About

Hi, I am Chenyi Li 🍊 (She/They). I am a second-year Master student in Computer Science at Tandon School of Engineering at New York University. Currently, I am working with Dr. Marcelo Mattar in the Psychology Department on the transformer model of meta-reinforcement learning. Additionally, I collaborate with Dr. Erdem Varol in the Tandon School of Engineering on hippocampal subregion decoding. Furthermore, I also work with Dr. Claudio Silva in the Computer Science Department on proactive AR assistance using cognitive user modeling.

My research vision is to understand intelligence. Following Feynman’s saying, “What I cannot create, I do not understand,” I seek to understand the human mind by creating one. Specifically, I’m interested in how human adaptively and flexibly solve new questions, and what representations and algorithms enable such adaptivity. In the realm of social intelligence, I’m also interested in how humans leverage Theory of Mind to collaborate as a team. With a deeper understanding of human cognition, I aspire to build intelligent human-AI system that enhance creativity and foster connections.

Prior to entering my graduate program, I earned a B.Eng. degree in Computer Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen) in 2023. During my time in UC Berkeley, I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Alison Gopnik on a computational model of play. Additionally, I was fortunate to work with Dr. Quanying Liu on EEG neural signal denoise

Outside of research, I have served as a peer consultant. I also conducted side projects on gender studies(female work-family balance in China, gender equality statistics around the world, body shape and gender image change). I enjoy nature, photography, and Latino literature(Gabriel García Márquez’s 100 Years of Solitude is my fav!). You can also often find me at the gym 💪 or practice room 🎻!