<aside> 😄 Hello! I'm Yugin Tan, a Human-Computer Interaction researcher based in Singapore. I am a software engineer by training, but my passion lies in understanding how to best design digital systems that benefit society.

I am doing my Ph.D in HCI at the National University of Singapore (NUS) under Asst. Prof. Lee Yi-Chieh.

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<aside> 🤔 About Me: I am always thinking about how technology, society, and people interact in different ways. Consequently, I’m always looking for new projects to get involved with!

Outside of the lab, I love gaming, making music 🎹🎤, F1 🏁🇳🇱🇪🇸 and karting, and cats 🐱

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This lovely cat is, sadly, not mine - but I recently adopted two of my own!

👷🚧👷🚧👷🚧 Website under construction! 🚧👷🚧👷🚧👷

Please contact me for more information on any of the projects below: @slyffleclaw (Telegram), [email protected]

🔬 What I’m Researching

🖥️ AI Brainrot and Deepfakes for Good

Collaboration with Eden Shaveet, NYU Ph.D candidate

Short-form media, vertical endless scrolling, and low-quality meme content -“brainrot”, in short -, are increasingly popular amongst today’s youths. Recently, a small niche of content creators have begun creating educational videos adhering to this format, often in STEM fields; these have the potential to capture a new demographic who find such a modality of learning uniquely effective. We are greatly inspired and fascinated by the potential of such content in combating brainrot, encouraging learning, and exposing a new generation of youths to productive learning and development.

Current and planned projects include:

• Viewer sentiment study on current educational brainrot videos
• Longitudinal studies on concept retention from brainrot videos
• Comparisons between short-form video and conventional learning, given a traditional STEM course at middle school, high school, and/or undergraduate level
• Exploring the educational brainrot modality beyond STEM fields, such as social sciences

🌐 AI-Enhanced Social Work and Services

Social service agencies and practitioners help a wide range of people in society, such as those with financial, familial, and mental or emotional difficulties. Since October 2023, when two local agencies reached out to us to explore how generative AI can enhance the efficacy and efficiency of their operations, I have been exploring all the different ways we can use cutting-edge technology to help practitioners in this field do what they do best - helping the most vulnerable members of our society.

Current projects include:

• 🎉 Accepted to CHI EA ‘25! 🎉 **✏️ 1st author; 🔗 ACM DL Using generative AI to assist with case processing, formulation, and evaluation, to help case workers find the best way to help each individual client they work with
• Creating a chatbot for basic emotional support to assist on human operators on a chat helpline, providing emotional triaging and a listening ear to those in distress
• Collaboration with Dr. Gerard Chung from NUS Social Work Understanding how the introduction of a disruptive technology like generative AI affects various levels of social service agencies, ensuring sustainable and responsible AI use
• Collaboration with Dr. Gerard Chung from NUS Social Work Exploring how generative AI can help train new social workers through realistic role-play, advancing social work pedagogy