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Xu Han is a 5th year PhD student studying Computer Science. Her research focuses on developing computational approaches and tools to enhance the evaluation and design of dialogue systems that can behave effectively and ethically. Xu Han was recently awarded a Collegiality and Scholarship Award based on her contributions to the research or creative community. We asked Xu Han a few questions to learn more about her as a scholar and get to know her better. Read more below!

What is a useful research or creative skill you think everyone should have?

Communication is the key. Everyone has his/her own unique perspectives and experiences to share and to be learned from.

Why is your research or creative work important to the community or world at large?

How can we interact with the increasing digital data? How can we find answers to personalized queries with fewer efforts? In many of these cases, conversational agent (CA) is a good answer. Despite CAs' great promises, designers face lots of challenges during design processes. Thus, my research aims to develop effective computational approaches and tools from a designer’s perspective. It is important in enhancing the evaluation and design of CAs that can behave effectively and ethically. The interaction experience between lots of real-world users and CAs can be improved.

What's a benefit you have found from collaborating with others?

My collaborations with people inside and outside my research community help me accumulate unique research experience in interdisciplinary areas, which inspire many innovative research questions and hypotheses to explore.

If you could have dinner with anyone (living or dead), who would it be and why?

Li Bai, one of the greatest Chinese poets. His poetry always comforts me.