Yuxuan Chen

M.S. CS student @ UIUC, Cofounder @ AristAI

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I am a Master of Science student in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) as of Fall 2024. My interests are at the intersections of Human-Computer Interaction and AI in education. I am a part of the Computing Education Research Area at UIUC, and my advisor is Mariana Silva.

My current research interests center on enhancing learning experiences in introductory CS courses for engineering students. I am exploring the integration of LLMs to generate erroneous programming examples in CS1 context. In addition, I am designing learner-centered educational tools to support undergraduate conversational programmers.

I am the cofounder of AristAI, a startup focusing on building AI tools that help instructors manage large classes and improve accessibility. We have designed an AI tutor that can be trained on course materials to answer student questions more accurately and reduce instructor workload. We are now developing AI accessibility tools for documents and webpages to help instructors meet accessibility requirements at scale.

In my spare time, I enjoy bouldering, playing table tennis, listening to music, hanging out with friends, or just sleeping. I’m a huge fan of Coldplay, Avicii, and Kygo.

Here is my CV.

news

Nov 10, 2025 Poster on exploring LLMs for generating erroneous examples in CS1 has been accepted to SIGCSE TS 2026!
Jun 22, 2025 I presented a paper on a CS1 course redesign for engineering students at ASEE 2025! I also moderated a paper session.
Feb 26, 2025 I attended my first SIGCSE TS conference! Coauthored paper on teaching novices computational thinking by utilizing LLMs within assessments was accepted to SIGCSE TS 2025.
Jan 12, 2025 I participated in the 2025 Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Workshop organized by the Technology Entrepreneur Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It was an extraordinary experience.
Apr 25, 2024 I received the University Honors - Bronze Tablet Award at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Apr 24, 2024 Happy to announce that AristAI was awarded a $10,000 prize at the 2024 Cozad New Venture Challenge.
Mar 08, 2024 I received the Outstanding Course Assistant Award for Fall 2023 semester as course assistant for CS 357 at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.