Hi there! As an HCI and User-centered Design scientist, my research interests lie in Affective Design, Lifelong Learning, Subjective Well-being. A core research passion is designing technologies that enrich affective experiences. My PhD work focuses on understanding people's emotional and cognitive demands when interacting with intelligent systems (e.g., game, simulators, AI pedagogist) and potential behavioural patterns (e.g., interaction, eye) related to these changes. I conduct interdisciplinary studies (e.g., language literacy, CS edu, healthcare) with varied populations (e.g., kids, university students, adult professionals). My work informs user-centered adaptation, which enhances experiences and improves performance. My recent work at VIXI Lab involves develop tools to support happiness for knowledge workers. My master's study focused on using mixed reality and gesture interactions to provide a feeling of companionship.

I am actively looking for a research position.

Highlight!

• 04/2025: Two papers were accpeted by AIED'25!

• 04/2025: I am serving as a Program Committee Member for the main paper track at ECTEL'25.

• 03/2025: One paper was accepted by UMAP'25!

• 03/2025: I served as a Program Committee Member for the main paper track at AIED'25 and EDM'25.

• 02/2025: I served as an Associate Chair (AC) for Late Breaking Works, and a reviewer for full papers at CHI'25.

• 01/2025: I am visiting VIXI lab at UVic, and working as a research assistant with Dr. Sowmya Somanath. 

• 11/2024: One poster was accepted by AERA 2025 Annual Meeting!

• 07/2024: Received Graduate Students' Association Academic Travel Grant.

• 05/2024: I served as a student volunteer at CHI'24.

• 04/2024: One poster was accepted by EDM'24 !

• 03/2024: One paper was accepted by PhysioCHI '24!

• 03/2024: Received the Graduate Student Travel Award. 

• 01/2024: One paper was accepted by CHI'24!

Talks & Presentations

• Presentation: Toward Supporting Adaptation: Exploring Affect’s Role in Cognitive Load when Using a Literacy Game, CHI'24

• Guest speaker: Introduction to Information Visualization, Mar 2024

• Graduate Student Seminar: Does Affect Impact People’s Cognitive Load in Game-based Learning?, Jul 2023

• Guest speaker: The Effects of Augmented Reality as a Learning Tool, Nov 2022

• Presentation: Complex Learning Environments: Tensions in Student Perspectives that Indicate Competing Values, AIED'22

• Presentation: Towards Supporting Adaptive Training of Injection Procedures: Detecting Differences in the Visual Attention of Nursing Students and Experts, UMAP'22

• Presentation: Exploring Augmented Reality Games in Accessible Learning: A Systematic Review, CHI'21

• Presentation: Remote shoulder-to-shoulder communication enhancing co-located sensation, ACHI'19

• Presentation: Analyzing Interaction in Remote Joint Shopping System, Nov 2018

• Presentation: Shopping together: a remote co-shopping system utilizing spatial gesture interaction, Jul 2018

• Student design competition at HCII'18: Let’s Go Outside — a telecommunication assistant system for people with inconveniences, Jul 2018 

• Presenter: Gesture-based mobile communication system providing side-by-side shopping feeling. Mar 2018

Teaching

• Winter 2024: Guest speaker, CMPUT 302 - Introduction to Human Computer Interaction

• Winter 2023: Principle instructor, CMPUT 302 - Introduction to Human Computer Interaction

• TAships: 

CMPUT 174 - Introduction to the Foundations of Computation I

CMPUT 272 - Formal Systems and Logic in Computing Science

CMPUT 302 - Introduction to Human Computer Interaction

Academic Service

As an active researcher, I have served on academic committees for several years and have reviewed more than 40 papers.

• CHI, LateBreakingWork AC

• AIED PC

• EDM PC

• ECTEL PC

Papers

Google Scholar Profile

• Cai, M., Guevarra, M., Abdullah, Y. A., & Demmans Epp, C. (2025). Unveiling the interplay between affect and cognitive load during simulation-based training. International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED '25), 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-98420-4_31 

• Gorgun, G., Cai, M., & Demmans Epp, C. (2025). Modeling intrinsic load: Can item difficulty be a reasonable proxy? International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED '25), 12 pages. [Accepted]

• Abdullah, Y. A., Guevarra, M., Cai, M., Yang, J., Matthew, E. T., & Demmans Epp, C. (2025). Pilot Trainees Benefit from Modelling and Adaptive Feedback. International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP '25), New York City, USA https://doi.org/10.1145/3699682.3728337 

• Cai, M., Gorgun, G., & Demmans Epp, C. (2025). Difficulty as a proxy for measuring intrinsic cognitive load. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. AERA 2025. April 2025. Denver, USA. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2507.13235 

• Cai, M. & Demmans Epp, C. Predicting Cognitive Load Using Sensor Data in a Literacy Game.  International Conference on Educational Data Mining. EDM'24. July 2024. Atlanta, USA https://zenodo.org/records/12729950 

• Cai, M. & Demmans Epp, C. Exploring the optimal time window for predicting cognitive load using physiological sensor data. PhysioCHI ’24, Hawaii, USA http://arxiv.org/abs/2406.13793 

• Cai, M., Rebolledo Méndez, G., Arevalo, G., Tang, S. S., A Abdullah, Y., & Demmans Epp, C. Toward Supporting Adaptation: Exploring Affect's Role in Cognitive Load when Using a Literacy Game. The ACM CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2024. CHI2024, Hawaii, USA  https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642150

• Liaqat, A., Demmans Epp, C., Cai, M., & Munteanu, C. Exploring Collaborative Culture Sharing。  Dynamics in Immigrant Families through Digital Crafting and Storytelling. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 7, CSCW2, Article 307 (October 2023). https://doi.org/10.1145/3610098 

• Gonz ́alez Esparza, L., Cai, M., Palestino, I., Rebolledo-Mendez, G., Demmans Epp, C., & Cutumisu, M. Automatically Detecting Affect in Computerized Learning Environments: A Systematic Literature Review. The 20th Biennial European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction Conference. EARLI'23. August 2023, Thessaloniki , Greece 

• Cai, M., & Demmans Epp, C. Cognitive Load and Affect to Support Adaptive Online Learning. Modeling. The 15th International Conference on Educational Data Mining. EDM'22. 2022, July https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6853020

• Cai, M., Demmans Epp, C., & Firoozi, T. Complex Learning Environments: Tensions in Student Perspectives that Indicate Competing Values. In Artificial Intelligence in Education. Posters and Late Breaking Results, Workshops and Tutorials, Industry and Innovation Tracks, Practitioners’ and Doctoral Consortium: 23rd International Conference, AIED 2022, Durham, UK, July 27–31, 2022, Proceedings, Part II (pp. 144-149). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-11647-6_25

• Cai, M., Zheng, B., & Demmans Epp, C. Towards Supporting Adaptive Training of Injection Procedures: Detecting Differences in the Visual Attention of Nursing Students and Experts. The 30th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (pp. 286-294). 2022, July https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3503252.3531302

• Cai, M., Akcayir, G., & Demmans Epp, C. Exploring Augmented Reality Games in Accessible Learning: A Systematic Review. CHI 2021: Adaptive Accessible AR/VR Systems, May 2021, Japan http://arxiv.org/abs/2111.08214

• Cai, M., & Tanaka, J. Go together: providing nonverbal awareness cues to enhance co-located sensation in remote communication. Journal Human-centric computing and information sciences, 9, 1-25, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13673-019-0180-y

• Dou, H., Li, Z., Cai, M., Cheng, K., Masuko, S., & Tanaka, J. Show something: intelligent shopping assistant supporting quick scene understanding and immersive preview. The 21st HCI International Conference, HCII 2019, Orlando, FL, USA, July 26-31, 2019, Proceedings, Part II 21 (pp. 205-218). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22649-7_17

• Cai, M., & Tanaka, J. Remote shoulder-to-shoulder communication enhancing co-located sensation. The 12th International Conference on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions (ACHI) (pp. 80-85), 2019, Feb (Best Paper Award)

• Cai, M., Masuko, S., & Tanaka, J. Gesture-based mobile communication system providing side-by-side shopping feeling. The 23rd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces Companion (pp. 1-2), 2018, March https://doi.org/10.1145/3180308.3180310

• Cai, M., & Tanaka, J. Trip together: a remote pair sightseeing system supporting gestural communication. The 5th International Conference on Human Agent Interaction (pp. 317-324),  2017, October https://doi.org/10.1145/3125739.3125762