About
Hi! I’m Kajal, a Stamps Scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Computer Science with minors in Statistics and Psychology. I design learning environments that respond to students’ cognitive and emotional processes, rather than expecting them to adapt to system constraints.
My research examines how perceptual and affective processes influence decision-making and interpretation. Through computational modeling and behavioral analysis, I study both the conscious reasoning and automatic processes that shape how people engage with learning and intelligent systems. Whether examining how course structures affect student anxiety and engagement, or how multimodal models encode human perceptual biases, I seek to understand and improve the systems that mediate human experience.
My goal is to build computational models that capture individual differences in perception and social understanding, and to design adaptive systems that are sensitive to the ways people differ in how they communicate, respond, and collaborate.
Research Interests
- Computer Vision
- Computing Education
- Affective Computing
- Human-Computer Interaction
Publications
Published
Forthcoming
In Progress
News
- Feb 2026 Paper accepted to ASEE 2026: 'Understanding the Impact of Test Anxiety on Study Behavior'
- Feb 2026 Paper and poster accepted to ASEE 2026: 'Measuring the Effects of Structured Roles in Digital Collaborative Learning'
- May 2025 Began working with Dr. Mariana Silva on computing education research
- May 2025 Began interning at the Affective Intelligence and Robotics (AFAR) Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, advised by Dr. Fethiye Irmak Doğan
- May 2025 Received Outstanding SPIN Intern Award from National Center for Supercomputing Applications
- May 2025 Paper accepted to ICER 2025: 'Frequent Testing vs. Second-chance Testing: An Exploration'
Contact
I'm always open to discussing research collaborations, opportunities, and ideas. Feel free to reach out!
Email: me@kajalpatel.info