Christopher You

About me

👋 Hi, there! I'm Christopher, a PhD candidate focusing on on virtual agents, applied AI/LLMs, virtual reality, embodiment and machine learning to promote health and wellbeing. Much of my research is also conducted collaboratively with organizations, such as the Mayo Clinic, to support NIH/NSF grants addressing cancer disparities within underrepresented populations. I am completing my Human-Centered Computing PhD (M.S. in Computer Science, 2022) at the University of Florida with Dr. Benjamin Lok in the Virtual Experiences Research Group.

LIVE BOBA CAM

Outside of research, I enjoy traveling, spending time on the lakes, and (poorly) playing golf. To the right is my beloved cat Boba.

I'm actively pursuing research positions in the field of human-computer interaction and computer science, particularly with virtual agents, AI/ML/LLMs, and AR/VR/XR technologies.

Research Interests

Virtual Agents

Project(s): Embodied Interactions With Virtual Agents, Virtual Agents in Mental Health Conversations, GET PrEPD Psychiatry
AI/ML

Project(s): Fine-Tuned BERT & Data Augmentation to Classify..., Clinical Trial Enrollment Project
Virtual Reality

Project(s): Embodiment & Agency of Virtual Avatars
Mental Health & Healthcare

Project(s): Virtual Agents in Mental Health Conversations, Clinical Trial Enrollment Project

Curriculum Vitae

Download CV

Education

Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing, University of Florida
Aug 2020 — May 2026
Advisor: Dr. Benjamin Lok | GPA: 3.8
M.S. in Computer Science, University of Florida
Aug 2020 — Dec 2022
Advisor: Dr. Benjamin Lok | GPA: 3.8
B.S. in Computer Science, University of Minnesota
Sep 2018 — May 2020
Advisor: Dr. Evan Suma Rosenberg | GPA: 3.8

Experience

Research Assistant, Virtual Experiences Research Group, University of Florida
Aug 2020 — Present
• Broad impacts of HCI & applied AI research: (1) improving care for patients with severe psychiatric disorders (NIH R34 Grant), (2) clinical trial enrollment for cancer populations (NIH R24/U01 Grant), (3) creation of patient simulations for university curriculum, and (4) promotion of mental health and well-being.

• Launched "Build-a-Being Yourself", a web-based conversational AI platform to support healthcare research, enabling domain experts to rapidly deploy conversational interventions at scale.

• Implemented agent-driven interaction workflows coordinating multiple reasoning stages, including dialogue planning, strategy selection, and response generation.

• Built evaluation pipelines for conversational AI, analyzing model outputs, user engagement metrics, and behavioral outcomes.

• Integrated user-state modeling, human-AI collaborative frameworks, LLMs, fine-tuning, and virtual reality technologies into research protocols.

• Mentored undergraduate and graduate students on research and experimental design, AI systems and development, and publications.
Teaching Assistant, CEN4722: User Experience Design, University of Florida
Jan 2024 — May 2024
• Designed coursework and projects for the CEN4722: User Experience Design course, enhancing student engagement.

• Developed weekly assigned readings to support course objectives and foster critical thinking.

• Collaborated with faculty in planning lectures and course activities, ensuring a cohesive learning experience.
Research Assistant, Davidson DRiVE Lab, Davidson College
May 2022 — Aug 2022
• Conducted in-depth research on embodiment and agency in avatars within VR and desktop environments.

• Published two articles contributing to the academic discourse in VR.

• Mentored undergraduate students in VR/AR development, enhancing their skills under the guidance of Dr. Tabitha Peck.
Software Engineering Intern, Amazon
May 2020 — Aug 2020
• Tasked with designing innovative solutions for Amazon Help Services and Alexa Services.

• Integrated search capability via knowledge graph and NLP capabilities.

• Developed front-end, back-end stack compatible with SPARQL to generate query response.
Research Assistant, Illusioneering Lab, University of Minnesota
Oct 2018 — May 2020
• Developed programming skills in C# using Unity to explore practical applications of VR systems.

• Collaborated with graduate students on pilot tests and lab meetings to enhance VR research.

• Published "Strafing Gains," a technique supporting locomotion in VR, contributing to the field's advancement.

Funding Received

Generation NEXT Fellowship, $10,000, University of Florida
2023 — 2026
Computer & Information Science & Engineering Scholarship, $2,500, University of Florida
2024 — 2025
Olson-Mitchell STEM Translational Communications Project Award, $5,000, University of Florida
2021 — 2022
Graduate School Preeminence Award, $36,000/yr, University of Florida
2020 — 2026
Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Award, $4,000, University of Minnesota
2019 — 2020

Articles

Published Manuscripts

Journal Articles

[3] You, C., Ghosh, R., Vilaro, M., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Maxim, A., Peng, X., Tamboli, D., & Lok, B. (2025). Alter egos alter engagement: Perspective-taking can improve disclosure quantity and depth to AI chatbots in promoting mental wellbeing. Frontiers in Digital Health, 7, 1655860.

[2] You, C., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Han, Z., Lok, B., & Peck, T. (2024). A sense of urgency on the sense of agency: Challenges in evaluating agency and embodiment in virtual reality. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[1] You, C., Peck, T., Stuart, J., Gomes de Siqueira, A., & Lok, B. (2024). What my bias meant for my embodiment: An investigation on virtual embodiment in desktop-based virtual reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 5, 1251564.
Conference Articles

[6] You, C., Ghosh, R., Canales, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Vilaro, M., & Lok, B. (In preparation). Human-AI collaboration and user-state modeling transparency promotes engagement in mental health conversations. Proceedings of the 25th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, 1–8.

[5] You, C., Ghosh, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., Maxim, A., Peng, X., Tamboli, D., Huang, Z., & Lok, B. (To Appear). Build-a-being yourself: A practical system and method for embodied conversational agents in web-based research. Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 1–15.

[4] Ghosh, R., You, C., Venkatakrishnan, R., & Lok, B. (2025). The impact of health literacy in a virtual agent intervention addressing barriers to cancer clinical trial participation. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction, 76–86.

[3] Ghosh, R., You, C., Venkatakrishnan, R., & Lok, B. (2025). Exploring the influence of multiple virtual agents for addressing barriers to cancer clinical trial participation. Proceedings of the 25th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, 1–10.

[2] You, C., Benda, B., Rosenberg, E. S., Ragan, E., Lok, B., & Thomas, J. (2022). Strafing gain: Redirecting users one diagonal step at a time. 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), 603–611.

[1] You, C., Ghosh, R., Maxim, A., Stuart, J., Cooks, E., & Lok, B. (2022). How does a virtual human earn your trust? Guidelines to improve willingness to self-disclose to intelligent virtual agents. Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, 1–8.
Extended Abstracts, Posters, & Demos

[8] Kauer, T., Franco, C., Munroe, D., Flood-Grady, E., Gaillard, T., George, T., Lin, T., Lok, B., Tucker, C., Vilaro, M., Webb, F., Wilke, D., Wilson-Howard, D., Ghosh, R., You, C., Serat, J., Buhr, M., Murphy, C., van Mossel, A., … Krieger, J. (2025). Representation matters: The feasibility and impact of photo-realistic and social identity-matched virtual community health educators among black, hispanic, and rural adults. Science of Community Outreach and Engagement Annual Conference, 1.

[7] Huynh, L., You, C., Mazorra, G., Black, E., Lok, B., & Blue, A. (2025). A patient chatbot to support interprofessional learning. [Oral presentation]. Collaborating Across Borders IX, 1.

[6] Munroe, D., Kauer, T., Franco, C., Ghosh, R., You, C., Ford, H., Lok, B., & Krieger, J. L. (2025). Connecting communities: Developing a provider portal to enhance cancer trial diversity. Science of Communication Outreach and Engagement Annual Conference, 1.

[5] Kauer, T., Franco, C., Lok, B., Tucker, C., Lin, T., Flood-Grady, E., Ghosh, R., You, C., Wilson-Howard, D., Gaillard, T., Anton, S., & Krieger, J. (2025). Connecting older adults to clinical trials: Developing the alex clinical trial referral portal. 14th Annual Alliance Meeting for Healthy Aging Conference, 1.

[4] Kauer, T., Franco, C., Munroe, D., Flood-Grady, E., Gaillard, T., Lin, T., Lok, B., Tucker, C., Wilson-Howard, D., Ghosh, R., You, C., Serat, J., Buhr, M., Wynter, S., Anton, S., & Krieger, J. (2025). A strengths- and community-based approach to increasing medical research participation among black, hispanic, and white rural populations in florida [poster presentation]. Mayo Clinic Transforming Community and Rural Healthcare 2025 Conference, Rochester, MN, 1.

[3] Ghosh, R., Maxim, A., You, C., & Lok, B. (2024). Real-time virtual human for promoting clinical trial education and recruitment. 2024 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW), 1184–1185.

[2] Jurczyk, K., You, C., Nourani, M., Gupta, M., Anthony, L., & Lok, B. (2021). Romadoro: Leveraging nudge techniques to encourage break-taking. Adjunct Proceedings of the 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, 66–69.

[1] You, C., Suma Rosenberg, E., & Thomas, J. (2019). Strafing gain: A novel redirected walking technique. Symposium on Spatial User Interaction, 1–1.
Undergraduate-Mentored Articles

Undergraduate journal publications authored by students whom I directly mentored on a weekly basis throughout the project and manuscript development.

[2] Huynh, L., Blue, A., You, C., Lok, B., Smith, G., Ghosh, R., & Venkatakrishnan, R. (2025). A feasibility study to assess virtual patients authenticity on building confidence in students' clinical decision-making. UF Journal of Undergraduate Research, 27.

[1] Smith, G., Huynh, L., You, C., Ghosh, R., Venkatakrishnan, R., & Lok, B. (2025). Evaluating lip synchronization techniques in LLM-based virtual humans for healthcare and computer science applications. UF Journal of Undergraduate Research, 27.