Hi, I’m Irene Hou! I’m a second-year Cognitive Science PhD student in the Design Lab at UC San Diego, advised by Philip Guo. I am also a recipient of 2026 Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellowship and the 2025 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

My research interests span Human-Centered AI, Human-Computer Interaction, and computing education. I study how generative AI reshapes peer learning, help-seeking, and tacit knowledge transfer in technical and scientific communities. I am particularly interested in participatory approaches to AI that support non-experts and underrepresented users.

In 2025, I was a visiting researcher at ETH Zürich in Dr. April Wang’s PEACH lab. Before my PhD, I was a Research Lead in Dr. Stephen MacNeil’s HCI Lab, and UX Lead at FluentPet in collaboration with the Comparative Cognition Lab. I received my B.S. from UCSD in Cognitive Science (Design and Interaction) with a minor in Computer Science. Outside of my research, I’m a fiction writer/poet and was one of America’s youngest published authors at age 14.