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I’m a mixed-methods UX researcher and third-year PhD student in Human–Computer Interaction at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology.
I investigate how people interact and collaborate with AI across platforms, studying their behaviors, emotions, motivations, and challenges, and delivering actionable insights to inform product strategy and improve user experiences.
I have a background in computational design and engineering, where I developed expertise in design research and design thinking, and worked on VR/AR development and 3D environments.
You'll find a mix of professional projects and hands-on experiments from my Playground. Feel free to reach out if you’re curious about anything or just want to connect!
News
October 2025: Presented my first-author paper at CHI PLAY 2025, held at CMU in Pittsburgh.
September 2025: Received a $1,070 IST Travel Grant to support conference participation.
August 2025: Received the College of IST Award to attend TAPIA 2025 in Dallas, TX.
August 2025: Two papers accepted to CHI PLAY 2025 — one as first author and one as second author.
June 2025: Began my summer UX Internship at WTW.
May 2025: Started a UX Research contract with the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences (LAS).
April 2025: My literature review on the state of video games in CSCW was accepted for publication in JCSCW.
January 2025: My research was featured in a Penn State News article.
2024
October 2024: Presented my first-author paper at CHI PLAY 2024 in Tampere, Finland.
August 2024: Elected as the Event Planner of the Graduate Student Association in Information Sciences and Technology
July 2024: Selected as a nominee to attend the Human-Computer Interaction Consortium, Madison, WI.
June 2024: Three papers accepted to CHI PLAY 2024. My first-author paper received an Honorable Mention Award.
May 2024: Attended CHI 2024 on-site in Hawaii and presented a second-author paper.
May 2024: Successfully passed my oral and written PhD Qualifying Exam.
January 2024: One paper was accepted to CHI 2024.
2023
August 2023: Started my PhD program in Informatics, specializing in Human-Computer Interaction at Penn State.
June 2023: Successfully defended and passed my Master's thesis at Penn State.
January 2023: Recipient of the Distinguished Master's Thesis Award.
2022
October 2022: Attended ACADIA conference with one paper accepted.
May 2022: Accepted poster at Design Computing and Cognition 2022, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
2021
August 2021: Started my Master of Science in Design Computing at Penn State.
Willis Towers Watson
Laboratory for Analytic Sciences
Wellbeing & Health Innovation Lab
[C7] Sam Moradzadeh, Jeffrey Seihoon Oh, Xinning Gui, Yubo Kou. 2025. Fake Game but Real Play: Exploring Player Motivations and Coping Strategies with Fake Games. Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY’ 2025)
DOI: TBD[C6] 🏅 Sam Moradzadeh, Yubo Kou. 2024. “Wow another fake game from YouTube ad “: Unpacking Fake Games Through a Mixed-Methods Investigation. Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY’ 2024) (Best Paper Honorable Mention)
DOI: 10.1145/3677115[C5] Zinan Zhang, Sam Moradzadeh, Andrew Woan, Yubo Kou. 2024. Toxicity by Game Design: How Players Perceive the Influence of Game Design on Toxicity. Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY 2024) (Published)
[C4] 🏅 Zinan Zhang, Sam Moradzadeh, Xinning Gui, Yubo Kou. 2024. Harmful Design in User-Generated Games and its Ethical and Governance Challenges: An Investigation of Design Co-Ideation of Game Creators on Roblox. Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY 2024) (Best Paper Honorable Mention)
DOI: 10.1145/3677076[C3] Yubo Kou, Sam Moradzadeh, Xinning Gui. 2024. Trading as Gambling: Social Investing and Financial Risks on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2024 (CHI 2024)
DOI: 10.1145/3613904.3642768
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