Yukang Yan

Yukang Yan

  • Assistant Professor of Computer Science

PhD, Tsinghua University

2505 Wegmans Hall
yyan37@cs.rochester.edu

Website


Biography:

Yukang Yan is an Assistant Professor in the ROCHCI group in the Department of Computer Science, University of Rochester. Before that, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Augmented Perception Lab, Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He earned both his Ph.D. and Bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University. His research focus lies in Human-Computer Interaction and Mixed Reality. He published journals and papers at ACM CHI, ACM UIST, ACM IMWUT, IEEE VR, with ACM CHI 2020 Honorable Mention Award, ACM CHI 2023 Honorable Mention Award, IEEE VR Best Paper Nominee Award. His thesis won Outstanding Doctoral Thesis at Tsinghua University.

Selected Publications:

Yu Jiang, Zhipeng Li, Mufei He, David Lindlbauer, and Yukang Yan. 2023. HandAvatar: Embodying Non-Humanoid Virtual Avatars through Hands. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 309, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581027

Zhipeng Li, Yikai Cui, Tianze Zhou, Yu Jiang, Yuntao Wang, Yukang Yan, Michael Nebeling, and Yuanchun Shi. 2022. Color-to-Depth Mappings as Depth Cues in Virtual Reality. In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 80, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3526113.3545646

Zhipeng Li, Yu Jiang, Yihao Zhu, Ruijia Chen, Ruolin Wang, Yuntao Wang, Yukang Yan, and Yuanchun Shi. 2022. Modeling the Noticeability of User-Avatar Movement Inconsistency for Sense of Body Ownership Intervention. Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol. 6, 2, Article 64 (July 2022), 26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3534590

Yifei Cheng, Yukang Yan, Xin Yi, Yuanchun Shi, and David Lindlbauer. 2021. SemanticAdapt: Optimization-based Adaptation of Mixed Reality Layouts Leveraging Virtual-Physical Semantic Connections. In The 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 282–297. https://doi.org/10.1145/3472749.3474750

Yukang Yan, Chun Yu, Wengrui Zheng, Ruining Tang, Xuhai Xu, and Yuanchun Shi. 2020. FrownOnError: Interrupting Responses from Smart Speakers by Facial Expressions. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376810

Yukang Yan, Chun Yu, Yingtian Shi, and Minxing Xie. 2019. PrivateTalk: Activating Voice Input with Hand-On-Mouth Gesture Detected by Bluetooth Earphones. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1013–1020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3332165.3347950

Yukang Yan, Chun Yu, Xiaojuan Ma, Shuai Huang, Hasan Iqbal, and Yuanchun Shi. 2018. Eyes-Free Target Acquisition in Interaction Space around the Body for Virtual Reality. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 42, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173616

Yukang Yan, Chun Yu, Xiaojuan Ma, Xin Yi, Ke Sun, and Yuanchun Shi. 2018. VirtualGrasp: Leveraging Experience of Interacting with Physical Objects to Facilitate Digital Object Retrieval. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 78, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173652

 

Research Overview

My research is focused on understanding, predicting and enhancing user behavior in Mixed Reality, which follows three connected threads: capture the user’s behavioral and perceptual patterns with computational methods; develop input techniques and adaptive user interfaces to facilitate human-computer two-way communication; explore unique behavioral enhancements enabled by Mixed Reality.

Research Interests

  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Human Behavior Modeling
  • Virtual/Augmented Reality