Ruanqianqian Huang

Ruanqianqian Huang

she/her/hers

Building programming tools for tomorrow.

Last updated: January 2024

My name is Lisa. I am excited by programming languages (PL), human-computer interaction (HCI), and cognitive science.

I am a PhD Candidate studying Computer Science at UC San Diego in the Programming Systems Group advised by Sorin Lerner. Before coming to UCSD, I obtained my B.A. in Computer Science and Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences from Wellesley College near Boston, MA, where I worked extensively with Franklyn Turbak on PL and HCI.

See Fun for my life outside of computer science.

Research

I design and develop programming assistants. I define programming assistants as the following: they show the ground truths of program behavior and suggest edits to code, providing understandable information that supports creativity and productivity. Programming assistants with a technology-first design can lead to usability problems and cognitive burdens, requiring the user to adapt their behavior to the tool. How do we design usable programming assistants?

To that end, I adopt the human-centered approach to design programming assistants:

  • I use evidence from cognitive science and empirical investigations to derive the design space of a programming tool; and
  • I work with potential users of a programming tool to refine the design space and iterate on existing designs.

Recent Projects

Paradigms and Tools

Empirical Evidence

The Projects tab shows a full list of my projects.

Teaching

I am passionate about teaching undergraduate courses and mentoring the future generations of graduate students. The Teaching tab demonstrates my full record of teaching/TAing/tutoring experience since college.