Jenna Kang

About Me

Hello! I am a second-year Computer Science Ph.D. student at New York University (NYU), advised by Dr. Qi Sun. My research aims to improve immersive experiences by studying visual perception to optimize graphics systems, specifically how perception influences behavior and task performance in computer graphics applications. I am also interested in how generative AI grounded in perception can be leveraged to create more naturalistic, responsive, and perceptually aligned experiences in immersive environments

I achieved my B.S. in Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2024, where I was advised by Dr. Thad Starner.

Publications

• Towards Improving Real-Time Head-Worn Display Caption Mediated Conversations with Speaker Feedback for Hearing Conversation Partners
  Jenna Kang, Emily Layton, David Martin, Thad Starner
  CHI Late-Breaking CHI 2024.
  [paper]

• Understanding Graphical Perception in Data Visualization through Vision-Language Models
  Jenna Kang, Grace Guo, Raj Sanjay Shah, Hanspeter Pfister, Sashank Varma
  NeurIPS Behavioral ML Workshop NeurIPS 2024.
  [paper]

• Evaluating Visual Perception of Object Motion in Dynamic Environments
  Budmonde Duinkharjav, Jenna Kang, Gavin S.P. Miller, Chang Xiao, Qi Sun
  SIGGRAPH ASIA Journal Paper SIGGRAPH ASIA 2024.
  [paper]

• Stepping into AR: Exploring Optimal Positioning for Monocular Head-Worn Displays for Reading on the Go
  Priyanka V Mosur, Ethan I Kimmel, Parth Arora, Rajandeep Singh, Jenna Kang, Atharva R Madiwale, Thad Starner
  UbiComp/ISWC Workshop UbiComp/ISWC 2024.
  [paper]

Posters/Presentations

• Graphical Perception: Alignment of Vision-Language Models to Human Performance
  Jenna Kang, Grace Guo, Raj Sanjay Shah, Hanspeter Pfister, Sashank Varma
  Journal of Vision (JOV) VSS 2025.
  [abstract]

Work Experience

• Dolby Laboratories, PhD Research Intern (May 2025 - Aug 2025)
  Assessing and modeling color perception in scotopic/mesopic regions
  Mentors: Timo Kunkel, Jake Zuena
• Amazon Robotics, Software Engineer Intern (May 2024 - Aug 2024)
  Applied Machine Learning
• Amazon Robotics, Software Engineer Intern (May 2023 - Aug 2023)
  AWS: Lambda, Step Functions, CDK, DynamoDB, Cloudformation, Cloudwatch, Opensearch, API Gateway, S3, IAM
• Amazon Robotics, Software Engineer Co-op(Jan 2022 - Aug 2022)
  Kotlin, Docker, Typescript, Java, React
• CyberCrucible, Frontend Engineer Part-time (Dec 2021 - Feb 2023)
  Javascript, CSS, HTML, React, ReactJS

Teaching

• CS3001 Computing and Society Spring 2024, Teaching Assistant
• CS3001 Computing and Society Fall 2023, Teaching Assistant