research experience

Interpretive Cultures: Resonance, randomness, and negotiated meaning for AI-assisted tarot divination

Matthew Prock*, Ziv Epstein*, Hope Schroeder, Amy Smith, Cassandra Lee, Vana Goblot, Farnaz Jahanbakhsh

Research paper published in CHI 2026 conference; Research Assistant from June 2025 - May 2026

research assistant in EECS' Social Computing Lab project which assessed how people apply generative AI to make sense of emotionally complex or ambiguous situations requiring subjective interpretation, through the lens of tarot.
wrote recruitment survey questions, scheduled and lead all participant interviews, conducted thematic analysis on interview data, contributed significantly to writing the research paper as co-first author, assisted in the submission process.
i also aided in brainstorming for future work, including a quantitative study which will use a web application to give participants tarot readings, some of which will include embedded AI interpretations and measure their responses.

"In-Parallel with Someone Else": Self-Employed Creative Careers Inspired by Social Media Influencers

Shanley Corvite, Matthew Prock, Julie Hui

Research paper published in CSCW 2026 conference; Research Assistant from February 2024 - June 2025

research assistant in project exploring the potential relevancy and impact that self-employed influencers and their content have on both aspiring and current self-employed workers.
conducted interviews and wrote recruitment survey questions; conducted thematic analysis on both interview content and social media posts shared by interview participants. wrote and revised sections of research paper and assisted in the submission process.

Optimizing Spotify users' experience: UX research project

Conducted project from August 2024 - October 2024

an independent human-centered research project; conducted Spotify user interviews, applied thematic analysis techniques to interview content in order to determine which of Spotify's features were/were not adequately meeting the needs of users. for more details about the project, click here

Hazel @ FPLab

Research Assistant from May 2024 - September 2024

contributed to ongoing programming language research via Hazel, a "live functional programming environment that is able to understand, manipulate, and even run incomplete programs, i.e. programs with holes."