Psychology · UX Research · Technology · Education
MSc in Psychology, fNIRS & fMRI hyperscanning, peer-reviewed publications
MSc Student in UX Design, mixed methods, usability testing, survey design
12 yrs full-stack, TypeScript, React, Flutter, Rust, open-source with 800+ stars
K-12 curriculum, textbook author, 565K+ total views, teacher certified
About
I work at the intersection of cognitive science, user experience research, and technology. With graduate training in psychology from Beijing Normal University's State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, a master's in UX Design from Wilfrid Laurier University, and years of industry experience spanning EdTech, interactive media, and open-source software, I bring a research-driven, evidence-based approach to building products that genuinely serve people.
My work is grounded in a simple conviction: understanding how minds work leads to better things being made — whether that's a children's brain science textbook, a reading tool for kids with ADHD, or an open-source music player used by thousands.
Education
MSc in User Experience Design · Brantford, Ontario
Research focus: human-AI interaction, cognitive load in technology-mediated learning, and responsible AI design for psychological wellbeing. Thesis work explores computational thinking as a meta-cognitive framework for LLM-assisted writing.
MSc in Psychology · Academic Excellence Scholarship
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Research focused on interpersonal neural synchronization and pair-bonding using fNIRS hyperscanning.
BSc in Psychology · National Inspirational Scholarship
Undergraduate research in social psychology: values and subjective wellbeing, traditional culture cognition, and Emoji's effects on emotional text comprehension (Excellent Graduation Thesis).
Publications
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Vol. 15 (1), 2020
NeuroImage, Vol. 198, 2019
Poster — IDG/McGovern Institute & Brain Center Joint Conference, Tsinghua University, 2019
Independently published in Taiwan, December 2023 · Featured on the sspai Podcast
Experience
Cognitive training product for children's reading abilities (EUP)
Designed cognitive training grounded in cognitive and educational psychology for children with reading difficulties (dyslexia, ADHD). Built Bionic Reading-inspired visual guidance, vocabulary curricula using morphological analysis, and Forgetting Curve-based review systems. Participatory design with children and adults with dyslexia. Core philosophy: the goal is for the child to eventually not need the product.
Open-source projects: Rune & Oasis
Rune (符石聆音) — An open-source music player reimagining the Zune aesthetic with modern technology. Built with Rust and Flutter, featuring a 61-dimensional audio analysis system for content-based music recommendation via Chroma Spectrum analysis. A UX design experiment: "What if Zune had continued to evolve?" Available on Steam and Microsoft Store. 800+ GitHub stars, 30+ pull requests, 7+ contributors. Covered by IT之家, XDA Developers, Hacker News, and Softpedia.
Oasis — A voice-first psychological self-discovery platform that treats emotions as dynamic networks rather than static scores. Users record voice journal entries, which are transcribed and analyzed through an expert-developed qualitative coding framework (built collaboratively with 5 PhD researchers in psychology and education), then visualized as emotion network graphs. Grounded in Constructed Emotion Theory, Oasis explicitly avoids clinical diagnostic scales to prevent self-diagnosis, positioning itself as a longitudinal narrative-based tool for sustained self-awareness. Sole-managed a 120,000-line codebase with LLM-assisted development, maintaining architectural stability throughout. The platform is currently in closed beta testing.
Teaching Assistant & Curriculum Developer
Delivered an experimental "Brain Science" course for elementary students, translating neuroscience and cognitive psychology into interactive, age-appropriate lessons. Subsequently led development of a companion textbook (~99 pages, 12 chapters) spanning brain structure, dopamine and motivation, anxiety, attention, flow, task management, memory, and memorization. Responsible for all textbook compilation, typesetting, activity design, and courseware design — bridging neuroscience research with K-12 pedagogy.
Developer → Technology Leader
Started as a frontend intern building all interactive interfaces for Paperclip (基本操作), a popular Chinese science communication project. Promoted to Technology Leader within two years. Led architecture design, managed cross-functional teams, and built an internal content publishing platform end-to-end.
Created interactive educational games with PIXI.js and Three.js, machine learning visualizations, WebGL tools, and the core API infrastructure for the Recative System interactive video platform. Applied Bloom's Taxonomy and cognitive principles to course design. Later at Nice Stick Technology, re-engineered 5 legacy products for performance and internationalization.
Graduate Research — Wilfrid Laurier University
Integrates Cognitive Load Theory, Problem Space Theory, and Computational Thinking, proposing CT as a meta-cognitive strategy for LLM-assisted writing — transforming LLMs from thinking substitutes into cognitive scaffolds.
Investigated how users manage accumulating conversation history across LLM platforms. Found that expert users report higher retrieval frustration than novices — not from lack of skill, but from managing 50+ conversations on interfaces designed for casual use. Key finding: user agency (willingness to organize) was a far stronger predictor of satisfaction (p=.05) than technical proficiency (p=.84), while even strict "one topic per chat" discipline failed to reduce retrieval abandonment (p=.85), proving that manual strategies cannot overcome structural UI flaws. Proposed design interventions including response-level bookmarks, frequency-based sorting, and contextual segmentation prompts. Developed the "Management Agency Index," a composite metric isolating active management behavior from technical skill.
Community interactive display for downtown Brantford. Full design cycle from concept to usability testing with culturally diverse participants. Identified critical issues in emergency assistance design, navigation accessibility, and physical ergonomics.
A comprehensive UX evaluation of the Rune open-source music player, combining quantitative survey data (n=31) with in-depth semi-structured interviews (n=7) to assess usability, aesthetic perception, and the emotional experience of music browsing. The study applied thematic analysis to interview transcripts and identified key tensions between nostalgic design language and modern usability expectations, producing actionable design recommendations that directly informed subsequent development iterations.
Selected Open Source
Music player blending Zune's classic design with modern 61-dimensional audio analysis and content-based recommendation. Cross-platform, available on Steam and Microsoft Store.
Comprehensive interactive media creation platform for the modern web. Built during tenure at Paperclip / Nice Stick Technology.
First team to successfully implement high-performance, high-compatibility Reveal Highlight on the web — requiring frame-by-frame curve analysis to precisely replicate the effect's animation parameters.
Experimental interactive novel bridging hardware and web: Nintendo Joy-Con integration via WebHID, custom WebGL rendering, and explorative narrative interaction design beyond conventional screen-based input.
Open-source contributor to flutter-elinux, typecho, react-player, DefinitelyTyped, baseweb, and epub.js.
Awards & Certifications
National teacher qualification (PRC), certifying competence to deliver psychological health education at the senior high school level.
Completed a 4-week workshop covering Canva, Figma, Prototyping, and 3D Printing.
All competition awards below relate to Project Bota — a VR-based interactive sandplay therapy solution. LI Kanyu served as Team Leader throughout.
Writing & Talks
Certified Author and 2025 Q2 Outstanding Contribution Author on sspai.com. Selected Matrix-featured articles:
Also contributed to Jandan (jandan.net) and iPlaySoft (iplaysoft.com).
Selected presentations spanning neuroscience methods (fNIRS/fMRI data analysis), technical workshops (R, presentation design), LLM integration best practices, and public lectures on education and technology. Delivered in Mandarin; select recordings available.
Skills
Chinese (native), English (fluent)
TypeScript, React, Node.js, Go, Electron, Rust, Flutter, PHP — 12 years
R, Julia, Python, SPSS, Keras, PsychoPy — 5–10 years
NGINX, Docker — 7 years
Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Photoshop, Illustrator, Blender, Typst — 12 years
fNIRS hyperscanning, survey design, semi-structured interviews, usability testing, cognitive walkthroughs, A/B testing