Welcome to the Adaptive Cognition and Interaction Design (ACTION) lab. The ACTION lab is led by Dr. Jessie Chin, of the School of Information Sciences and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Currently, there are four main research themes in the ACTION Lab:
- Understanding human cognition interacting with digital environments and artificial intelligence (AI)
- Developing and examining coupling cognitive agents to support individual and group behavior
- Understanding and designing understandable and actionable information for All
- Developing and implementing innovative and accessible digital health technologies and interventions for All
As an interdisciplinary team, our research aims at advancing understanding of human cognition interacting with evolving technologies, and further translating theories in cognitive sciences and human-computer interaction as well as approaches in computational modeling (e.g., statistical models, cognitive modeling, machine learning) and language models (e.g., natural language processing, large language models) to build sociotechnical solutions for augmenting complex human and group behavior for all (including learning, health behavior, group decision-making and ideation creation, etc.). [Learn More]
Keywords from Current Research Projects: Applied Cognitive Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors, Cognitive Agents, Intelligent Agents, Conversational Agents, Information Foraging, Self-Regulated Learning, Decision-Making, Cognitive Aging, Health Communication, Health Literacy, Digital Health, Precision Self-Management, Large Language Models
NEWS FROM THE ACTION LAB
Nov 5. The Action Lab is going to present multiple research works at the iSchool Research Showcase (Illini Union, Illini Room B & C) from 12:00 to 4:30PM on Nov 5 (Wed).
- Jessie Chin: Search as a Mechanism for Learning
- Michelle Bak, Kexin Quan, Tre Tomaszewski, and Jessie Chin: Can Conversational AI Counsel for Change? A Theory-Driven Approach to Supporting Dietary Intentions in Ambivalent Individuals
- Bogeum Choi: The Effects of Thinking Aloud on Participants during Search and Sensemaking
- Precious Olalere and Jessie Chin: Redesign Health Information For Older Adults with Different Levels of Health Literacy
- Kexin Quan, Dina Albassam, Mengku Wu, and Jessie Chin: Towards AI as Colleagues: Multi-Agent System Improves Structured Professional Ideation
- Tre Tomaszewski and Jessie Chin: The Hidden Lives of Social Machines: How Cognitive System Designs Influence Agent Behavior in Synthetic Societies
- Philo Wang and Jessie Chin: Unveil the Truth: Designing Story-Based Mystery Games for Misinformation Awareness Across the Lifespan
Nov 1. Congrats to Michelle Bak on her new position as a postdoctoral researcher at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany!
Sep 17. Congrats to Tre Tomaszewski on passing the preliminary exam, “The Hidden Lives of Social Machines: How Cognitive System Designs Influence Agent Behavior in Synthetic Societies”!
Sep 10. The MS Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society was featured.
Aug 16. Welcome Bogeum Choi and Ziyang (Hugo) Xu joining the team!
July 25. Jessie received the NSF CAREER Award for a 5-year project, “Search as a Mechanism for Learning”.
June 23. Congrats to our undergraduate researcher, Pavithra Ramakrishnan, and PhD student, Kexin Quan, for presenting their work, “Can AI take a Joke – Or Make One? A Study on Humor Generation and Recognition in LLMs” in the ACM Conference in Creativity & Cognition 2025!
May 29. The Action Lab received a new research award from the National Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society (NMSS) to develop a scalable depression regulation chatbot for self-managing depressive symptoms for people with MS.
May 15. Congrats to Xinhui Hu, Smit Desai, Morgan Lundy on the acceptance of a peer-reviewed conference proceeding, “Beyond Functionality: Co-Designing Voice User Interfaces for Older Adults’ Well-being“, in the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces CUI’25!
April 26. Congrats to Mengke Wu and Kexin Quan on presenting their Late-Breaking Work, “Incorporating Personality into AI Writing Companions: Mapping the Design Space” in the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2025!
Primary Funding Agencies for the ACTION LAB
Our research has been supported by:
- National Science Foundation 2025 – Present
- National Institutes of Health (National Cancer Institute, National Library of Medicine) 2020 – Present
- National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research 2024 – Present
- National Multiple Sclerosis Society 2025 – Present
- Campus Research Board 2022 – Present
- Institute of Museum and Library Services 2023 -2025
- Jump ARCHES 2021 – 2025
Last Update: Nov 3, 2025