Litao Yan

Litao Yan is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, advised by Professor Andrew Head. His research focuses on the intersection of human-computer interaction and software engineering, particularly in developing AI-powered programming assistants to address complex developer queries and enhance code comprehension. While pursuing his Master's in Computational Science and Engineering at Harvard University, he developed several interactive systems under the guidance of Professor Elena Glassman, such as ExampleNet and ParaLib. His doctoral research includes systems like Trailblazer, Invisible Mentor, and Ivie, which leverage large language models, visual language models, and intelligent agents to improve developer experiences. He interned with the PROSE team at Microsoft Research, where he developed a system to infer operations from user screen recordings.

• 2021-06 to 2022-08·Microsoft Research·Research Assistant (Intern)
  • Developed the Invisible Mentor system, utilizing visual language models to analyze user activity logs and recommend workflow improvements.

• 2021 – Present·University of Pennsylvania·Ph.D.
  • Computer and Information Science, specializing in the fusion of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence.
• 2019-08 to 2021-05·Harvard University·Master's (M.Eng.)
  • Computational Science and Engineering, focusing on the development of interactive systems for exploring code and models.