get involved in more research as a student,” said Zhang. “Dr. Shana Waters and Maria Gini were really great pioneers as a whole, both supporting women and encouraging them to be involved in not just computing but research. They rightfully pushed me to apply for my first research opportunity and got me started.”
Zhang's inspiration for her research comes from societal problems and how these problems can be strengthened to help users on social media.
“Communication barriers between people can cause inequities in access and education,” said Zhang. “I was really interested in technology in general and questions like, ‘How do we improve technological systems and how do we create better ones?’ The research in human-computer interaction was the perfect way for me to start poking at these problems and in a way that can address my engineering interest.”
Zhang credits her advisors and mentors, CS&E Assistant Professor Dr. Stevie Chancellor, Ph.D. student Ash Milton, Microsoft Principal Researchers Dr. Jina Suh and Dr. Judith Amores, Rutgers University Assistant Professor Dr. Shagun Jhaver, UMN Associate Professor of the School of Social Work Dr. Ross VeLure Roholt, University of Washington Assistant Professor Dr. Amy Zhang, and many more friends and advocates for inspiring and encouraging Zhang throughout her research. Learn more about the CRA URA and other winners.