about
I'm equal parts ed + tech. Currently, I'm a prompt engineer at Khan Academy experimenting with AI-powered tools for teachers. I care about making learning more personally meaningful for everyone. My experiences cluster around learning experience design, web development, and HCI research.
Previously, I've been a web developer at the UCI Design and Partnership Lab, a product engineering intern at replit, a lead instructional designer at Next Shift Learning, and a lecturer for CS106B at Stanford. I was the recipient of a Fulbright Study/Research award in 2019. (I had planned to do research at Peking University on an obscure remote learning platform in rural China, before remote learning was big. Then COVID happened.)
As an undergrad at Stanford, I studied Symbolic Systems, a major combining linguistics, philosophy, psychology and computer science. I also graduated from Stanford with a Master's in Human-Computer Interaction with a focus on learning technologies. I pursued the questions: How do we learn? and How can we design more transformative tools and experiences for learning?
research publications
I research tools for AI. I also did work in computer science education research and child-computer interaction.
- Van Doren, S., Cai, J., Han, J., Ma, S., Nguyen, M., & Ahn, J. (2025). Supporting Occupational Identity Development through AI-Assisted Self-Reflection and Mentor Interactions. ISLS 2024. [link]
- Angert, T.*, Suzara, M.*, Han, J.*, Pondoc, C., & Subramonyam, H. (2023). Spellburst: A Node-based Interface for Exploratory Creative Coding with Natural Language Prompts. UIST 2023. [link] [website] *equal first authors
- Wolf, J., Han, J., Proctor, C., Brown, E., Pang, J., & Blikstein, P. (2023). “Growing as a person”: Developing Identity and Agency Across Formal CS Education and Everyday Computing Contexts. In Building knowledge and sustaining our community, CSCL 2023. [link]
- Bigman, M., Gilon, Y., Han, J., & Mitchell, J. (2022). Insights for post-pandemic pedagogy across one CS department. Arxiv. [link]
- Dietz, G., Le, J. K., Tamer, N., Han, J., Gweon, H., Murnane, E. L., & Landay, J. A. (2021). StoryCoder: Teaching computational thinking concepts through storytelling in a voice-guided app for children. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–15. Best Paper Honorable Mention. [link]
- Dietz, G., Han, J., Gweon, H., & Landay, J. A. (2021). Design guidelines for early childhood computer science education tools. Design thinking research (pp. 291–306). Springer. [link]
- Proctor, C., Han, J., Wolf, J., Ng, K., & Blikstein, P. (2020). Recovering Constructionism in computer science: Design of a ninth-grade introductory computer science course. In B. Tangney, J. Rowan Byrne, & C. Girvan (Eds.) Proceedings of the 2020 Constructionism Conference. (pp. 473-481). Dublin, Ireland: University of Dublin. [link]
- Blikstein, P., Han, J., Jue, K., & Shroff, A. (2018, June). domino: mobile phones as accessible microcontrollers. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children (pp. 505-508). [link]
teaching
I've taught and designed curriculum for high school, community college, undergraduate, and graduate students. In the classroom, I strive for student-directed learning, personally meaningful projects, and belonging.
University teaching at a glance:
- Instructor, CS106B: Programming Abstractions (Summer 2022)
- Head TA, SYMSYS1: Minds and Machines (Fall 2021, Winter 2022)
- TA, SYMSYS1: Minds and Machines (Fall 2020, Winter 2021)
- TA, CS377U: Understanding Users (Spring 2020, Spring 2022)
- TA, EDUC211: Beyond Bits and Atoms (Winter 2019)
Some teaching experiences that I'm proud of:
- [2022] Co-lectured CS106B in the summer with one of my best friends, and we had a great time experimenting with mastery-based and project-based approaches to learning.
- [2020, 2021] Head TA-ed / was four-time TA for SYMSYS1, the undergraduate introduction to cognitive science at Stanford. Authored two of the four projects, including this one in which students coded their own grammars. Very nifty. Definitely a formative experience in grad school for me.
- [2019] Co-designed and co-taught Making with Code, a ninth-grade constructionist computer science curriculum in python, as a research assistant for Fablearn / Transformative Learning Technologies Lab and ISF Academy.
- [2020, 2021] With Snap Inc., LA-Tech.org, and Next Shift Learning, built out tech talent pathways for community college students in LA by designing the Snap Engineering Academy. Watching my students land internships at Snap, Microsoft, Code2040, Nextdoor, IDEO, and beyond >>>>>.
- [2019] Worked as a Makery Mentor in the Graduate School of Education makerspace (digital fabrication: laser-cutting, 3-d printing, microcontrollers, etc.).
- [2019] Codirected Alternative Spring Break , one of the largest public service and peer-learning programs at Stanford.
- [2018] Practiced English with janitors on the night shift at Stanford through the student group Habla.
- [2017] Highlighted community-driven public spaces in Santiago & Hong Kong with the Human Cities Initiative.
- [2016-2018] Led college access and CS education workshops (funded via Google igniteCS) in San Jose and [2016] student-taught ninth graders at Breakthrough Silicon Valley.
teaching videos
Snap Academies Sizzle Reel
2021
A 6 minute sizzle reel highlighting the students and staff behind the virtual Snap Academies in 2021. I was co-instructor for the Snap Engineering Academy, which I also created as the lead curriculum designer and program designer.
Twitter Bots with Replit
2022
A 30-minute virtual workshop showcasing a beginner-friendly, interdisciplinary CS project. I was invited to present this as part of Replit's Ed Fest 2022 for computer science educators. Materials here.
Science Fiction and Symbolic Systems
2021
What science fiction can teach us about minds and machines. A short video created for my students in SYMSYS1: Minds and Machines. Slides here.
Play and Learning
2020
A very high-level exploration of play- and discovery-based learning in cognitive science research. Created for my students in SYMSYS1: Minds and Machines. Materials here
design and development
Niantic's 8cademy
2023 | Learning Experience Design
Learning experience design and technical writing for 8th Wall, Niantic's WebAR platform. 200+ learners and counting.
Snap Academies
2022 | Learning Experience Design
High-impact program design and curriculum strategy. 180+ graduates to date. Website also built by me.
Replit
2021 | Product Engineering
Community moderation, workspace, and future of interactive code tutorials.
Grammars for All
2021 | Web App (JS) + Curriculum
A playground and a bunch of twitter bots to teach context-free grammars.
E-bikes Deep Dive
2021 | Data Viz (d3.js, vegalite)
Visualizing the distribution and use of bikeshare across U.S. cities.
Chapsnat
2021 | Mobile (React Native)
A chat app clone I co-built as hackathon starter code.
Protests on the rise?
2021 | Data Visualization (vegalite)
Visualizing mass mobilizations around the world in 2019.
Git Year in Review
2020 | Web App (React, Github API, Firebase)
Visualization for students to reflect on their git commits from the year.
Making with Code
2020 | Python
Starter code contributions for our 9th grade constructionist CS curriculum.
Lucky Draw
2023 | Next.JS
Just for fun; created a random digital gift generator for my close friends with one of my best friends Jacob
also about me
- Growing up, I loved school; I once got sent home sick in kindergarten and cried about missing out. My teachers were my greatest role models growing up in Bay Area public schools, and I feel strongly about contributing to public education in my work.
- I've gone swimming in the driest (non-polar) desert in the world.
- I could talk your head off about the following podcasts: Reply All, The Experiment, California Love, Floodlines, Radiolab (Dolly Parton's America, Mixtape), Heavyweight.
- I collect postcards ~
