Xin chào

My research situates in two distinct areas: Teacher-AI Cognitive Alignment and Cultural Computing. Specifically, I am passionate to explore how we can align AI behavior with teachers' preferences real sequential decision-making and thought processes. And, how we can encode cultural knowledge in AI to enhance downstream tasks specific to linguistically and culturally diverse populations, especially speakers of low-resourced languages (in AI) like Vietnamese. Broadly speaking, my work seeks to communicate with audiences in Natural Language Processing, Human-Computer Interaction, Computational Social Science, Applied Linguistics, Teacher Education, and AI Literacy.

Previously, I graduated Phi Beta Kappa honors with a B.S. in Computer Science, a B.A. in Econometrics, and a minor in Math from Providence College, and was advised by Dr. Leo Kahane. I took a gap year during the pandemic to return to Vietnam and worked as a teacher, and, before that, an apprentice software developer (or fresher, as we call it in Vietnam). Teaching motivates my research endeavors. More recently, I helped establish UMD as an Instructional Hub to run ML Foundations training for Cornell Tech's Break Through Tech AI, and I also teach Data Science Techniques in INFO at UMD.

I competed in Hackathons throughout high school and college. Fun fact: I knew of UMD since hacking at Technica in sophomore year of high school! This is why I also enjoy mentoring undergrads in hacks and side projects.