Wanling CAI   
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Wanling
Wanling Cai (蔡婉铃)
Ad Astra Fellow / Assistant Professor


             

👋 Welcome

I am a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher, currently a Ad Astra Fellow / Assistant Professor in Human-AI Collaboration with the School of Computer Science, University College Dublin (UCD).

Before joining UCD, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Health Technology Design Group at the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin & Lero (supervised by ). I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science (Human-Computer Interaction) from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2022, supervised by and mentored by . Prior to that, I received my B.Eng degree in Software Engineering from the College of Computer Science and Software Engineering (advised by ) in Shenzhen University (SZU), China, in 2018.

My research work lies at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAI), and Mental Health, where I seek to empower individuals to live a healthy and thriving live through the thoughtful and responsible design of AI. Toward this, my work adopts human-centered methods to explore, design, and evaluate interactive AI technologies (e.g., recommender systems, conversational systems, generative AI, and wearables) to support everday decision-making and mental health. My work is inherently interdisciplinary, informed by computer and information science, design, psychology, and cognitive science.

Currently, my research in Human–AI interaction and collaboration broadly spans three interconnected areas:

research interest
I’m currently looking for PhD students to work with me at UCD and start the Human-AI research group. If you’re interested in these topics, please feel free to reach out by email.

Selected Publications

♱ indicates equal contributions

Journal
  1. Wanling Cai, Liliana Pasquale, Kushal Ramkumar, John McCarthy, Bashar Nuseibeh, and Gavin Doherty. Human-Centric Security for Smart Homes: A Scoping Review Computers & Security, 2025. (Just Accepted)
    [Publisher]
  2. Karina Cortiñas Lorenzo, Wanling Cai and Gavin Doherty. Designing, Implementing and Evaluating AI Explanations: a Scoping Review of Explainable AI Frameworks ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Volume 32 Issue 6, 2025.
    [Publisher]
  3. Yucheng Jin, Li Chen, Wanling Cai and Xianglin Zhao. CRS-Que: A User-Centric Evaluation Framework for Conversational Recommender Systems. ACM Transactions on Recommender Systems, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2024.
    [Publisher]
  4. Yucheng Jin*, Wanling Cai*, Li Chen, Yuwan Dai, and Tonglin Jiang. Understanding Disclosure and Support for Youth Mental Health in Social Music Communities. In: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW), Volume 7, Issue CSCW1, April 2023.
    [Paper]
  5. Li Chen, Wanling Cai, Dongning Yan, and Shlomo Berkovsky. Eye-tracking-based Personality Prediction with Recommendation Interfaces. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction (UMUAI), June 2022.
    [Publisher]
  6. Wanling Cai, Yucheng Jin, and Li Chen. Task-Oriented User Evaluation on Critiquing-Based Recommendation Chatbots. IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems , Volume: 52, Issue: 3, June 2022.
    [Publisher]
  7. Jannach, Dietmar, Ahtsham Manzoor, Wanling Cai, and Li Chen. A Survey on Conversational Recommender Systems. ACM Computing Surveys, Volume 54, Issue 5, Article No. 105, pages 1-36, 2021.
    [Publisher]
  8. Wanling Cai, Jiongbin Zheng, Weike Pan, Jing Lin, Lin Li, Li Chen, Xiaogang Peng, and Zhong Ming. Neighborhood-Enhanced Transfer Learning for One-Class Collaborative Filtering. Neurocomputing (0925-2312), vol. 341, pages 80-87, 2019.
    [Paper]
  9. Weike Pan, Qiang Yang, Wanling Cai, Yaofeng Chen, Qing Zhang, Xiaogang Peng and Zhong Ming. Transfer to Rank for Heterogeneous One-Class Collaborative Filtering. ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS) (1046-8188), 37(1):10:1-10:20, January 2019.
    [Publisher]
Conference
  1. Yucheng Jin*, Wanling Cai*, Li Chen, Yizhe Zhang, Gavin Doherty, and Tonglin Jiang. Exploring the Design of Generative AI in Supporting Music-based Reminiscence for Older Adults. In: Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’24), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, May 11-16, 2024. (to appear)
    [Paper]
  2. Wanling Cai*, Yucheng Jin*, Xianglin Zhao, and Li Chen. “Listen to Music, Listen to Yourself”: Design of a Conversational Agent to Support Self-Awareness While Listening to Music. In: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI' 23), Hamburg, Germany, April 23-28, 2023.
    [Paper] [Video]
  3. Wanling Cai, Yucheng Jin, and Li Chen. Impacts of Personal Characteristics on User Trust in Conversational Recommender Systems. In: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI' 22), New Orleans, LA, April 30-May 5, 2022. [Honourable Mention Award]
    [Paper] [Slides] [Video]
  4. Yucheng Jin, Li Chen, Wanling Cai and Pearl Pu. Key Qualities of Conversational Recommender Systems: From Users’ Perspective. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI' 21), Virtual Event Japan, November 9-11, 2021.
    [Publisher]
  5. Wanling Cai, Yucheng Jin, and Li Chen. Critiquing for Music Exploration in Conversational Recommender Systems. In: Proceedings of 26th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI' 21), College Station, TX, USA, April 14–17, 2021.
    [Paper] [Slides] [Video]
  6. Wanling Cai and Li Chen. Predicting User Intents and Satisfaction with Dialogue-based Conversational Recommendations. In: Proceedings of 28th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP' 20), Genoa, Italy, July 14-17, 2020. [Best Student Paper Award]
    [Paper] [Slides] [Video] [Dataset] [ Code]
  7. Yucheng Jin, Wanling Cai, Li Chen, Nyi Nyi Htun, and Katrien Verbert. MusicBot: Evaluating Critiquing-based Music Recommenders with Conversational Interaction. In: Proceedings of 28th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM' 19), Beijing, China, November 3-7, 2019.
    [Paper] [Slides] [Poster]
  8. Wanling Cai and Li Chen. Towards a Taxonomy of User Feedback Intents for Conversational Recommendations. In: Proceedings of 13th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys' 19), Late-Breaking Results, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 16-20, 2019.
    [Paper] [Poster]
Posters & Workshop Papers
  1. Wanling Cai, Liliana Pasquale, Kushal Ramkumar, John McCarthy, Bashar Nuseibeh and Gavin Doherty. Human-AI Collaboration for Sustainable Security: Opportunities and Challenges (Poster). In: The Nineteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS '23), Anaheim, CA, United States, August 6-8, 2023.
    [Open Access]
  2. Ahtsham Manzoor, Wanling Cai and Dietmar Jannach. Factors Influencing the Perceived Meaningfulness of System Responses in Conversational Recommendation. In: IntRS'23: Joint Workshop on Interfaces and Human Decision Making for Recommender Systems (RecSys '23), Singapore (hybrid event), September 18, 2023.
  3. Jixiong Liu, Jiakun Shi, Wanling Cai, Bo Liu, Weike Pan, Qiang Yang and Zhong Ming. Transfer Learning from APP Domain to News Domain for Dual Cold-Start Recommendation. In: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Intelligent Recommender Systems by Knowledge Transfer & Learning (RecSysKTL 2017) co-located with the 11th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys' 17), Como, Italy, August 27-31, 2017.
    [Short Paper] [Video]

Professional Services

Conference Organization Program Committee Member Invited Reviewer Talks/Conference Presentations Book Review

Teaching Assistant

Awards