AI & UX Engineer at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Selected from hundreds of applicants, I had the privilege of participating in the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) internship. Among the 10 students chosen, I was a part of the Learning Sciences group. This group uniquely integrates Software Engineering, UX, and AI to create impactful educational tools.
During my time in the Learning Sciences group, I contributed to the development of MentorPal, a content creation web app designed to facilitate a more dynamic and engaging mentor-mentee relationship through an innovative asynchronous communication environment. My role involved ideating, designing, and developing key features for this application, significantly enhancing its functionality and user experience.
My work in a cross-functional team was framed within an Agile Scrum environment, where I acted as a liaison between business stakeholders, researchers, and developers. This role demanded rapid ideation, validation, and agile implementation of features. I spearheaded several key improvements in the app and conducted training sessions for peers in technologies such as React, TypeScript, NodeJS, and Scrum methodologies.
A notable contribution of mine was the conception and development of a virtual background feature from scratch. This feature was instrumental in promoting user privacy and allowing mentors to tailor their virtual presence for optimal engagement. Additionally, I envisioned and built a rich-text editor for mentor-generated transcripts. This editor included the functionality to embed hyperlinks, thereby significantly enriching the learning journey and enhancing the overall user experience of the MentorPal app.
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