personal photo

Contact

liu.ho at utexas dot edu
1616 Guadalupe St., 5.520, Austin, TX, 78701

Lab & Affiliation

Research group:
AI & Human-Centered Computing

Associated research community:
UT NLP | Good System Mis/disinformation |
UT CosmicAI Institute

Google Scholar

Houjiang Liu ("Whole-jyahng Lyoo")

I'm a doctoral candidate (2021 to present) at School of Information, UT Austin. I'm currently advised by Professor Matthew Lease in the AI & Human-Centered Computing research group and as part of the UT NLP community. My broad research interests include Human-AI Interaction, with a particular emphasis on human-centered NLP fact-checking, where I collaborate with fact-checkers to design tools to protect information integrity. More recently, I have begun studying AI-assisted scientific discovery, exploring how LLMs and agentic systems shape research practices.

Previously, I was a Design Researcher in Center for Design at the Northeastern University, advised by professor Miso Kim on designing services grounded in autonomy and Paolo Ciuccarelli on visualizing interactive network graphs. I was also a part-time lecturer teaching Interaction Design in CAMD at Northeastern. Before my academic career, I was an Interaction Designer, working at JD.com and SeetaTech AI.


Updates

[11.2025] Led by Yinan from MIT SCL, our data visualization Biophilia: Mapping the Emotional Pulse of Urban Nature will be exhibited in the Biennial Information + Conference 2025. Location: MIT Media Lab East Lobby, November 14-16.

[03.2025] Honored to receive the UT Graduate Continuing Fellowship.

[02.2025] Our work on Exploring Multidimensional Checkworthiness is accepted at CSCW25. I will present the work at iSchools Doctoral Seminar Series in August and attend this year CSCW in October.

[01.2025] Successfully pass qualifying procedure and enter candidacy. Paper about Rhetorical XAI is accessible at arXiv.


Selected Work

Who Owns Creativity and Who Does the Work? Trade-offs in LLM-Supported Research Ideation | Preprint 2026 | arXiv

Rhetorical XAI: Explaining AI's Benefits as well as its Use via Rhetorical Design | Preprint 2025 | arXiv

Exploring Multidimensional Checkworthiness: Designing AI-assisted Claim Prioritization for Human Fact-checkers | CSCW 2025 | DOI | Code | Slides

Argumentative Experience: Reducing Confirmation Bias on Controversial Issues through LLM-generated Multi-persona Debates | Preprint 2024 | arXiv | Slides

Human-centered NLP Fact-checking: Co-Designing with Fact-checkers using Matchmaking for AI | Best Paper Honorable Mention | CSCW 2024 | DOI | Slides

The State of Human-centered NLP Technology for Fact-checking | Information Processing & Management 2023 | DOI

An Empirical Study of How Service Designers Use Metrics | She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation 2023 | DOI

Designing for people you can't meet: Persuasive design to nurture seniors' participation in community services during the COVID-19 pandemic | The Design Journal 2023 | DOI

Other Research