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About Me

               I am a Ph.D. student in Computational Communication at UCLA, supervised by Prof. Jungseock Joo and Prof. Rick Dale. My research interests lie in the realm of deep learning, cognitive science, and multimodal communication. I am proficient in developing multimodal deep learning networks that integrate auditory, visual, and semantic processing.

                I previously worked as an NLP research intern at Testin to implement a Seq2Seq model for OCR misspelling correction. Several of my papers are published in the Communications in Computer and Information ScienceCulture and ComputingReview of Communication, ICWSM and LREC workshop proceedings. I have won multiple top awards, including First Place Student Paper and Top Method Paper at the AEJMC conference.

               I currently work as a PhD student researcher at the Computational Media Lab and Communicative Mind (Co-Mind) Lab. We develop a standardized end-to-end pipeline for multimodal analysis. Additionally, we propose statistical approaches for visualizing the learning trajectory of neural networks, contributing to model explainability using cognitive science theories.

               As a rigorous computational social scientist and data science researcher from an interdisciplinary program, I enjoy developing and validating deep learning tools, answering impact-driven societal questions using machine learning, and bridging knowledge between fields.

               In my free time, I like hiking, pilates, aerial yoga, Marathon, and true crime!  

               Access my Curriculum Vitae here.

Education

  • Ph.D. Communication, 2026, University of California Los Angeles 

  • M.A. Communication Management, 2019, University of Southern California

  • B.S. Business Administration & Cinematic Arts, 2018, University of Southern California

Contact Me

human-machine intelligence | multimodal communication

University of California Los Angeles
Department of Communication

yanrujiang AT g.ucla.edu

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