I am a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Purdue University, fortunately advised by Prof. Ming Yin.

Prior to Purdue, I received my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019, advised by Prof. Roxana Girju and Prof. Richard Sowers.

Research Interests

My research interests are in the intersection of HCI and AI, mainly focusing on human-AI interaction and human-centered AI.

Specifically, my research aims to empower humans to engage more effectively and appropriately with AI, with a focus on the paradigm of human-AI decision-making. I understand human-AI interaction and design human-centered AI based on two perspectives:

  • Human decision makers’ cognitive process of engaging with AI, which potentially has a bias.
  • Social influence from other information sources in addition to AI.

I am also broadly interested in applied machine learning, computational social science, crowdsourcing, and behavioral science.

  • I am on the job market this year (2024-25). Please feel free to contact me regarding any relevant opportunities!

News

Selected Publications

2025

Understanding the Effects of AI-based Credibility Indicators When People Are Influenced By Both Peers and Experts
Zhuoran Lu, Patrick Li, Weilong Wang, and Ming Yin.
The 43rd ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Yokohama, May 2025.
CHI PDF

WhatELSE: Shaping Narrative Space at Configurable Level of Abstraction for AI-bridged Interactive Storytelling.
Zhuoran Lu, Qian Zhou, and Yi Wang.
The 43rd ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Yokohama, May 2025.
CHI PDF

Understanding the Effects of Large Language Model (LLM)-driven Adversarial Social Influences in Online Information Spread.
Zhuoran Lu*, Gionnieve Lim*, and Ming Yin.
Late-Breaking Work (LBW) of the 43rd ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Yokohama, May 2025.
CHI-LBW PDF

2024

Does More Advice Help? The Effects of Second Opinions in AI-Assisted Decision Making
Zhuoran Lu, Dakuo Wang, and Ming Yin.
The 27th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW), San José, November 2024.
Preliminary version in the CHI Workshop on Trust and Reliance in AI-Assisted Tasks (TRAIT), Hamburg, May 2023.
CSCW PDF

PEARL: Personalizing Large Language Model Writing Assistants with Generation-Calibrated Retrievers
Sheshera Mysore, Zhuoran Lu, Mengting Wan, Longqi Yang, Steve Menezes, Tina Baghaee, Emmanuel Barajas Gonzalez, Jennifer Neville, Tara Safavi.
EMNLP Workshop on Customizable NLP (CustomNLP4U), Miami, November 2024.

Mix and Match: Characterizing Heterogeneous Human Behavior in AI-assisted Decision Making
Zhuoran Lu, Hasan Amin, Zhuoyan Li, and Ming Yin.
The 12th AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP), Pittsburgh, October 2024.
HCOMP PDF

Designing Behavior-Aware AI to Improve the Human-AI Team Performance in AI-Assisted Decision Making
Zhuoran Lu*, Hasan Amin*, and Ming Yin.
The 33th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), Jeju, August 2024.
Preliminary version in the ICML Workshop on Artificial Intelligence & Human Computer Interaction (AI HCI), Hawaii, July 2023.
IJCAI PDF

AI Pilot in the Cockpit: An Investigation of Public Acceptance
Shan Gao, Zhuoran Lu, Hao Luan, Ming Yin, and Lei Wang.
International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction (IJHCI)
IJHCI PDF

Enhancing AI-Assisted Group Decision Making through LLM-Powered Devil’s Advocate
Chun-Wei Chiang, Zhuoran Lu, Zhuoyan Li, and Ming Yin.
The 29th ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interface (IUI), Greenville, March 2024.
IUI PDF

Decoding AI’s Nudge: A Unified Framework to Predict Human Behavior in AI-assisted Decision Making
Zhuoyan Li, Zhuoran Lu, and Ming Yin.
The 38th Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Vancouver, February 2024.
AAAI PDF

2023

Synthetic Data Generation with Large Language Models for Text Classification: Potential and Limitations
Zhuoyan Li, Hangxiao Zhu, Zhuoran Lu, and Ming Yin.
The Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP), Singapore, December 2023.
EMNLP PDF

Strategic Adversarial Attacks in AI-assisted Decision Making to Reduce Human Trust and Reliance
Zhuoran Lu*, Zhuoyan Li*, Chun-Wei Chiang, and Ming Yin.
The 32nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), Macao, August 2023
IJCAI PDF

Are Two Heads Better Than One in AI-Assisted Decision Making? Comparing the Behavior and Performance of Groups and Individuals in Human-AI Collaborative Recidivism Risk Assessment
Chun-Wei Chiang, Zhuoran Lu, Zhuoyan Li, and Ming Yin.
The 41st ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Hamburg, May 2023.
CHI PDF

Modeling Human Trust and Reliance in AI-assisted Decision Making: A Markovian Approach [Oral Presentation]
Zhuoran Lu*, Zhuoyan Li*, and Ming Yin.
The 37th Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Washington, D.C., February 2023.
AAAI PDF

2022

The Effects of AI-based Credibility Indicators on the Detection and Spread of Misinformation under Social Influence [Best Paper Award]
Zhuoran Lu, Patrick Li, Weilong Wang, and Ming Yin.
The 25th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW), Online, November 2022
CSCW PDF

Towards Better Detection of Biased Language with Scarce, Noisy, and Biased Annotations
Zhuoran Lu*, Zhuoyan Li*, and Ming Yin.
The 5th AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES), Online, August 2022
AIES PDF

Will You Accept the AI Recommendation? Predicting Human Behavior in AI-Assisted Decision Making
Zhuoran Lu*, Xinru Wang*, and Ming Yin
The Web Conference (WWW), Online, April 2022.
WWW PDF

2021

Human Reliance on Machine Learning Models When Performance Feedback is Limited: Heuristics and Risks
Zhuoran Lu and Ming Yin.
The 39th ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Online, May 2021.
CHI PDF

Industry Experiences

2024.05 - 2024.08, Autodesk Research, Toronto, ON.

2023.05 - 2023.09, Microsoft, Seattle, WA.

2023.01 - 2023.04, Honda Research Institute, San Jose, CA.

Service

Program Committee/Associate Chair

  • 2025: CHI Late-Breaking Work, FAccT
  • 2024: CHI Late-Breaking Work, FAccT
  • 2023: Ubicomp/ISWC demos and posters

Reviewer:

  • 2025: ICWSM, CHI, CogSci, CSCW, HRI
  • 2024: ICWSM, CHI, CogSci, CSCW, IUI, IDC, DIS,
  • 2023: ICWSM, CHI, CogSci, CSCW, IUI, IDC, DIS, MobileHCI, ISS, CUI, CHI PLAY, FAccT, UIST
  • 2022: DIS, CHI PLAY, NordiCHI, MobileHCI, Ubicomp, ISWC, ICMI, SUI, HAI
  • Journal: IJHCI, TiiS, IPM, TKDD