HCI · AI · Digital Humanities

Fei Shan

Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science, Virginia Tech

I study how people make sense of the past with technology, conducting user research and building systems, from design to deployment.

About

I'm a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Virginia Tech, advised by Dr. Kurt Luther. My work is rooted in HCI, AI, and digital humanities, examining how individuals and communities use technology to search, synthesize, and collectively make sense of complex information.

I investigate human sensemaking and collaboration across different levels of expertise and how AI can support these processes. My research is informed by cognitive science, social computing, and education perspectives, which also inspire how I build and evaluate systems. My current work focuses on online genealogy research, a domain that combines archival research, personal and family identity, and community of practice.

I also work as a graduate assistant for the Division of IT at Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington, VA. My technical training covers a wide range of topics, including deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing, computational cognitive science, and educational technology through graduate degrees at Georgia Tech and University of Maryland, College Park.

Research Interests

I organize my work around the following questions:

Sensemaking & Emotions
How do people make sense of their past from fragmented, uncertain, or sensitive historical evidence, and what emotional experiences arise in this process?
Human-AI Collaboration
How can AI systems facilitate human information search and synthesis following the best practices without undermining their experience or engagement?
Community & Knowledge
How do expertise, identity, and community dynamics shape the way people investigate and build the past collectively?

Education

Publications

Emotionally Intelligent Generative AI for Genealogy Research and Collaboration

Fei Shan, Kurt Luther. Workshop on Augmented Collaboration, CSCW 2025

Reexamining Technological Support for Genealogy Research, Collaboration, and Education

Fei Shan, Kurt Luther.
ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW), 2025

Community-driven AI Support for Genealogy Research

Fei Shan, Kurt Luther. Workshop on Community AI, CSCW 2023

Decidio: A Pilot Implementation and User Study of a Novel Decision-Support System

Kevin Hogan, Fei Shan, Monikka Ravichandran, Aadesh Bagmar, James Wang, Adam Sarsony, James Purtilo.
International Conference on Group Decision and Negotiation (GDN), 2020

Inspiration

Texts and ideas that influence how I think of research.

The New Mechanical Philosophy Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Perspectivism Nietzsche · SEP