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


         

👋 About Me

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

Background: Before joining UCD, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Health Technology Design Group at Trinity College Dublin & Lero from 2023 to 2025. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2022, and B.Eng in Software Engineering from Shenzhen University in 2018, respectively.

Research Interests: My research lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI), artificial intelligence (AI), health and well-being, where I seek to support people in leading healthy, thriving lives through responsible design of AI technologies. Towards this, my work mainly adopts human-centered methods to explore, design, and evaluate interactive AI systems (e.g., recommender systems, conversational systems, generative AI, and wearables) to support everday decision-making and mental health contexts. My work is inherently interdisciplinary, informed by computer and information science, design, psychology, and cognitive science. My previous research and collaborative projects have spanned the three interconnected areas below:

Research interests

Selected Publications

* indicates equal contributions

Journal Articles
  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, Volume 162, 2026.
    [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 (TOCHI), Volume 32, Issue 6, 2025.
    [Publisher]
  3. Seamus Ryan, Wanling Cai, Robert Bowman, and Gavin Doherty. Fairness Challenges in the Design of Machine Learning Applications for Healthcare. ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare, Volume 6, Issue 4, 2025.
    [Publisher]
  4. Yucheng Jin, Li Chen, Xianglin Zhao, and Wanling Cai. The Way You Assess Matters: User Interaction Design of Survey Chatbots for Mental Health. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS), Volume 189, 2024.
    [Publisher]
  5. 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]
  6. 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]
  7. 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]
  8. 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]
  9. Jannach, Dietmar, Ahtsham Manzoor, Wanling Cai, and Li Chen. A Survey on Conversational Recommender Systems. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), Volume 54, Issue 5, Article No. 105, pages 1-36, 2021.
    [Publisher]
  10. 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]
  11. 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 Papers
  1. Yalong Luo, Leyan Wu, Yirui Huang, Wanling Cai, and Yucheng Jin. Exploring the Impacts of AI Technologies on Digital Collage Creation. In: Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '25), Yokohama, Japan, April 26 - May 1, 2025.
    [Publisher]
  2. 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.
    [Publisher]
  3. 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]
  4. 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 [Paper] [Slides] [Video]
  5. 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]
  6. 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]
  7. 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]
  8. 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]
  9. 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]

Teaching


2025-2026 Spring Trimester
2018-2022 Teaching Assistant at Hong Kong Baptist University

Services


Conference Organization
Program Committee Member
Invited Reviewer
Talks / Guest Lectures
Book Review