鄭棣中

我現為伊利諾大學香檳分校（UIUC）電腦科學博士候選人，由 Prof. Karrie Karahalios 與 Prof. Hari Sundaram 共同指導，為 Social Spaces group 與 Crowd Dynamics Lab的實驗室成員。

我目前的研究專注於「平方問卷」這套新型喜好量測工具，幫助個體在集體決策中清楚表達自己想法。這也是我更廣泛研究興趣的一環：人們如何透過計算工具做出更好的集體決策？我的研究涵蓋人機互動（HCI）與計算機輔助協作科學（CSCW），研究主題包括：集體決策機制設計（假訊息如何影響社會選擇；平方問卷）、資料視覺化（平方問卷；COVID 政策視覺化）、以及人與 AI 的互動（大型語言模型的逐步提示設計；智慧居家；智慧編輯）。

在攻讀碩士期間，我曾與 Prof. Aditya Parameswaran 及 Karahalios 教授合作 Dataspread 專案，設計介於試算表與資料庫之間的混合系統。

我於香港中文大學計算機系取得學士學位，曾於 Husky Team 擔任大學部研究生，由 Prof. James Cheng 指導，進行分散式機器學習與近鄰查詢演算法相關研究。我的導師為 Prof. John C.S. Lui。

在學術之外，我也投入軟體系統開發與教學。我曾擔任 UIUC 多門課程的教學助理，課程規模從數十人到數百人不等，涵蓋實體、線上與混成授課方式，包含入門課、進階課、研究所課程與 MOOC，並獲得多項教學獎項肯定。我也創立 Here@Illinois，這是一套雲端點名系統，至今已被數千名學生與數百名教職員使用。

在業界方面，我曾於 微軟研究院 (Microsoft Research) 擔任研究實習生，開發 DevOps 工具與進行假訊息擴散效應研究，也曾在 Salesforce 擔任軟體工程實習生，以及於 KKBOX 擔任機器學習實習生。我擅長 Python、TypeScript 與全端網頁開發，也經常指導學生進行 HCI、CSCW 與軟體工程相關專題。

你可以從這裡下載我最新的 履歷，內容通常比我的網頁還要即時更新。

🎓 PhD in Computer Science, 伊利諾大學香檳分校 (2020-至今) #

• 論文提案: “Quadratic Surveys: Empirical Research on using Quadratic Voting Mechanism as a Preference Elicitation Tool”

🎓 Master of Science in Computer Science, 伊利諾大學香檳分校 (2018-2020) #

• 碩士論文: “Comparing Quadratic Voting and Likert Surveys”

🎓 Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Minor in Business Economics, 香港中文大學 (2013-2017) #

• 畢業專題: “Efficient Nearest Neighbors Search in Distributed Manner.”

🎓 Exchange & Short term visits #

• 交換學生, Computer Science, 伊利諾大學香檳分校 (2015)
• 短期訪問學生, Whitman College, 普林斯頓大學 (2016)

Research Intern, Microsoft Research, Special Projects (Feb 2024 - May 2024) #

• Mentors: Madeleine Daepp, [Robert Ness](Robert Ness).
• Investigated empirically the impact of Large Language Models on high-stakes decision-making events through misinformation.
• Conducted time series, linguistic, and econometric analyses of 150K+ articles to substantiate claims about generative propaganda’s impact.
• Provided in-depth cultural and local insights, assuring accurate and nuanced discussion of regional issues in meetings and publications.

Research Intern, Software Analysis & Intelligence (SAINTES) Group, Microsoft Research (May 2023 - Aug 2023) #

• Mentors: Denae Ford Robinson, Nicole Forsgren, Carmen Badea, Christian Bird, Tom Zimmermann, Rob DeLine.
• Designed and built a prototype aimed to enhance software development operations (DevOps) and experiences using GitHub data.
• Constructed a complex Python-based LLM (Large-language Model)-powered team matching tool orchestrated using OpenAI API, Guidance, FLAML, and MySQL.
• Spearheaded metrics and proxies to understand and support team-matching decision processes.
• Outlined a two-stage within-subject qualitative study to explore expert users’ perceptions of LLM-based team matching processes.

Graduate Researcher, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Aug 2018 - Present) #

• Led 3 human-computer interaction research projects in human-data interaction, individual preference elicitation, and smart home privacy.
• Designed, prototyped, and built an preference elicitation system using Quadratic Voting mechanisms with Nest.js, MongoDB, and Angular.
• Evaluated multiple interactive systems using interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and in-lab behavioral experiments.
• Analyzed experiment data using qualitative and quantitative methods, including open coding, thematic analysis, and bayesian analysis.
• Supported 2 human-computer interaction research projects in smart home user power dynamics and spreadsheet data analysis workflows.

Graduate Teaching Assistant, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Aug 2018 - Present) #

• See Teaching for more details.

Software Engineer Intern, Salesforce (May 2020 - Aug 2020) #

• Developed VSCode Plugin for Salesforce developers to reduce XML development time by 2x using TypeScript.
• Contributed to Open Source RedHat XML VSCode extension (#292) and Salesforce VS Code extension (#2726)

Software Engineer Intern, Salesforce (May 2019 - Aug 2019) #

• Built pipelines and designed 3 dashboards for front-end cache monitoring using Java, Grafana, and Splunk to visualize daily logs on a billion scale.
• Optimized dashboard queries by 10x loc for better readability and maintainability.

Machine Learning Research Intern, KKBOX, Machine Learning Team (May 2018 - Aug 2018) #

• Mentor: Dr. Yian Chen
• Researched and implemented a natural language processing pipeline for mandarin name-entity recognition with 90%+ accuracy.
• Designed and built a pattern-based relation extraction pipeline for cross-language music content using 3B+ music data.

Undergraduate Research Assistant, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Dec 2015 - Dec 2017) #

• Mentor: Prof. James Cheng
• Conducted research on distributed hash-based nearest-neighbor search algorithms with a publication at SIGMOD.
• Built a 15% more time-efficient and scalable Image Retrieval system compared to OpenCV FLANN Library.
• Implemented Collision Counting LSH in C++, details: Implementation and Analysis of Collision Counting LSH on Husky.

Web Administrator, RIH, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2016 - 2017) #

Summer Research Intern, National Center for High-Performance Computing (July 2015 - Aug 2015) #

• Mentor: Dr.Ann, Hsing-Yen
• Designed and implemented MySQL database pipeline to retrieve and analyze malicious fast-flux domains.
• Intern report: Development of Bad Domain Tracking System
• Contributed to Tsai et al. Using BDTS to detect IP changes of malicious domains over time. TANET 2018.

Conference Papers #

[C5] Ti-Chung Cheng, Yutong Zhang*, Yi-Hung Chou*, Vinay Koshy, Tiffany Wenting Li, Karrie Karahalios, Hari Sundaram “Organize, then vote: Exploring Cognitive Load in Quadratic Survey Interfaces” CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’25), 2025.

[C4] Ti-Chung Cheng*, Tiffany Wenting Li*, Yi-Hung Chou, Karrie Karahalios, Hari Sundaram “‘I can show what I really like.’: Eliciting Preferences via Quadratic Voting” Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW), 2021.

[C3] Vinay Koshy, Joon Sung Park, Ti-Chung Cheng, Karrie Karahalios. “‘We Just Use What They Give Us’: Understanding Passenger User Perspectives in Smart Homes” Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2021. Best Paper Honorable Mention (Top 5%)

[C2] Pingjing Yang, Ti-Chung Cheng*, Sajjadur Rahman*, Mangesh Bendre, Karrie Karahalios, Aditya Parameswaran. “Understanding Data Analysis Workflows on Spreadsheets: Roadblocks and Opportunities” Proceedings of Workshop on Human-In-the-Loop Data Analytics (HILDA), 2020.

[C1] Jinfeng Li, Xiao Yan, Jian Zhang, An Xu, James Cheng, Jie Liu, Kelvin Ng, and Ti-Chung Cheng. “A General and Efficient Querying Method for Learning to Hash” In Proceedings of the 37th ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2018.

Technical Reports #

[TR1] Ti-Chung Cheng, Carmen Badea, Christian Bird, Thomas Zimmermann, Robert DeLine, Nicole Forsgren, Denae Ford, “GEMS: Generative Expert Metric System through Iterative Prompt Priming” Microsoft Research.

Research Posters #

[P1] Ti-Chung Cheng, Tiffany Wenting Li, Yi-Hung Chou, Karrie Karahalios, Hari Sundaram “Quadratic Voting better elicits user preferences compared to Likert Surveys [In Mandarin]” Proceedings of the 2021 Taiwan CHI Conference (TAICHI), 2021.

CS 598 人機互動研究方法 @ UIUC #

• 學期： FA 2023
• 授課教師： Prof. Sarah Sterman、Prof. Camille Cobb、Prof. Eshwar Chandrasekharan
• 擔任助教協助學生理解應用人機互動領域的不同研究方法。
• 提供作業回饋、帶領課堂活動，並批改學生作業。

CS 411 Database Systems @ UIUC #

• 學期： FA 2020 SP 2021 FA 2021 SP 2022 SP 2023 FA 2024 SP 2025
• 授課教師： Prof. Abdussalam Alawini
• 擔任多個學期的首席助教，負責管理課程助教。
• 具備 400+ 人大班翻轉教室經驗。
• 在 COVID 期間，具備遠程、混合和面對面教學的經驗。
• 設計批改及評量學生作業、課堂小組活動、學期專題與考試。

CS 470 Social and Information Networks @ UIUC #

• 學期： FA 2020 FA 2022
• 授課教師： Prof. Hari Sundaram
• 設計作業並管理 35 人的小班。
• 協助評分並經營翻轉教室。

CS 598 資料探勘專題 @ UIUC #

• 學期： SU 2025
• 授課教師： Prof. Reza Farivar
• 負責管理 MOOC 行政並負責每周的助教時間回應學生疑問。

CS 242 程式設計工作坊 @ UIUC #

• 學期： FA 2018 FA 2019 SP 2020
• 授課教師： Prof. Michael Woodley
• 擔任兩個學期的首席助教，重新設計課程材料和作業。
• 帶領討論課並管理 200+ 學生。

CSCI 2040 Python 入門 @ CUHK #

• 學期： FA 2017
• 授課教師： Prof. John C.S. Lui
• 為 110 名學生設計以金融資料分析為題的期末專案。
• 帶領討論課並管理 200+ 學生。

General Services #

Tech and Information Director, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Taiwan Alumni Association (Jan 2023 - Present) #

Columnist, Mandarin Daily News (Jan 2020 - Dec 2021) #

• The newspaper targets elementary and junior high students and has over 100K subscribers.
• Wrote a monthly column on technology and HCI.

Initiator and Coordinator, The Circle Group (Oct 2016 - Dec 2017) #

• Founded this platform to connect CS and non-CS students academically through sharing and technical workshops.
• Managed a team of 20 students working on The Circle Project and the official website for the Taiwanese Student Association.
• Created a guide for incoming freshmen with over 6000+ views.

Information Officer, CUHK Taiwanese Student Association (Oct 2015 - Oct 2016) #

• Launched the organization’s online service and homepage.
• Assisted in technical setups for activities by the student association.

Conference & Academic Services #

PURE (Promoting Undergraduate Research in Engineering) Mentor, UIUC (Sept 2023 - May 2024) #

Reviewer, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2024 #

Reviewer, Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2023, 2024 #

MUSE Mentor, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Aug 2019 - May 2023) #

Project Tyra - Fulbright Taiwan Mentor-Mentee Program (2023, 2024) #

Book Reviewer, Python x Excel Data Processing Tips (Mandarin, ISBN: 9786263490291) (Oct 2022) #

Reviewer, Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2023 (Oct 2022) #

Student Volunteer, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work And Social Computing, CSCW 2021 (Nov 2022, Oct 2021) #

Student Volunteer, Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2021 (May 2021) #

Volunteering #

Project Coordinator, Morningside (Oct 2013 - May 2014) #

• Volunteered in Nepal to understand and evaluate the needs of local people and provide solutions. [Report] [Journal]
• Volunteering proposal approved by the university with funding support.
• Awarded Reaching Out Award and Scholarship by the HKSAR.
• Awarded Taiwan Ministry of Education 2015 National iYouth Best Writing in Volunteering [News Coverage].

我非常榮幸能指導並與這些才優秀的學生合作：

• Pranay Midha: UIUC BS MATH + CS ‘26, 2023-Present
• Janine Leong: UIUC BS CS + ECON ‘27, 2023
• Anupam Das: UIUC BS CS ‘27, 2023
• Yutong Zhang: UIUC BS CS ‘23, Now Graduate Student at Stanford, 2021-2023
• Tue Do: UIUC BS CS + Math ‘24, Now Graduate Student at UIUC, 2022-2023
• Ashay Parikh: UIUC BS CS ‘24, Now SWE at IMC Trading, 2022
• Yi-Hung Chou: CUHK BS CS ‘21, Now PhD Student at UCI, 2019-2021