Hi there!
I am a PhD student in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. My research spans human-robot interaction, artificial intelligence, and alignment, with applications to both embodied and virtual AI systems. I am particularly interested in the key challenges in aligning agentic/robotic assistance with users' goals. This broadly encompasses learning human preferences, investigating intrinsic motivation objectives for assistive agents, and developing shared autonomy systems that balance robotic assistance with user control.
I am fortunate to be advised by Maya Cakmak and Max Kleiman-Weiner. Additionally, I am grateful to be supported by the NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship and the UW Paul G. Allen Diamond Fellowship.
This page is just a sampling of highlights - for full details, check out my
CV (last updated August 2025).
Feel free to check out the following and reach out!
claireyy{at}cs.washington.edu | Google Scholar | LinkedIn | Bluesky | GitHub
Research
My research interests have always been motivated by my curiosity around human behavior and desire to create technology informed by people's needs. This strand has persisted throughout my research journey, starting in undergrad and through my PhD program.
Human-Centered Robotics Lab and Computational Minds & Machines Lab, advised by Maya Cakmak and Max Kleiman-Weiner, Sep 2024–present Graduate Researcher
Researching human-robot interaction, artificial intelligence, and alignment. Advised by Prof. Maya Cakmak and Prof. Max Kleiman-Weiner. My first paper investigating how robot autonomy affects user agency was accepted at RO-MAN 2025! I am currently researching disempowerment resulting from assistance in multi-agent scenarios, which I presented as a poster at CogSci 2025.
Computation, Motivation, and Control Lab, advised by Paul Schrater Undergraduate RA – Signaling and Inferring Social Preferences in a Dynamic Multi-Agent Environment, Sep 2020–May 2021
Developed a framework that represents and infers team formation via social preferences in a multi-agent environment. Implemented a generative model and game testbed that infers each agents' social preferences via signaling. Presented at the SPUDM 2021 Conference and the 2021 California Cognitive Science Conference.
Undergraduate RA – Inverse Multi-Agent Planning in League of Legends, Sep 2019–June 2020
Collaborated on representing agent beliefs in complex team settings with cognitive neuroscientists. Analyzed features and prepared data for time series analysis of large scale game dataset using Python and Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. Transformed relational database into graph database (Neo4j) for easier agent-centric analysis.
Grouplens Research, advised by Lana Yarosh Undergraduate HCI RA – Prototyping Social Robots, Sep 2018–May 2019
Programmed a shape shifting table to research multimodal interfaces within education and virtual environments. Designed a process to control the interactive table’s shape through 3D modeling in Blender.
Undergraduate HCI RA – Participatory Design to Support Recovery from Substance Abuse Disorders, Oct 2017–May 2018
Designed and conducted participatory design interviews with participants in sober homes. Qualitatively analyzed interview transcripts through open coding in order to gain insight on the users’ wants and needs.
Industry
I've worked in a variety of roles in industry, including software engineering, artificial intelligence research, consulting, and UX design. Most recent positions listed below.
HubSpot Senior Software Engineer I, Nov 2022–Aug 2024
Founding member of HubSpot's AI Innovation Lab team. I ideated and applied advances generative AI to create prototypes that could help small businesses grow, such as LLM agents for sales and multimodal collaborative interactions.
HubSpot Backend Software Engineer, July 2021–Nov 2022
Worked on the HubSpot CMS Hub's Video product, which powers over 50,000 customers' content. Built a real time video update processing system, migrated hundreds of thousands of videos off the legacy system, and backfilled over 1.5 billion video analytics events. Mentored a summer software engineering intern. Led the rollout for multiple product feature releases.
Smart Information Flow Technologies (SIFT) Artificial Intelligence Research Co-op, Aug 2020–Jan 2021
Researched novel NLP and Planning techniques in collaboration with several different DARPA programs. Examples include utilizing BERT and Word2vec word embeddings to analyze bias in large-scale datasets of online discourse in social media, conducting linguistic affect analysis, prototyping automated stance detection of text.
Service
My first job ever was as a math tutor at Mathnasium, and I spent the better part of my gap year before college tutoring English to North Korean refugees. These experiences formed my passion for teaching and giving back to the community. I aim to help break barriers in tech and mentor others throughout my career. Here are a few things I've done in this space that I'd love to highlight:
UW CSE Pre-Application Mentorship Service (PAMS) Mentor, Oct 2024–Nov 2024
Mentored three applicants, supporting prospective PhD students from historically marginalized groups.
Milton Academy Instructor, Sep 2022–June 2024
Taught and helped create the curriculum for the advanced AI class at Milton Academy in Massachussetts.
G{Code} Mentor, Nov 2022–March 2023
Technical mentoring for underrepresented women/nonbinary folks who aim to start a career in tech.
Education
University of Washington Sep 2024–Present
PhD Student in Computer Science & Engineering.
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Sep 2017–May 2021
B.S. in Computer Science & minor in Psychology.